Evaluation of Impacts of Historical and Future Climates on Designing Residential Buildings—Case Study of GCC Region | CU Experts

This paper explores the impact of various historical and future climate periods on the energy performance of residential buildings across the GCC. Specifically, five representative climate periods, Historic-1 (1991–2005), Historic-2 (2006–2018), Present (2010–2024), and Future-1 (2040–2050) and Future-2 (2080–2090), are considered to assess the energy performance for four design configurations of residential buildings in six GCC representative cities. The four building configurations encompass (i) baseline design defined by common traditional construction practices in most GCC countries using uninsulated walls and roofs with minimal air conditioning system efficiencies; (ii) code-compliant design using each GCC country’s current energy efficiency code requirements; (iii) optimized life cycle cost design using proven and cost-effective energy efficiency technologies; and (iv) net-zero energy design integrating the optimal set of energy efficiency strategies with rooftop PV systems. The analysis results have indicated that the energy performance of various designs depends closely on the climate periods, with the annual energy use of a today code-compliant typical residential building expected to increase by 20% in 2050 and 25% 2090. Moreover, larger PV systems by up to 25% need to be deployed for GCC homes designed with the present climatic conditions to continue achieving net-zero energy performance beyond 2050.

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