Assessing The Impact Of Building Parameters On Energy Performance In Residential Settings

Abstract

The building sector energy use currently accounts for over 40 percent of the world energy use. With respect to such significant influence of the buildings, well-designed buildings on the basis of energy efficiency provide long-term building optimisation, and consequently minimising energy demands. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate the thermal performance of a range of variables such as building orientation and window to wall ratio (WWR) in a residential building in the semi-arid continental climate to find the most appropriate scenarios to reduce energy consumption. The case study is an existing apartment building which is modelled in Design Builder software. The results indicated that the optimum WWR in the study area is 40 percent for all sides of building. The results further revealed that using an overhang with 30 cm in-depth, and 40 percent WWR provide a significant reduction in total energy use up to 26 percent. In terms of orientation, buildings lined longitudinally along an axis of 25° north-east had 3 percent lower energy use as compared to the building longitudinally arranged along east-to-west. The recommendations are given based on the results of simulation to assist designers in designing building layouts for residential buildings in similar climate.