oa Evaluating Energy Consumption Of A Prototype Educational Building In Different Climatic Conditions Within The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia

Educational buildings form a major part of public buildings in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as is true for many Middle Eastern countries in the region. As a result of the rapid growth in the KSA, prototype educational buildings are designed with little or no effort towards standards of energy efficient design, and therefore are considered to be one of the highest energy consumers in the country. Educational buildings are unique facilities accommodating a large number of people and services for the purpose of learning, propagation of knowledge and the development of skills for life. Hence, the energy efficiency of educational buildings has now become a priority for educational organisations, design professionals and particularly governments with visions for sustainable development. The main objective of this study is to assess the energy consumption of typical Higher Technical Institutes (HTIs) buildings in five different cities representing different climatic zones of the KSA. The investigation will evaluate the total energy consumption of a prototype building design and its response to the climate conditions in each region. In this study, a whole building energy simulation was used to investigate the sensitivity of various factors affecting energy use and a detailed computer model of a prototype building in five different cities in the KSA have been constructed using EnergyPlus thermal analysis engine through DesignBuilder software package. The results revealed that the energy consumption in investigated prototype educational building differed significantly because of each city location of the project. Moreover, it was found that the variations in the total energy consumption between the five selected cities were a result of the consumption of the cooling and heating systems. The study emphasised on the total energy consumption of educational buildings demonstrating a prototype HTIs building as a case study and concluded that the KSA would require its own building energy benchmarking classification system if it is to develop best or good practice energy standards for buildings within the country. Moreover, to optimise the energy consumption in educational buildings, each region should have its own guidelines according to the climatic conditions within the KSA, which is also applicable to other types of buildings.