Effects of different window configurations on energy consumption in building: Optimization and economic analysis

Energy saving is one of the challenges of today. In recent years, growing concerns about the environmental impacts of energy consumption and global warming has doubled the importance of this issue. The contribution of building sector to the energy consumption is significant at a country-wide scale, so that various measures have been taken to help save the energy, including the codification of regulations in accordance with local climate conditions. In this research, using DesignBuilder software, a building in Semnan (Iran) with hot arid climate was modeled with various window configurations. To generalize the results, the two cities of Tabriz and Bandar Abbas with different climates were added to the study. One of the important strategies for optimizing energy consumption in a modeled building is to improve the heat transfer coefficient of the window glass based on local climate conditions. In this work, investigations were performed on a variety of single-pane and double-pane windows with argon gas, krypton, and air as the insulator. By changing the gap between the panes and glass thickness, the cooling/heating load of the modeled building were analyzed to find optimum window configuration for the dominant climate condition at Semnan. Finally, an economic assessment was performed by estimating the required capital cost and payback period for different window configurations.

Automated summary

This research used DesignBuilder software to simulate building energy efficiency, investigating the impact of different window configurations on energy consumption, with a focus on local climate conditions. By analyzing the heat transfer coefficient and cooling/heating load of single-pane and double-pane windows, the optimal window configuration for the Semnan climate conditions was identified.