Home Thermal Modeling: Cooling Energy Consumption and Costs in Saudi Arabia

Areej A Malibari,Amjad H Gamlo

doi:10.5539/cis.v9n4p22

Areej A Malibari, Amjad H Gamlo

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5539/cis.v9n4p22

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Abstract

Objectives: The consumption of electricity and its costs are expected to be increased in Saudi Arabia due to its rapid growth in population. As the Kingdom is characterized by extreme hot climate, a massive amount of electricity consumed by the residential sector goes to power air conditioners. To control this huge amount of energyconsumedin homes, thermal models have been generated with two or more parameters. Methodology: The households’ surveys have been conducted in order to collect the data. The Non-linear regression analysis has been carried out to obtain the outcomes of study. Moreover, household surveys have been conducted for data collection. The grid algorithm and the non-linear regression have been used to learn the parameters in the model to simulate the weather in Saudi Arabia. The temperature loggers have been placed in the houses to observe the behavior of residents of using cooling system. The web forecast has been used to analyze the temperature of cities on hourly basis. Results: Simple thermal model has been built using two parameters by applying the grid and non-linear regression methods for data fitting. Then the thermal model with envelope has also been created using four parameters by applying non-linear regression method for data fitting. Conclusion: It has been evaluated through outcomes that thermal model with envelope is better as compared to simple thermal model. Moreover, the data fitting by non-linear regression method has also been observed to perform better than data fitting by grid method.

Highlights

Energy consumption has been enhancing throughout the world, as a result of which, majority of the countries are facing unprecedented expansion in electricity infrastructure
A model of simple thermal model has been created by the grid and non-linear regression methods of data fitting have been used
Simple thermal model has been developed with the help of two parameters by applying two methods for data fitting

Summary

Introduction

Energy consumption has been enhancing throughout the world, as a result of which, majority of the countries are facing unprecedented expansion in electricity infrastructure. Residential sector is the third-largest major consumer of energy in the world, which represents almost 27% of total consumption (Lausten, 2008). During the time span of 2010, the electricity expansion has been made in residential sector with 426 Mtoe (17.84 EJ). Taking into consideration the context of Saudi Arabia, the consumption of electricity and its costs are expected to enhance due to its growing population year by year (World Population Statistics, 2013). Due to extreme heat and hot climate of Saudi Arabia, the residential sector has been observed to consume a massive amount of electricity to power air conditioning (Saudi Electricity Company, 2016). It is important to find solutions to minimize the consumption of air conditioners or cooling systemsin the Kingdom of cis.ccsenet.org

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