Numerical Analysis of a Zero Energy Villa in the UAE

Abstract

There is significant evidence that the world is warming up and the increasing temperatures will impact the built environment, particularly the energy requirement for airconditioning of the buildings. According to International Panel of Climate Change, during the end of 21st century, there would be steady increase in the global surface temperature [1]. The harsh and extreme climates in the UAE, puts forward various hurdles for different technologies to be used in order to reduce the energy consumption, and make the house more sustainable. In order to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings in the UAE, a villa is designed and modelled to become Zero Energy, located in Hatta, Dubai. In order to achieve the former objective, different insulation materials such as Polyisocyanurate, aerated and low density concrete, high efficient electrical equipment and air conditioning as well as low solar heat gain coefficient windows with a reflective coating were considered in this study. AutoCAD was initially used to sketch the plan of the villa and then further simulations were carried out on IES-VE (2015), to determine the electrical and cooling load of the house. Using the passive technologies, and keeping in mind the Thermal Comfort Index, per the ASHRAE standards, a reduction in cooling load of about 40% is observed when compared with a base case scenario. As the paper mainly focuses on drafting a villa which is off-grid, the energy demand of the house is provided by the PV system. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis was conducted by varying the orientation and cooling profiles of the house on IES to draft a range of results. Changing the orientation of the house by 90° gave about a 2.3% reduction in the cooling load. When the results were compared with literature and base case, it proved that the values obtained were lower than the ones in similar case studies.

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