Energy audit to identify energy-efficient retrofitting opportunities in residential buildings

Recently, there has been an emerging concern from different stakeholders such as the government, electrical service providers and the community to issues pertaining to the energy efficiency of residential buildings in Oman. With the following questions in mind: andldquo;How are our houses performing in terms of energy consumption?andrdquo; and andldquo;What could be done to improve the energy efficiency of existing houses?andrdquo;, the generic objectives of this project are 1) to analyze the existing status of energy consumption of residential buildings, 2) to evaluate the potential of implementing energy efficiency measures and renewable energy systems on both reducing the energy consumption and shaving the electrical peak load in existing residential buildings. In order to achieve these objectives, a multi methods approach will be used. In particular, an energy audit will be conducted to collect basic information, analyze the energy use and identify retrofitting opportunities for a number of residential housings at SQU campus. The energy audit will include a supplementary interview survey with the occupants to define the operational characteristics of the houses. In addition, site measurements and diagnostic experimentation will be performed during the site visits. Then, historical electrical bills for the houses will be collected and analyzed for energy use. Using this data, a building simulation model will be generated, calibrated and verified against utility bills. A close to reality calibrated housing model will be subsequently utilized to evaluate different energy efficiency measures to reduce the energy consumption and shave peak electrical demand. Once the high level of energy efficiency is attained, renewable energy systems such as Photovoltaic (PV) and domestic solar water heating systems will be integrated into the model. This analysis will identify the most promising energy retrofitting opportunities for existing residential buildings by implementing high energy-efficient measures and renewable energy systems. The results will be in the form of a plan of actions that addresses practical retrofitting opportunities for reducing energy consumption and shave the peak electrical load in buildings.