Energy Conservation Potential of Building Envelope: A Simulation based Comparative Analysis for Residential Buildings of Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan is facing severe energy crisis like other developing countries of the world. Among different energy consumers, residential sector consumes about 47 % of total energy. The objective of this research is to find the energy conserving potential of building envelope in residential buildings. So, a prototypical detached family house has been modeled as a case study in Autodesk BIM software, Rivet 2014. In order to quantify the impact of different energy efficient techniques, cooling load analysis has been done for different building envelopes with modifications in walls, roofs and windows. It has been concluded that the building envelope has a significant potential in reducing the energy demand for a residential building. Modifications in building envelope is found to reduce energy consumption by 37 % in contemporary house. Thus, substantial energy savings are possible if designers aggressively promotes the energy efficient measures in building envelope.