Investigating the impact of applying Saudi Code of Energy Conservation on the Solar PV Energy Systems Cost in Residential Buildings

Abstract

One of the objectives of this thesis is to do energy analysis and economic feasibility of several options of thermal insulations of residential buildings in KSA. So in this thesis, investigating the role of SBC-602 on the reduction of energy consumption in residential buildings was done by analyzing the need for energy through openstudio software. Three scenarios of U-values as an input in this work were suggested, the first one the building without thermal insulation, the second is the current Saudi electricity company (SEC) requirement of thermal insulations, and the last one is the requirement of SBC 602. The study was conducted in three different cities Riyadh, Hail, and Abha, which represent the three climate zones in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The results showed that the annual electrical energy consumption of the building base case in Riyadh city was the highest 67,095 kWh, while for Hail 57,373 kWh and Abha 26,799 kWh. For the basic case-building in Riyadh, 67%, 10%, 17%, and 6% of the total electrical energy was used for cooling, lighting, appliance, and others, respectively. By applying the SBC-602 requirement for Riyadh will be only 17% of the total energy used for cooling. The second objective is to investigating the effect of residential buildings' thermal insulations on the economic feasibility of grid-connected PV energy systems. A different PV system was designed by RETScreen to cover the needed energy of each thermal insulation scenario of each city. The analysis has been done using both RETScreen and hand calculations for both technical and economic indicators. The average annual yield factor for Riyadh, Hail, and Abha was 1756 kWh/kWp/year, 1813 kWh/kWp/year, and 1888 kWh/kWp/year, respectively. This shows that all three cities have great potential for utilizing the PV system. Abha has the most annual yield factor among these three cities. The slightly less warm weather reflects this as more temperature degrades the performance of the cell, causing better efficiency of the module and leading to the best energy production. The annual average capacity factor for Riyadh, Hail, and Abha was 20.1 % and 20.7 %, and 21.5 %. The obtained CF for three different sites at KSA are as attractive as the rest of the middle east, the percentage CF is better than many parts of the world. The economic indicators were calculated for both thermal insulation and the PV system. The Levelized cost of saved energy (LCSE) for SEC requirements was 0.009 $/kWh, 0.011 $/kWh, and 0.039 $/kWh for Riyadh, Hail, and Abha, respectively. while the LCSE of SBC-602 was higher than the SEC.it were 0.017 $/kWh , 0.023 $/kWh and 0.098 $/kWh. The Unified PV Levelized cost of energy LCOE was 0.031 $/kWh, 0.030 $/kWh, and 0.029 $/kWh for Riyadh, Hail, and Abha, respectively. The investigations indicate that PV size is an effective option if its V generated energy less than the building energy need, also the capital cost of the PV system is decreased and be more attractive if the thermal insulation was applied. Finally, The yearly GHG emission reductions by unified PV systems were calculated.They were 22.9 tCO2, 23.8 tCO2, and 24.5 tCO2 for Riyadh, Hail, and Abha, respectively. and the other greenhouse gas GHG emission reduction has been estimated. Several recommendations are suggested based on the results from this thesis such as reducing the required conditions of thermal insulation in the climatic zone 3 and qualification and training of a large number of companies in the field of energy efficiency and RE.