Greenhouse gas emission reduction and the consequent decrease in the environmental impacts of fossil fuel can be achieved by cutting back on energy consumption in the building sector that consumes around 30% of total final energy around the globe. The building sector is a complex component of the modern economy and life and includes diverse types of structures, uses, and energy patterns. Such variability is a result of the way that buildings are designed, built, and used in addition to the variations of their materials, equipment, and users. From the start of the construction phase until their demolition, buildings involve energy consumption. A single building’s energy consumption pattern can be called its energy inertia, that is the way it consumes energy throughout its lifetime. Energy consumption also varies according to the age of the buildings. As a building gets older, its structure and equipment start losing their efficiency and often lead to increasing energy consumption over time. At any given time, the building sector is composed of structures of various ages. Some are under construction, others are recently built, some have lived to be mature and some quite old enough to be demolished. This complexity in the building sector creates a momentum against implementation of policies that reduce energy consumption. In this study, a system dynamic model is developed to perceive the temporal evolution of energy consumption and efficiency measures for the villa-type building stock in Qatar. This model tests energy efficiency policy measures such as renovation rates of 15 and 30 years, for buildings that are considered old, and also examines implementation of technology and building codes for new buildings. Results reveal savings of between 157 GWh and 1,275 GWh of electricity and reduction in CO 2 emissions ranging from 77,000 tonnes to 602,000 tonnes.

The design, construction, and operation of highly efficient residential buildings in hot and humid climates represent a unique challenge for architects, contractors, and building owners. In this paper, a case study on the performance of a residential building located in hot and humid location is presented. The building is a single-family house, which is modeled as a multi-zone building. The transient systems simulation program (TRNSYS) is used to simulate the building under Abu Dhabi’s typical meteorological year conditions. The results are presented in terms of the annual energy consumption and the indoor thermal comfort. The Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) is used to model the thermal comfort. In addition, the results of applying local building codes, Estidama, and international building codes, ASHRAE 90.2 and LEED, on the building’s performance are compared. The results will help in finding the effectiveness of these building standards in reducing the energy consumption of residential building in hot and humid regions.

The Energy Conservation Act 2001 was the first major initiative in India to channelize and catalyze energy efficiency improvement in various sectors of economy. The Bureau of Energy Efficiency was set up per the provision of this act, which in 2007 brought out Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) with an overall purpose of providing minimum requirements for the energy efficient design and construction of buildings. ECBC covers building envelope, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system, interior and exterior lighting system, service hot water, electrical power and motors. Since the launch of this code in May 2007, efforts are being made to promote and facilitate the adoption of this code through several training and capacity building programs. A program committee has been set to take care of the comments from stakeholders and inconsistencies, due to which revision of the code was brought out in May 2008. Currently the code is voluntary in the initial phase, but it is designed to be mandatory in future. One major feature of the code is that implementation is left under the scope of State and local governments. During the capacity building effort, a need was felt to provide additional guidance to design and construction professionals on the rationale behind the ECBC specifications and provide explanations to the key terms and concepts. The ECBC User Guide was therefore developed and released in July 2009 for this purpose. This paper describes the current status, experiences during capacity building and market transformation required for successful implementation of this code. It also covers commentary on how various stakeholders are contributing towards one common goal in different ways. With successful implementation, the code is expected to reduce the energy consumption of the upcoming new buildings by 20–40% from their average performance level at the time of launch of ECBC. Having this huge potential of energy saving, there is an urgent need to address the problems and issues for early adoption of the energy conservation building code in the country.

A district energy supply system for Almono, Pittsburgh has been studied by the Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, Carnegie Mellon University. Almono is a mixed residential/commercial redevelopment proposed for a 178 acre brown field site on the banks of the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh, PA. The district energy supply system would provide electric power, cooling, and heating for the occupants and the buildings of the site and for possible additional energy based developments. The various energy requirements of Almono’s proposed residential and commercial buildings for power, cooling, heating, and hot water have been estimated first based on Energy Information Administration data (1993), and then again on the advanced building code of the International Energy Conservation Code 2006 (IECC 2006). A comparison of these estimates highlights the importance of building envelopes on the energy requirements of the Almono development. The daily and seasonal load profiles for power, cooling, and heating that challenge efficient and economic operation of district energy supply have been developed. Various prime mover technologies for combined cooling/heating/power, CCHP, systems have been considered: gas turbine, internal combustion engine, and steam turbine. These technologies affect the choice of fuel, and the fractions of power and heat provided. The paper estimates loads of the Almono site based on the operation and performance of both conventional and advanced residential and commercial office buildings, suggests additional energy loads that would provide for improved technical and economic performance of system, and considers the selection of a fuel and the use of solar energy as the energy sources. It presents preliminary overall flow diagrams for various district energy supplies that include various possible fuel and solar energy inputs, and use of the river as a heat source/sink. It also comments on operation of the district energy supply to meet the hourly and seasonal energy loads of the Almono site.