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Alosaimi, Azzam (2023) Optimising the energy performance of the residential stock of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by retrofit measures. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

Building energy demands and green house gases are raising and a variety of energy efficiency frameworks, legislation, and housing approvals have evolved worldwide. The KSA is one of the largest energy producers and consumers internationally, with the residential sector using 52% of total energy generation. The KSA government has begun energy efficiency initiatives and policies that intend to reduce the residential energy demands via a series of regulations including Vision 2030 and the KSA building code. The regulations aim to assess the energy performance of residential buildings in order to lower the energy demands and greenhouse gas emissions to meet international carbon emissions requirements. The KSA targets to generate 9.5 GW from renewable energy by 2023, and 58.7 GW by 2030, which accounts for about 30% of the total energy generation capacity. Research has shown that in order to effectively reduce the energy demands and achieve worldwide carbon emissions targets, large-scale implementation interventions are required.

The KSA housing stock consists of 3.6 million wide and varied residences due to various terrain. The diversity of the KSA dwellings encompasses housing type, age, amounts of rooms and bedrooms and flooring areas while common characteristics comprise construction materials and energy and cooking fuels. Therefore, this thesis develops housing archetypes that are representative of the KSA housing stock to be assessed and evaluated for the aim of reducing there energy demands and associated carbon emissions along with monthly running costs. The housing archetypes are used to quantify the housing energy performance and define the major sources of heat loss or gain. Two major reason for the high energy demands are solar radiation and heat gain due to infiltration. The infiltration occurs due to pressure differential across the thermal envelope. This is responsible for 40 TWh of lost energy from the housing stock, which accounts for 9.9 million MtCO2e.

The research methodology applied an engineering bottom-up approach to quantify the energy performance of the KSA’s housing stock using EnergyPlus dynamic tool. EnergyPlus is a new generation modelling tool that incorporates the best features of two prior modelling tools: Building Load Analysis and System Thermodynamics (BLAST) and the Department of Energy (DOE–2). EnergyPlus is a free available tool and so allows data comparisons with international housing stocks. EnergyPlus was used to create the KSA’s housing energy baselines to predict the existing housing energy performance and to simulate various scenarios to reduce the total energy demands.

The KSA housing energy demands can be optimised through a large-scale implementation of energy efficiency retrofitting schemes comprising 25 exterior thermal insulation types, eight exterior shading systems, and LED lighting systems and equipment, and the application of PV systems. This resulted in reducing the total KSA housing energy demands by 12.95 TWh/month, equivalent to 40% of the monthly housing energy use, and lowered associated carbon emissions by a total of 5.61 million MtCO2e/month, equivalent to 40% of monthly housing carbon emissions, and decreased the total housing stock cost about 72.39 million USD/month, equivalent to 50% of the total monthly cost.

Item Type:	Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (PhD)
Supervisors:	Jones, Benjamin Wood, Christopher
Keywords:	Energy efficiency, EnergyPlus, Energy modeling, Infiltration rate, Airflow rate, Airtightness, KSA, Housing energy reduction
Subjects:	T Technology > TH Building construction > TH6014 Environmental and sanitary engineering of buildings
Faculties/Schools:	UK Campuses > Faculty of Engineering
Item ID:	74382
Depositing User:	Alosaimi, Azzam
Date Deposited:	14 Dec 2023 04:40
Last Modified:	14 Dec 2023 04:40
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/74382

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