Energy Benefits of Retrofitting Residential Communities: Case Study of KAUST Villa Housing Community | CU Experts

Abstract; In this article, a bottom-up building stock modeling approach is presented to evaluate various retrofit options to improve the energy efficiency of housing communities using the case study of villa compound within the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. The evaluated retrofit measures include upgrades of building envelope elements, deployments of static and dynamic shading devices, replacements of air-conditioning systems, improvements of control strategies, and installations of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) arrays. Both conventional and dynamic systems of the retrofit measures are considered in the analysis. It is found that smart controls, higher performance cooling systems, and tracking rooftop PV systems provide the highest reductions of the annual energy needs for the KAUST housing community. A retrofit package made up of variations of these three measures can reduce by 64% in the annual energy consumption of the villa housing community.

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