With the onset of summer, we can feel the heat on our skin, especially in inner cities. According to the EU's climate monitoring service, Copernicus Climate Change Service, 2023 was the hottest year on record. While hotter summers and more intense heat waves due to climate change are a serious problem for everyone, densely populated cities face an even greater challenge from the heat island effect, which in Budapest, for example, can mean temperatures up to 6°C higher.
Our firm uses space technology to map the problem and develop possible solutions to reduce the heat island effect. In cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA), we have access to earth observation data from satellites, which we use in our work. To address this problem, we are developing our HeatScape Resolve service, which will allow our simulations to take into account factors that influence heat islands, such as albedo, the thermal mass of buildings and envelopes, the amount of urban green and water surfaces, or wind dynamics models so that we can propose solutions during the preparation of projects and urban planning.
HeatScape Resolve is a good complement to our portfolio of services, which currently includes data-driven consultancy using simulations, including in the energy efficiency improvements in buildings, even at the neighborhood level.
Our work has also been reported in Építészfórum: https://epiteszforum.hu/muholdas-adatok-segitsegevel-kutathatjak-varosi-hoszigethatas-csokkentesenek-lehetosegeit