Proposed Energy Saving Techniques for Multi-Apartment Buildings in Jordan (original) (raw)

Improving Energy Efficiency of Multi-Family Apartment Buildings Case of Jordan

International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, 2021

Saving energy is a high priority in developing countries and several energy-efficient initiatives are being introduced for that purpose. The residential sector is responsible for a big part of the world's energy usage; most of this energy is used in heating, cooling, and artificial ventilation systems. The residential sector in Amman consumes more than 21% of the annual energy consumption, meanwhile multi-family residential apartments occupy more than 60% of that sector. With a view on developing energy-efficient structures, this study provides an overview of building design criteria that can reduce the energy demand for heating and cooling of multi-family apartment residential buildings. These criteria are based on the adoption of suitable parameters for the orientation of the building, shape, envelope system, use of insulation materials, passive heating and cooling mechanisms, setting of cooling and heating thermostat, lighting, and window's ratio and glazing. This experiment measures the effect of these criteria on overall energy demand that reviewed and recommended the best design choices. This is beneficial for professionals in the design phase of energy-efficient multifamily residential buildings and decisions makers. The methodology that is used in the study was represented in field observation and surveys, besides, to use design-builder as a simulation tool to test the assumptions and the design strategies, the results indicate that a 6cm polystyrene insulated walls and roof for a north/west middle floor apartment and WWR ranges from 25 to 30% of double bronze glass will affect greatly in the energy demand.

Optimising Housing Design to Improve Energy Efficiency in Jordan

Sustainable Energy Technologies Conference Proceeding, UK, 2015

Jordan faces an energy crisis aggravated by the limitation of energy resources and coupled with the high dependency on neighbouring countries. In addition, the raise in the country's population has resulted in excessive pressure on the residential sector to hasten housing construction projects resulting in a reduction of quality in favour of speed. A viscous cycle was created in which new buildings with poor thermal performance further exacerbate the energy crisis. Adding to the problem, a significant rise in summer temperatures is anticipated in the near future as a result of climate change, which would result in even more demand for active means of space conditioning. The objective of this research was to assess the thermal performance of a typical residential apartment in Amman, and propose interventions that would help reduce its reliance on mechanical methods of space conditioning during cooling periods. Through dynamic simulation modelling, a parametric analysis was developed involving a number of iterations exploring different fenestration designs and thermal transmittance values for walls. In order to improve the models' accuracy, the results of a longitudinal survey of residents in 145 similar apartments were utilized to inform the simulation assumptions. The survey gathered data on the occupants' thermal perception and behaviour, their socio-economical attributes and the building physical characteristic and use. The authors concluded that small amendments in the design, such as the incorporation of natural ventilation for parts of the year, could enhance the thermal performance up to 45%. The optimum glazing to wall ratio for more energy efficient residential buildings within the context of Jordan was defined as 15% to 20% in all orientations, whereas the thermal transmittance for walls and roofs as 0.13W/m 2 K. The conclusions were proposed as a set of recommendations to help designers to choose optimal building element characteristics and orientation for each function in early design stages.

Towards energy efficient buildings in Amman, Jordan: Defining thermal requirements by mean of thermal simulations

In order to identify the optimum U-values for the construction elements, we have simulated the thermal behavior of an apartment which is the most commonly constructed building type with the highest energy use in Amman, Jordan. It was shown that it is possible to achieve good indoor thermal comfort by applying a climate-conscious design without the excessive use of energy in mechanical heating and cooling systems. The optimization process carried out for the climate of Amman found the requirements on thermal transmittance (U-value) for both roofs and walls to be between about 0.5 and 0.7 W/m²K. The optimum window to floor ratio (WFR) for a south oriented main façade was found to be between 12% and 20%. These requirements would allow a total saving in energy for cooling and heating of up to 70% for a typical apartment in Amman.

Cooling and heating loads in residential buildings in Jordan

Energy and Buildings, 1997

Cooling and heating load calculations for air-conditioned and heated buildings have been calculated for three different cities in Jordan, representing three climatic regions; namely, Irbid, Amman and Aqaba. To analyze the insulation effect of buildings, for each region four combinations of wall and ceiling insulation were considered: no insulation; only wall insulated; only ceiling insulated; and both ceiling and wall insulated. The results showed that the average monthly heating load was reduced when only walls were insulated; however, this has a negative impact on the average monthly cooling load. In the case where only the ceiling was insulated, both the monthly coc'ling and heating loads were reduced. A comparison showed that with both wall and ceiling insulated, the energy requirements could be reduced by more than 40%. In Aqaba, with both walls and ceiling insulated, there would be no need for any heating during the whole year and in b'oth Amman and Irbid there were at least four months in which there would be no need for either heating or cooling. 0 1997 Elsevier Science S.4.

