oa An Assessment Of Potential Energy Savings Achievable By Employing Passive Solar Design Strategies On An Office Building In Qatar

On a global level, the IEA estimates that buildings are responsible for more than 40% of the total primary energy consumption (Howe and Gerrard, 2010). In Qatar, RQPI estimates that buildings are responsible for 33% of the country's carbon dioxide emissions (RQPI, 2012). Reducing buildings' energy consumption in Qatar provides an opportunity to reduce its environmental impact as it currently globally ranks first in CO_2 emissions rate per capita (Amato, 2013). The purpose of this project is to assess potential energy savings achievable by employing passive solar design strategies on an office building in Qatar. First, the building was modelled and simulated in IES<VE>. The building's annual electricity consumption was found to be 3,769.326 MWh. This consequently produces 2,486,247 kg of CO_2. It was found that by relaxing the humidity levels to 20-70% and increasing the cooling set-point to 25℃ up to 5.949% and 11.636% energy savings were achievable, respectively. Finally, different passive solar design strategies were implemented on the building. Changing the building's orientation, daylight harvesting, external shading, and external shading plus daylight harvesting provided 0.946%, 5.289%, 2.959%, and 7.773% energy savings, respectively. Vertical louvers' optimal shading angles for the glazing on the east and west facing walls were found to be -40° and 60°, respectively. The horizontal louvers optimal shading angle on the south facing glazing was found to be 0°. Moreover, decreasing the building's U-Value of the external walls, external glazing, roof, and all building envelope elements simultaneously provided 0.518%, 4.54%, 0.418%, and 5.408% energy savings, respectively.