Effects of shading strategy and orientation on energy performance of school building

Abstract EN

Excess solar gain in buildings affects the building’s energy performance; however an optimal choice of overhangs and fins can tackle this issue to a remarkable extent.

This study analyzes various alternatives of overhangs and fins attached to south, west and east facades of an elementary school building in Los Angeles, to select the best shading strategy in terms of energy performance.

By considering ‘no-overhang-no-fin’ as the base case, three configurations such as overhang without fin, fin without overhang, and with overhang, were studied to assess the energy consumption.

The simulations of all the tested alternatives were performed by eQUEST software program.

The observations reveal that the overhangs and fins, and their proper positioning and orientation have significant impact on the building’s energy performance.

With respect to the baseline, a saving of up to 13.62 % in the annual electric energy consumption and 12.5 % in total energy cost (electricity + fuel) have been predicted by the use of overhangs with fins on south, west and east facades.