Residential building energy performance evaluation for different climate zones

Abstract

Abstract The building sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia accounts for a large proportion of energy consumption. This paper investigates energy consumption in residential type A villa buildings constructed by the Ministry of Housing. The study specifically investigates energy consumption of a case building in three climate zones of the country identified in the KSA Building Code (SBC-602E). The software package IES-ve was used to simulate power consumption of the case building taking into account the climate characteristics of each zone. In total 6 cities were considered from the three zones to evaluate and compare annual and monthly power consumption loads of the building. It was found that there is some distinction of energy consumption for heating and cooling in the three zones (e.g., peak monthly power energy consumption for cooling varied from 6.371 MWh in Riyadh (zone1) to 1.663 MWh in Abha (zone3) and no heating requirement for Jaddah (zone 1) while Turaif (zone 3) heating consumption is 23.835 MWh) however, further work is required to identify clearer the climate specifications within each zone to address the excess energy consumption of this type of buildings.</jats:p