Energy Efficient & Sustainable Buildings: Integration with solar assisted air-conditioning technology in Qatar - A Step towards Grid Free Zero Carbon Living

The air-conditioning systems in hot countries like Qatar consumes around 60-80% of the total energy demand in buildings. This triggers researchers and industry experts in the built environment to explore new avenues towards reducing the cooling load on buildings to enhance energy efficiency under such extreme conditions. [2] The carbon foot print of buildings can be minimized by reducing cooling load through passive design, using high efficiency equipment and incorporating renewable energy technologies such as solar systems, air and ground source heat pumps, which are few to name among many other concepts and technologies. This paper focuses on optimization of passive house building design alternatives for different blocks of residential buildings as essential components for establishing sustainable and modern agro-industrial communities in Qatar. Two different designs of multifunctional residential buildings were considered; a block of 3 Apartments (one apartment per floor), as an example of labor housing, and a block of 18 Apartments (six apartments per floor), both spread over three floors, as an example of a community living. Three dimensional (3D) energy models were created for both types of buildings using the IES software (Integrated Environmental Solutions) in virtual environment and thermal analysis was carried out using the Qatar's weather data. Two different criteria were applied to the model of each block of apartments, i.e. Passive house design vs. Conventional design. Energy analysis was carried out to optimize building design, in terms of best thermal comfort and minimum energy consumption to identify/select optimum building materials. The simulation results revealed that optimized passive house design concepts can significantly reduce the cooling load and lighting loads, which saves 60 to 70% of the total energy consumption in both small labor residential block and large community residential block respectively. This energy savings can translate into equivalent cost savings and the available flat roof area on top of each block can be utilized for installation of the innovative solar PV cooling plant which has the capacity to meet the cooling and domestic hot water demand of the building. It will also help in achieving grid free zero carbon buildings in future.