Urban Scale Cooling Load Prediction of High-Rise Buildings in a Hot and Arid Climate

Abstract

Abstract This study employs an archetype-based modeling approach to estimate and analyze the urban scale cooling load profile of high-rise buildings in the Marina district of Lusail City, Qatar. Since the Marina district is a newly built district, the building typology and geometric characteristics are considered the main criteria for the selection of representative archetypes of the district. Three high-rise building archetypes are developed using EnergyPlus software to represent the available building stocks in the district, which are residential, commercial, and mixed-use. Required data for the input parameters are collected from various sources such as the Lusail City GSAS 2 Star Rating Guidelines, which define the minimum requirements in the region, ASHRAE 90.1, and ASHRAE 62.1 standards, along with user surveys when available. Detailed cooling load profiles of the three building archetypes are obtained in EnergyPlus, which enables aggregating the cooling loads to obtain the cooling load profile of the Marina district at various time resolutions. The cooling load profiles obtained after the simulation of each building archetype model in EnergyPlus are validated with real building cooling loads measured in the case study area. The developed cooling load profiles in this study can inform district cooling facilities for an optimal design and operation of the plant, reveal the energy-saving potential of buildings, and aid in defining cost allocations or billing strategies for end users without the need for the installation of zone-level submeter to each apartment unit. This study further contributes to the establishment of a representative building archetype library for hot and arid climate zones. Thus, the building archetype models produced for the Marina district in this study are also applicable to other regions with similar building types and climatic characteristics.