Optimisation of building envelope parameters in a semi-arid and warm Mediterranean climate zone
Aiman Albatayneh
Abstract
There has been increased focus across the world on enhancing the efficiency of energy consumption in multiple sectors. The overall aim is to find solutions to eliminate problems caused by the expanding demand for energy while ensuring that natural resources are not depleted. This paper presents an optimisation of the parameters of the building envelope of a single-storey residential building in the semi-arid and warm Mediterranean climate zone of the city of Amman, Jordan. The objective was to achieve a reduction in cooling and heating loads while ensuring that the existing levels of thermal comfort can be sustained through the use of mechanical systems for cooling and heating. A typical Jordanian single-storey residential building with dimensions of 187 m2 was chosen to modify its design variables and examine their effect on the overall thermal performance. The process of optimisation was initiated by performing a simulation using DesignBuilder software, followed by a sensitivity analysis of 12 design variables to evaluate their importance for cooling and heating loads. An optimisation using the genetic algorithm was then implemented. The final results indicated that the total energy consumption could be reduced to 293.74 kWh/year (99.79 kWh/year in terms of the cooling and 193.95 kWh/year in terms of the heating), compared with 5225.97 kWh/year for the reference module (separated into 4075.41 kWh/year for the heating and 1150.56 kWh/year for the cooling).