Abstract
Green roofs may be considered a passive energy saving technology that also offer benefits like environmental friendliness and enhancement of aesthetic and architectural qualities of buildings. This paper examines the energy and economic viability of the green roof technology in the hot humid climate of Saudi Arabia by considering a modern four bedroom residential building in the city of Dhahran as a case study. The base case and green roof modelling of the selected building has been developed with the help of DesignBuilder software. The base case model has been validated with the help of 3-month measured data about the energy consumption without a green roof installed. The result shows that the energy consumption for the base case is 169 kWh/m2 while the energy consumption due to the application of a green roof on the entire roof surface is 110 kWh/m2. For the three investigated green roof options, energy saving is found to be in the range of 24% to 35%. The economic evaluation based on the net present value (NPV) approach for 40 years with consideration to other environmental advantages indicates that the benefits of the green roof technology are realized towards the end of the life cycle of the building.
Highlights
The world experiences a variety of energy and environmental challenges driven by factors like population and infrastructure growth, modernization, and urbanization [1,2]
The findings suggest an economic benefit of green roof systems, providing annual Energy-savings in the range of 15%–32% depending on the soil thickness and the thermal conductivity of the soil [40]
The results show that energy consumption decreases with increased radiation carried out to examine the application of potential energy-saving strategies across various sectors
Summary
The world experiences a variety of energy and environmental challenges driven by factors like population and infrastructure growth, modernization, and urbanization [1,2]. In the optimal design, efficient management and maintenance of active systems in buildings such as lighting and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems will contribute towards the achievement of NZEBs. On the global scene, the performance of green roofs has been investigated as a potential energy-saving strategy in buildings [19,20,21]. The present work’s target is to contribute to the knowledge in this filed It aims to investigate the technical and economic effectiveness of green roofs as a possible passive technology in reducing building energy consumption in hot humid climates. This is achieved through the following set of objectives: 2. A net present value analysis has been conducted to determine the economic viability of green roofs
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