Cooling Load Reduction in a Single–Family House, an Energy–Efficient Approach

Abstract

Energy depletion is considered one of the greatest challenges facing the planet. One waytowards solving this challenge involves architectural adaptations to the local climate to decreaseenergy use. This study looks at the city of Erbil, located in northern Iraq. The city has seen rapidpopulation growth that has resulted in an increased demand for housing. Unfortunately, most ofthe new houses are designed without considering the local climate conditions. As a result,people depend extensively on air conditioning systems that result in higher energy consumption.This study proposes implementing passive cooling techniques in residential buildings todecrease cooling energy consumption. Our methodology consisted of an energy simulationusing the DesignBuilder program’s comparative thermal dynamic analysis. Using thissimulation, we assessed the effects of passive cooling techniques on the reduction rate ofcooling loads in an air-conditioned house. The simulation results illustrate that the proposedpassive techniques lower the cooling load significantly, from 6997 kW/h to about 4461 kW/hduring the peak-cooling load in July. This represents a 47.28% reduction of the total coolingload. The significance of this impact suggests that architects should be more mindful aboututilizing passive cooling methods in residential buildings, reducing the consumption of energyfor residents and prompt accomplishing environmental friendly buildings.