Heuristic Approach for Net-Zero Energy Residential Buildings in Arid Region Using Dual Renewable Energy Sources

Abstract

Optimizing a net-zero energy (NZE) residential building using what renewable energy resources are available in desert environments and budgeted within the limits of a governmental construction project is proving to be increasingly challenging for many countries, including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Buildings in such regions encounter significantly high annual energy consumption rates, especially in the cooling capacity across a project’s life cycle, which in turn impacts the investment value. Therefore, this study presents a heuristic approach that aimed to examine the feasibility of NZE residential buildings in the KSA using an arid campus case study within the period of 2021–2022 based on the dual renewable energy sources of a geothermal heat pump (GHP), which served as a cooling system, and photovoltaic thermal collectors (PVT) serving as a power generation system. This study adopted a numerical technical assessment in the case study, using HAP software to analyze heating/cooling systems, and PVsyst V7.1.0 software for the variable simulation of solar photovoltaic power systems. This heuristic approach, through two assessment stages, achieved significant outcomes for a sustainable bottom-line, and provide a practical approach for achieving an NZE residential building in the King Faisal University (KFU) case study, as well as a reduction in energy consumption as well as the maintenance cost, which has a positive consequence on the payback period. Our study’s results have implications for both sustainable and green buildings with similar characteristics to those we investigated, and our results could be used to develop installation guidelines for renewable energy systems. Furthermore, our results can provide decision makers with a basis for retrofitting existing buildings to enhance their energy efficiency, increase investment value, as well as prevent the indiscriminate installation of renewable energy sources to merely increase the renewable energy installation rate.