Efficient Residential Buildings in Hot and Humid Regions: The Case of Abu Dhabi, UAE

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 region 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 main objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of applying different standards and building codes such as LEED, ASHRAE and Estidama for hot and humid regions on the energy performance of the building. The energy consumption of the building includes different equipment namely: air conditioners, lighting and electric water heaters. The building thermal analysis is extended to include the occupants thermal comfort analysis using different building codes. Moreover, the environmental impacts upon selecting Estidama for hot and humid regions will be discussed.