Energy Saving Potential Due to Refurbishment of Federal Public Housing in the UAE

Wafa AlAwadhi, Athari AlNaqbi, Abeer Manneh, Ayoub Kazim, Bassam Abu-Hijleh

Dubai International Academic City, Education Cluster, TECOM Investments, Dubai-UAE.
Faculty of Engineering & IT, The British University in Dubai, Dubai-UAE.

DOI: 10.4236/eng.2013.51B024                

Abstract

This paper, computer energy modeling is used to estimate the potential energy savings of refurbishing existing public federal housing in the United Arab Emirates. Such houses are built by the UAE Ministry of Public Works (MoPW) in five of the seven emirates that make up the UAE federation. The energy modeling was performed using the Integrated Environmental Solutions-Virtual Environment (IES-VE) commercial software. The study covered representative MoPW houses built in the period of 1974-2012. The results indicate potential energy savings upto 30.8% for the case of model 717 when refurbished to 2 Pearls standards compared to the as built configuration. The results showed little benefit in going from 1 Pearl to 2 Pearls refurbishment level. Thus 1 Pearl seems to be the most practical. This shows the high potential for energy, and thus environmental, savings should refurbishment be carried out on the homes built by the MoPW.

Keywords

energy modeling, energy savings, refurbishment, UAE

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	C. Petersdorff, T. Boermans, O. Stobbe, S. Joosen, W. Graus, E. Mikkers and J. Harnisch, Mitigation of CO2 Emissions from the Building Stock, Beyond the EU Di-rective on the Energy Performance of Buildings, ECOFYS, Cologne Germany, 2010.
[2]	A. Peacock, P.F. Banfill, S. Turan, D. Jenkins, M. Ahadzi, G. Bowles, D. Kane, M. Newborough, P.C. Eames, H. Singh, T. Jackson and A. Berry, “Reducing CO2 emissions through refurbishment of non-domestic UK buildings,” presented at the Improving Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings (IEECB) Conference, Frankfurt –Germany, 10 - 11 April 2008.
[3]	C. Langston, F. Wong, E. Hui and L. Shen, “Strategic assessment of building adaptive reuse opportunities in Hong Kong,” Building and Environment, Vol. 43, 2008, pp 1709-1718.
[4]	M. Sunikka and C. Boon, ‘Environmental Policies and efforts in social housing: the Netherlands,” Building Research & Infor-mation, Vol. 31, 2003, pp 1-12.
[5]	A. Papadopoulos, T. Theodosiou and K. Karatzas, “Feasibility of energy saving renovation measures in urban buildings The impact of energy prices and the acceptable payback time criterion,” Energy and Buildings, Vol. 34, 2002, pp 455-466.
[6]	A. Mickaityte, E. Zavadskas, A. Kaklauskas and L. Tupenaite, “The concept model of sustainable buildings refurbishment,” Int. J. of Strategic Property Management, Vol. 12, 2008, pp 53-68.
[7]	S. Hong, J. Gilbertson, T. Oreszczyn, G. Green and I. Ridley, ”A field study of thermal comfort in low-income dwellings in England before and after energy efficient refurbishment,” Building and Environment, Vol. 44, 2009, pp 1228-1236.
[8]	J. Ouyang, J. Ge. And K. Hokao, ‘Economic analysis of energy-saving renovation measures for urban existing residential buildings in China based on thermal simulation and site investigation,” Energy Policy, Vol. 37, 2009, pp 140-149.
[9]	Dubai Electric and Water Authority site: http://www.dewa.gov.ae/community/conservation/ydc/savepower.aspx (accessed February 15, 2010).S. Chen, B. Mulgrew, and P. M. Grant, “A clustering technique for digital communications channel equalization using radial basis function networks,” IEEE Trans. on Neural Networks, Vol. 4, 1990, pp. 570-578.
[10]	Estidama-Pearl rating system. http://www.estidama.org/pearl-rating-system-v10.aspx?lang=en-US, accessed October 2012.
[11]	N. Fumo, P. Mago & R. Luck. Methodology to estimate building energy con-sumption using EnergyPlus Benchmark Models. Energy and Buildings, Vol. 42, 2010, pp. 2331-2337.
[12]	S. Cho & S. Haberl. Integrating Solar Thermal and Photo-voltaic Systems in Whole Building Energy Simulation. Fourth National Conference of IBPSA-USA, New York City, New York, August 11 – 13, 2010, pp. 344-351
[13]	J. Lam, K. Wan, D. Liu & C. Tsang. 2010. Multiple regression models for energy use in air-conditioned office buildings in different climates. Energy Conversion and Management, Vol. 51, 2010, pp. 2692-2697.
[14]	D. Raia, B. Sodagarb, R. Fieldsonc & X. Hud 2011. Assessment of CO2 emissions reduction in a distribution warehouse Energy, Vol. 36, 2011, pp. 2271-2277.
[15]	Y. Saadah & B. AbuHijleh. 2010. De-creasing CO2 Emissions and Embodied Energy during the Construc-tion Phase Using Sustainable Building Ma-terials. International Journal of Sustainable Building Technology and Urban Development, Vol. 1, 2010, pp. 115-120.
[16]	S. Azhar, W. Carlton, D. Olsen & I. Ah-mad. Building information modeling for sustainable de-sign and LEED? rating analysis. Energy and Buildings, Vol. 42, 2010, pp. 1888-1895
[17]	N. Al-Masri and B. Abu-Hijleh, ”Courtyard Housing in Midrise Buildings - An Environmental Assessment in Hot-Arid Climate,” Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 16, 2012, pp. 1892-1898.