Influence of Building Envelope on Energy Conservation Towards Sustainable Building in the New Egyptian Administrative Capital

Abstract

AbstractBuilding envelope includes fenestrations and walling building materials. The selection of building envelope is significant for occupants’ indoor thermal comfort. The process of heating and cooling affects the total energy consumption of any building. The energy consumption of buildings has increased due to the use of fenestrations that are not effective due to lack of thermal parameters. Moreover, the Egyptian Residential Energy Code (EREC) specifies the parameters for sustainable, comfort and energy efficient constructions. This paper demonstrates a study using Design Builder software and its thermal performance tool Energy Plus to simulate a residential building in the New Egyptian Administrative Capital to compare the impact of the fenestration specifications such as glass types, shading devices, and window to wall ratio on initial cost, energy consumption and running cost. This study focuses on Cairo as the main climatic zone for simulation scenario. This study will encourage investors to move towards sustainable architecture that is more affordable and energy efficient. According to the simulation, there should be a change in the building envelope components to achieve indoor thermal comfort, savings in the running cost as well as savings in energy consumption. There are savings in the construction cost and a total saving in energy consumption of 22.4%, meaning the running cost. Also, the findings recommend that the building envelope is enhanced by using uncommon combinations of envelope parameters. The Interviews with authority leaders and project managers of the new capital revealed that introducing uncommon building envelopes is encouraged.