Effect of window to wall ratio and different climate conditions on energy consumption for residential and commercial buildings in Egypt

Abstract EN

This study evaluates the effect of window to wall ratio (WWR), for all different buildings to save energy associated with the total electricity consumed.

It summarizes the results of a simulation analysis to determine the effectiveness of WWR for different outdoor climate conditions in reducing electrical energy consumption for building sector in Egypt.

Typical four buildings that represented both residential and commercial buildings in Egypt were tested.

This study takes into consideration different runs for Alexandria, Cairo, and Aswan that represented the different climate regions in Egypt.

This study is based on thermal performance analysis with respect to thermal comfort and energy conservation with the software Visual DOE-3.1.

It has been proved that decreasing of WWR generally saves more energy and WWR upto about 17 % is preferred for energy efficient residential buildings in Egypt.

The outdoor climate conditions in Egypt, affect strongly the rates of energy consumption for residential buildings, especially for the very hot dry regions.

So, reduction of WWR as much as possible and prevention of natural ventilation during the day is generally recommended.

The results for the commercial sector case indicate generally that outdoor climatic conditions slightly affect the rates of energy consumption, and a WWR up to 20 % is preferred for commercial buildings to be energy efficient.