Techno-economic Assessment of Sustainable Energy Saving Measures in Multi-residential Building in Middle East Climate

Abdelfatah M. Teamah, Samy M. Elsherbiny, Wael M. El-Maghlany, Mohamed A. Alnakeeb

Abstract


The goal of the current study is to evaluate potential energy efficiency measures in a multi residential building located in New Borg Al Arab city, Alexandria governorate, Egypt. The studied configuration contains 32 villas that are going to be constructed in the coming few years. Renewable-energy and Energy-efficiency Technology Screening (RETScreen) software is used to simulate multi residential buildings. The model identified several retrofits that can lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption as well as the cost analysis. These retrofits include the thickness of insulation of expanded polystyrene (EPS), the Window-to-wall (WWR) ratio, different glazing materials, different roof configuration, fuel used for heating, orientation of the building and the aspect ratio of the building. Switching from electricity to natural gas for water heating systems has a massive reduction potential of GHG emissions by approximately 19%, resulting in a saving of 189 tons of Carbon Dioxide (tCO2) per year. Replacing the traditional glazing with ASHRAE 90.1 glass has reduced the energy consumption in cooling by about 46% when 30% WWR ratio is considered. It shows a reasonable payback period of about 0.77 years. It also reduced GHG emissions by about 20.5%. Results indicate that employing a 3-inch thickness of EPS to the building envelope leads to a reduction in cooling energy consumption in summer by 12.3%. The most significant GHG reduction that was obtained by the combination of all retrofits was 66% (654 tCO2).

Keywords


Energy saving; RETScreen; Greenhouse gas emissions; Retrofitting techniques; Building energy regulations; Financial cost.

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DOI (PDF): https://doi.org/10.20508/ijrer.v16i3.15457.g9240

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