Optimised passive design for Commercial building in Arid Climate – Energy Efficiency

Cooling demands of commercial buildings present a relevant challenge for a sustainable future. It is widely agreed that the application of passive design strategies should be the first step in the design of energy efficient buildings and then the design of active systems shall be done to avoid over sizing of the equipment installed. In this paper, a systematic review of previous studies along with the implementation of passive design strategies to an existing commercial building in the State of Qatar is performed to investigate the effectiveness of the implementation of these strategies on the overall energy consumption of the building and its impact on the associated carbon emissions. In total, 7 different strategies were identified and the effect of each of the strategies on energy consumption was calculated using an Energy Simulation Tool. This paper explores the effectiveness of the passive design strategies in commercial buildings in hot and arid climate and the percentage change in the energy consumption and associated carbon emissions. The general findings showed that implementing effective passive design strategies could lead to reduction of energy consumption and reduction in carbon emissions by upto 34%.

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