Detailed profiling of high-rise building energy consumption in extremely hot and humid climate

Abstract

The extremely hot and humid nature of the Gulf Cooperation Council necessitates cooling. There is a dearth of literature that addresses the energy consumption profile of high-rise buildings in this climate, which is important for the fair distribution of costs among end users according to their usage. This study aims to address the literature gap by studying the cooling requirements of a representative tall residential building in an extremely hot and humid climate. Sensitivity analysis of 14 building characteristics against annual cooling load reveals that Window-to-Wall-Ratio (WWR) and orientation parameters sway anywhere between the most significant and the least significant attributes, respectively. From the analysis, a significant discrepancy in cooling consumption has been observed between the first and top floors, with an average of around 140% more. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis revealed that equipment power density is a dominating factor at the apartment level, while the floor number dominates in the whole building. A parametric analysis indicates that building rotation can increase or decrease energy consumption up to 4.0 kWh/m²/month or 5.6 kWh/m²/month, depending on the apartment's location. This study would facilitate especially the planning stage of the buildings in a whole district and operation-related decisions of the corresponding district cooling plant in the hot and humid climate.