Energy Efficient Residential Building Code for Arab Countries

This paper presents an energy analysis to support the Egyptian efforts to develop a New Energy Code for New Residential Buildings in the Arab Countries. Also, the paper represents a brief summary of the code contents specially, the effectiveness of building envelope and weather data in reducing electrical energy consumption. The impacts of the following parameters were studied namely; walls and roof constructions, window size and glazing type for different geographical locations in the Arab Countries. Two different distinguish weather classification were developed and analyzed and presented in this study, the DDC18.3& DDH 25. The first was developed by the Author to calculate DD using a mathematical model on electronic spread sheet. The second depends on the hourly values for each geographical location. The analysis includes the capitals and major cities representing most of the Arab countries. It was determined that the window to wall ratio (WWR) of 15% minimizes the total annual electricity use for the buildings. The Solar Factors (SF) and Window Orientation Factors (OF) were calculated for the eight wall orientations. The Over All Transfer Value (OTTV) was calculated for each orientation for different variables, e.g. WWR, Glazing Type, Shading, wall color and mid and top floor. The results show that the mass and types of building materials; WWR (15%), glass type and shutters; orientation; wall insulation (25mm), wall solar absorptivity (α=.3); roof insulation and shading effect enhance the thermal performance and reduces the cooling load by 60%.