Sky-high energy footprints of buildings in Dubai

Rich Arab Gulf countries top lists of per capita energy consumption, toghether with Iceland and Singapore. Contrary to Iceland and Singapore, where the needs of industry drive energy use, in Arab Gulf countries it is residential buildings that contribute a wooping 70% to that energy use. In a new paper, ?ahin Ak?n and coauthors all of the following factors are necessary to explain why.

• A harsh climate, with scorching temperatures of 50°C.
• Energy subsidies, making any conservation efforts economically unattractive.
• Large residences, with an average of 62 square meters per capita, compared to a global average of 32.
• Late introduction of energy standards for buildings, which implies high heat infiltration.
• Abandonment of traditional building styles, which were better adapted to dealing with the heat.

In addition to a high energy use, Arab Gulf countries also worsen the already hot climate by building predominantly with concrete. Concrete requires cement, the production of which causes a lot of CO2 emissions.

Traditional building styles, such as courtyard buildings, were better adapted to the climatic circumstances and relied on natural materials such as mud, adobe, and wood, which caused much lower emissions during their production than cement.

In their paper, ?ahin Ak?n and colleauges built a detailed inventory of buildings in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries and represented each building by a building archetypes. The archetype model allows them to quantify energy use, through a building physics simulation, and the material stock of the buildings.

The model shows that most energy is used in villas, except for the United Arab Emirates, where apartment blocks and sky scrapers are significant. Villas accounted for 22% of the residential units across the Gulf countries. Villas are predominatly occupied by the native population, while expads and migrant laborers live in apartment blocks.

The newest buildings tend to have better energy performance than buildings that were built two decades ago, given the introduction of energy standards. Across the region, between half to three quarters of energy is used for cooling. Energy efficiency improvements are possible, addressing the building envelope, shading, equipment, and controls. These could save on the order of 70% of the energy use. As long as energy is subsidies, however, nobody can be interested in these savings.

For a news story on the paper:

https://norwegianscitechnews.com/2023/12/the-energy-footprint-of-architecture-built-by-oil/

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FME ZEN - Research Centre on Zero Emission Neighbourhoods in Smart Cities Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC) Industrial Ecology NTNU Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet (NTNU)