A Building Retrofit and Sensitivity Analysis in an Automatically Calibrated Model Considering the Urban Heat Island Effect in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Bande, Lindita; Cabrera, Adalberto Guerra; Kim, Young Ki; Afshari, Afshin; Ragusini, Mario Favalli; Cooke, Melanie Gines

doi:10.3390/su11246905

Cited by 21 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…), HVAC system, lighting, and operational schedules. A recent paper dealing with building retrofit and sensitivity analysis in Abu Dhabi (UAE) reported that the optimal strategies for given a case study villa are a cool roof, cool wall, seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER), and atrium shades, which may lead to total energy savings of 25% [27]. Abdullah and Alibaba reported that an integration of photovoltaics as responsive shading devices as a retrofit strategy for an energy-efficient office building would have a huge impact on energy savings.…”

Section: Building Retrofittingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Retrofitting an Existing Office Building in the UAE Towards Achieving Low-Energy Building

2020

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Retrofitting an existing building can oftentimes be more cost-effective than building a new facility. Since buildings consume a significant amount of energy, particularly for heating and cooling, and because existing buildings comprise the largest segment of the built environment, it is important to initiate energy conservation retrofits to reduce energy consumption and the cost of heating, cooling, and lighting buildings. However, conserving energy is not the only reason for retrofitting existing buildings. The goal should be to create a high-performance building by applying an integrated, whole-building design process to the project during the planning phase that ensures that all key design objectives are met. This paper presents a real case study of the retrofitting of an existing building to achieve lower energy consumption. Indeed, most of the constructed buildings in the UAE are unsuitable for the region, which is characterized by a very harsh climate that causes massive cooling loads and energy consumption due to an appropriate selection of design parameters at the design level. In this study, a monthly computer simulation of energy consumption of an office building in Sharjah was carried out under UAE weather conditions. Several parameters, including the building orientation, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, external shading, window-to-wall ratio, and the U-values of the walls and the roof, were investigated and optimized to achieve lower energy consumption. The simulation shows that the best case is 41.7% more efficient than the real (original) case and 30.6% more than the base case. The most sensitive parameter in the retrofitting alternatives is the roof component, which affects the energy savings by 8.49%, followed by the AC system with 8.34% energy savings if well selected using the base case. Among the selected five components, a new roof structure contributed the most to the decrease in the overall energy consumption (approximately 38%). This is followed by a new HVAC system, which leads to a 37% decrease, followed by a new wall type with insulation, resulting in a 20% decrease.

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Section: Building Retrofittingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Retrofitting an Existing Office Building in the UAE Towards Achieving Low-Energy Building

2020

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“…An additional 1% of the LCE demand was added to represent the energy associated with end-of-life demolition and disposal (DDE). Because operational energy (OPE) was not the focus of this study, secondary data (Abu-Hijleh and Jaheen, 2019; AlQubaisi and Al-Alili, 2018; Bande et al. , 2019; Giusti and Almoosawi, 2017), was used to approximate the operational energy, as explained in a previous study (Rauf et al.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the impact of material service life on embodied energy of residential villas in the United Arab Emirates

Rauf,

Attoye,

Crawford

2024

ECAM

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PurposeRecently, there has been a shift toward the embodied energy assessment of buildings. However, the impact of material service life on the life-cycle embodied energy has received little attention. We aimed to address this knowledge gap, particularly in the context of the UAE and investigated the embodied energy associated with the use of concrete and other materials commonly used in residential buildings in the hot desert climate of the UAE.Design/methodology/approachUsing input–output based hybrid analysis, we quantified the life-cycle embodied energy of a villa in the UAE with over 50 years of building life using the average, minimum, and maximum material service life values. Mathematical calculations were performed using MS Excel, and a detailed bill of quantities with >170 building materials and components of the villa were used for investigation.FindingsFor the base case, the initial embodied energy was 57% (7390.5 GJ), whereas the recurrent embodied energy was 43% (5,690 GJ) of the life-cycle embodied energy based on average material service life values. The proportion of the recurrent embodied energy with minimum material service life values was increased to 68% of the life-cycle embodied energy, while it dropped to 15% with maximum material service life values.Originality/valueThe findings provide new data to guide building construction in the UAE and show that recurrent embodied energy contributes significantly to life-cycle energy demand. Further, the study of material service life variations provides deeper insights into future building material specifications and management considerations for building maintenance.

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“…However, the social context of the country is different from most countries; of the 9.3 million residents of the UAE, about 80% are foreigners from over 200 countries of the world. Population growth, urbanization and industrialization in the UAE have led to the challenge of rising energy demands over the past few decades [17,18]. In addition, urbanization, economic growth and financial development increase residents' purchasing power [19].…”

Section: The Study Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mandatory Policy, Innovations and the Renewable Energy Debate: A Case Study on Building Integrated Photovoltaics

2022

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Innovations in buildings help to reduce energy consumption and promote environmental protection and as well as the use of renewable energy technology. However, there is a conflict when the need for an innovation clashes with the financial burden and the complex adoption processes. As a result, the negative impacts of buildings remain, and the low adoption of strategic innovations remains unaddressed. This study aims to explore this challenge, the various sides of this debate and provide a practical guide which promotes energy and building-related innovations driven by policy. This paper is an extract from a recent doctoral study conducted using an exploratory qualitative model and interviews with eighty-six residents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) was selected as a case study energy innovation and the thematic analysis of the data collected suggests that BIPV adoption is limited by multiple barriers. The debate arising from the findings highlights two opposing viewpoints. One view claims that mandatory policies are necessary to promote innovation adoption. The other view argues that the merits of mandatory policy are lost since multiple barriers significantly discourage adoption in the first place. The study takes a proactive step towards resolving the debate using a systematic approach that recommends specific drivers backed by supporting policies to guide human-centered, stakeholder-driven renewable energy transition.

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A Building Retrofit and Sensitivity Analysis in an Automatically Calibrated Model Considering the Urban Heat Island Effect in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Cited by 21 publications

References 15 publications

Retrofitting an Existing Office Building in the UAE Towards Achieving Low-Energy Building

Retrofitting an Existing Office Building in the UAE Towards Achieving Low-Energy Building

Evaluating the impact of material service life on embodied energy of residential villas in the United Arab Emirates

Mandatory Policy, Innovations and the Renewable Energy Debate: A Case Study on Building Integrated Photovoltaics

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