Load and energy requirements in residential buildings in Saudi Arabia: A comparative study

The load and energy requirements in residential buildings vary according to a number of factors. One of these factors is the geographical location in which the building is situated. Using a detached single‐family house, the DOE2.1C load and energy analysis program was used to investigate the effect of the geographical location on the load and energy requirements. Four different cities, namely Dhahran, Riyadh, Jeddah and Khamis‐Mushayt, representing four different climatic locations, are considered in this study. The analysis shows that the building parameters having the greatest impact on load are conduction through walls and roof, glazing area and infiltration level. The capacity requirements of the equipment and the total energy requirement for year‐round air conditioning were calculated for a house in each city. A comparison shows that the city of Khamis‐Mushayt has the lowest energy consumption and Jeddah has the highest energy consumption. The equivalent uniform annual cost (EUAC) method was also used to compare the economic performances of typical houses in the four cities. The comparison shows that the district of Khamis‐Mushayt has the lowest EUAC, but the difference between the other cities is not significant. Furthermore, it shows that there is a significant difference between the government's and customers' EUACs.