On the energy impact of cool roofs in Australia

Abstract

Urban overheating is a serious environmental issue with a significant impact on cooling loads, peak electricity demand, indoor air temperature, health, pollution, sustainability, and the economy. Cool roofs – which are characterised by high solar reflectance (ρ) or albedo and high thermal emissivity (ε) – are one of the most effective technologies to mitigate the urban overheating effect and its undesirable impacts. The existing literature on the energy impacts of cool roofs in various building types and climate zones is vast but fragmented and predominantly assessed the building-scale and urban-scale benefits separately. Here, we computed the energy conservation potential of cool roofs in 1..