Assessment of Energy Saving Potential in Residential Sector of Pakistan through Implementation of NEECA and PEC Building Standards

Residential sector is currently the largest energy consuming sector of Pakistan. With a constantly increasing population and urbanization rate, demand of this sector is expected to rise even further. Therefore, it is important to introduce such passive techniques that can overcome the energy consumption. This research performs an assessment of energy saving potential through implementation of NEECA and PEC energy building standards in residential sector of Pakistan. Passive Housing Planning Package (PHPP) Tool is used to perform this assessment for a moderate climate condition in Islamabad, Pakistan. Initially, heating and cooling load for both conventional and energy efficient buildings are calculated separately using PHPP to provide an overview of annual heating and cooling demand. The analysis of conventional building show that a major heat loss of 29.3 kWh/m2and 18.3 kWh/m2takes place across external walls and roof respectively while a loss of 5.2 kWh/m2was observed through windows. Commutatively, the annual heating demand of conventional building was calculated to be 44.2 kWh/m2. Now for energy efficient buildings, the losses were significantly reduced thus consequently leading to 1/10th of annual energy demand. For annual heating, 32% energy improvement was observed while for cooling, a 38% energy improvement was observed. Further, this study also signifies the importance of building orientation, climatic conditions, prevention of air leakage and infiltration in day time and adequate ventilation in night time. Hence, There is significant need of securing indoor thermal comfort in energy efficient building by defining optimum comfort zone for heating and cooling period from indoor set point temperatures, humidity and daily variations.