Innovative retrofitting approaches for energy saving in Saudi public schools

Abstract

Saudi buildings use approximately 29% of the primary energy and about 80% of the electrical energy. Because of the hot and dry climate, air conditioners consume a lot of electrical energy to attain a comfortable temperature indoors. More than 70% of Saudi buildings need to be thermally insulated. The objective of this study is to assess the existing energy saving of public schools in Saudi Arabia. Indoor thermal environment monitoring of three school buildings has been undertaken by employing LSI LASTEM ‘R-LOG’ data loggers, and electric energy bills of the schools were also collected. The school building was modelled using DesignBuilder software, which was utilized to investigate the impact of various modifications made to the building envelopes, including changes to building orientation, the inclusion of thermal insulation layers, various types of glass and shading devices. According to the findings, implementing appropriate building envelope design techniques for existing schools can lead to significant reductions in cooling and overall energy consumption, with savings of 30% and 19%, respectively. After applying these strategies collectively, the school managed to reduce its total annual electricity consumption by nearly 19.2%, resulting in a decrease from 279.13 MWh to 225.5 MWh per year.