Investigating the Impact of Integration the Saudi Code of Energy Conservation with the Solar PV Systems in Residential Buildings

The demand for air conditioning is increasing day by day in the world’s hot and humid climate areas. Energy conservation in buildings can play a vital role in meeting this high cooling demand. This paper attempts to consider the impacts of energy efficiency and renewable energy measures on the energy demand of Saudi Arabia’s residential buildings. The energy analysis and economic feasibility analysis of thermal insulations are performed in this paper by investigating the effect of residential buildings’ thermal insulations on the economic feasibility of grid-connected photovoltaic systems. This was the combined effort of building owners and government, and buildings were examined if a photovoltaic system and thermal insulation were used. The study was conducted in the three climate zones in Saudi Arabia. The results showed that the building base case’s annual electrical energy consumption in Riyadh city was 67,095 kWh, Hail 57,373 kWh, and Abha 26,799 kWh. For the basic case-building in Riyadh, 69% of the total electrical energy was used for cooling and heating. Applying the Saudi Building Code requirement for Riyadh will provide only 18% of the total energy used for cooling and heating. RETScreen 6.1 software was used to design a photovoltaic system; the analysis was done using technical and economic indicators. The annual yield factor for Riyadh, Hail, and Abha was 1649 kWh/kWp/year, 1711 kWh/kWp/year, and 1765 kWh/kWp/year, respectively. The capacity factors for Riyadh, Hail, and Abha were 18.8%, 19.5%, and 20.1%, respectively. The Unified photovoltaic Levelized energy costs were 0.031, 0.030, and 0.029 $/kWh for Riyadh, Hail, and Abha, respectively. Finally, the Net Present Value and greenhouse gas emissions reduction have been estimated.