Influence of the West Wall Dynamic Thermal Behavior Under Specific Climate Conditions on the Electric Load of a Cold Storage Facility

Refrigerated warehouses are among the most energy-intensive food storage facilities, with their thermal performance influenced by local climatic conditions and building envelope characteristics. This study investigates the influence of thermal behavior of a refrigerated warehouse, west wall, under three representative Romanian climatic conditions (Iasi, Cluj-Napoca, and Constanta), using dynamic simulations performed in TRNSYS and a steady-state calculation approach implemented in EES. The TRNSYS simulations were conducted using hourly meteorological data over a complete year (8760 h), while the evaluation focuses on hours 2089–7129 (5041 hourly observations), selected to examine the high cooling demand period. The analysis across the three locations examines the influence of outdoor air temperature and solar radiation on heat transfer through the refrigerated warehouse selected envelope and their influence on the refrigeration load required to maintain the prescribed indoor temperature. Relative humidity is considered separately in the assessment of condensation risk within the wall assembly. For Iasi, the transient thermal behavior of the west-oriented wall is examined in detail through the evolution of its indoor and outdoor surface temperatures and heat flux, together with a comparison between the TRNSYS dynamic simulation and the hourly quasi-steady-state calculation performed in EES. The findings indicate that local climatic conditions influence variations in heat transfer and refrigeration load during the investigated period, as expected, and emphasize the difference between the two approaches. For the wall examined in Iasi, the indoor surface temperature exhibits relatively small variations, whereas the heat flux does not always follow the instantaneous changes in outdoor air temperature. This behavior is consistent with heat storage and release within the multilayer wall assembly, reflecting the transient nature of heat transfer. The EES–TRNSYS comparison for Iasi allows differences between steady-state and dynamic representations of heat transfer to be identified, highlighting the relevance of the wall thermal response when interpreting heat flux variations under the investigated climatic conditions.