Energy savings approaches of buildings in hot-arid region, Saudi Arabia: case study

Journal of Engineering Research, 2015

Recently, the energy savings have become more pronounced as a result of the world financial crises as well the unstable oil prices. Certainly all entities need to adapt Energy Conservation and Management Strategies. This is due to high monthly consumption of energy; energy bills of Saudi telecom exchange buildings are a good example. To improve energy savings of such installations, it is necessary to either provide well designed new buildings, or enhance existing buildings with more energy saving strategy practices. This paper investigates the impact of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system characteristics, designed spaces of buildings, operational strategies, the impact of envelope thermal characteristics and energy conservation measures. These measures are classified under three types; i.e. zero-investment, low-investment and high-investment energy conservation measures. The study shows that the energy conservation measures (ECMs) pertaining to the HVAC system characteristics and operation represent the highest potential for energy reduction. Attention should be given to window thermal and solar radiation characteristics, when large window areas are used. The type of glazing system needs to be carefully considered in the early design phase of future buildings. The HVAC set points to provide optimal operation of telecom devices in the exchange center. The Paper presents the thermal optimization of centers of different size in the hot-arid regions, Saudi Arabian city of Al Khobar, eastern province and the effect of adding wall and roof insulation on cooling energy is evident. Also the total reduction of around 3-20% is obtained by applying both wall and roof insulation.

Some prospects of energy savings in buildings

Energy conversion and management, 2001

The results of a recent survey on energy consumption in the residential sector of Jordan were used to evaluate energy conservation in residential buildings. Space heating accounts for 61% of the total residential energy consumption with kerosene as the most popular fuel used for heating. In light of the fact that only 5.7% of dwellings in JordanÕs urban areas have been provided with wall insulation and none with roof thermal insulation, the heating loads were calculated for a typical single house using dierent insulation materials. It was shown that energy savings up to 76.8% can be achieved when polystyrene is used for both wall and roof insulation. Ó

Energy Efficient Housing for Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

1989

For developing countries such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, oil revenue after 1970 set the need for a National program of urban development, aimed at achieving optimum investment for a flourishing situation. The construction industry and housing projects were prioritised in the urbanisation plans. From 1980, the international oil market curtailed profits. Thus the policy has changed to conservation of energy consumption and searching for alternative power resources. The objective of this work is to investigate the thermal behaviour of housing model with reference to the physical environment in Al-Riyadh, in order to establish design criteria and look for partial passive cooling techniques as a substitute for active systems. Analysis embraces both traditional and modern architectural policy in terms of urban planning and housing characteristics. Climate analysis of Al-Riyadh, a typical hot arid region, sets the design parameters in relation to human comfort. A computer program, Cal...

A comparative study of the use of energy conservation techniques in office building: Passive and solar energy applications: The case of Jordan

Firas Sharaf, 2012

Buildings contribute to a great amount of energy consumption in many countries reaching to 40% of global energy consumption. Population growth, demand for building services and more time spent inside buildings indicates that upward trend in energy demand of buildings will continue in the future. This paper looks towards the integration of energy efficiency in buildings with the overall passive design. Its goal is to identify low-energy requirements in buildings including thermal envelope performance and indoor-environment quality. An office building case study was chosen in Amman in Jordan, which was designed for reduced energy consumption for heating. A comparison was made with a control case study office building in Denmark, which has a significant reduced energy consumption of one third of national thermal code in Denmark as demonstrated by measurements and statistics. A similar measurement approach was followed in the office building in Amman to compare thermal efficiency in regard to national thermal code in Jordan. Assessment of the thermal performance of the case study office building in Amman include building construction and technical details, insulation thickness and U-value of the thermal envelope and indoor environment. The analysis compares results of the building thermal performance of the Amman case building with those of the control case study and national thermal insulation code. A questionnaire was conducted in July and November to evaluate user satisfaction of a number of indoor climate parameters, such as room temperature, internal air movements, air quality, artificial lighting, level of daylight and noise level.

The possibility to lower building energy consumptions in Qatar

Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum Proceedings, 2012

Most of global energy comes from fossil fuel. Currently, there is strong believed that the climate change is anthropogenic and attributed to fossil fuel consumption. Heating and cooling systems account for half global energy consumption. In hot and developing country like Qatar the share of air conditioning systems is expected to be even more than half national energy consumption. This provides the challenge to study energy consumption in buildings sector and find methods to increase the performance of air conditioning systems. Up until now, renewable energy sources supply only around 2-3% of the annual global heating and cooling demand. Due to its high thermal performance, heat pump systems and especially ground source heat pump systems (GSHP) are increasingly becoming more common for air conditioning applications. In the light of the improvement achieving in the performance of photovoltaic systems, the combination between the photovoltaic and HP or GCHP is getting more economical feasibility. This paper studies renewable energy options for air conditioning system toward saving energy and environment goal. For this aim, a residential apartment in Doha, Qatar, was selected as a case study. The cooling demand of the case study was assessed and four different conditioning systems were designed including (1) air source heat pump system (as a reference system); (2) ground source heat pump; (3) air source heat pump combined with a photovoltaic panel to generate electricity; and (4) ground source heat pump combined with a photovoltaic panel to generate electricity.

Potential for energy conservation in apartment buildings

Energy and Buildings, 2000

The potential for energy conservation in apartment buildings is investigated following the EPIQR methodology and software. Several scenarios are evaluated for various apartment buildings located in three climatic zones of Hellas. The proposed retrofit actions concentrate on space heating and cooling, domestic hot water production and lighting. Energy savings for the corresponding actions in each building are accounted for in order to identify the most effective scenarios, suitable for different building constructions, installations and system characteristics. q 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.