Energy Conversion and Management 66 (2013) 143152

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Auditing and analysis of energy consumption of an educational building in hot

and humid area
Hani Hussain Sait
King Abdulaziz University, Rabigh, PO Box 344, Rabigh 21911, Saudi Arabia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 30 May 2012
Received in revised form 19 September
2012
Accepted 7 October 2012
Available online 23 November 2012
Keywords:
Energy audit
Energy saving
Educational building
A/C of buildings

a b s t r a c t
Electric energy consumption is becoming an important issue for individual as well as for governmental
and private organizations. Electric companies in Saudi Arabia face hard times in meeting the increasing
demand for electric power. This research investigation is trying to study the electric energy consumption
for an educational building located in Rabigh city, 150 km North of Jeddah city, Saudi Arabia. Detailed
auditing was done to the building including constructing materials used, energy consumption, cooling
load and lighting. Temperature and relative humidity were recorded for several places inside the building. Thermal images for the interior zones were generated to provide information about the temperature
distribution and give an idea about air or heat leak from or into the building. Based on the analysis of
auditing exercise, some recommendations were suggested to reduce the electric energy consumptions
which can reach up to 35.3%. The A/C units efciency can also be increased by 31%. The results will be
benecial for the educational organizations and operation and maintenance staff to manage the electric
usage and reduce the electric bills.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The population and industrialization growth in Saudi Arabia is
progressing at a rapid pace which has resulted in large inux of
expatriate workers and migration of local residents to industrial
cities. In the Kingdom, the population has increased swiftly from
8.5 million in 1980 to 27 millions in 2011. This steep increase in
the population has resulted in a huge increased in energy demand.
The existing Electric companies in the Kingdom sometimes could
not fulll these huge demands, which results in a revenue loss of
billions of dollars. In Saudi Arabia, the residential and public sectors dominates the highest shares of energy consumption, therefore, these sectors need attention for energy auditing and energy
conservation measures. Energy management is a challenging task
and got a lot of attention over the last several decades. Optimal energy management practices however enhanced the energy savings
when applied with accurate measurement and veried procedures.
Guillermo et al. [1] has discussed the importance of commercial
energy management which is usually done by non-professional
personnel. In his paper he presented the basic actions for base
improvements in energy efciency in commercial buildings in
operation. Furthermore, the details of the implementation of these
techniques in various buildings in the Universit at Politcnica de
Valncia have also been outlined. The author recommends that
Tel.: +966 500632643; fax: +966 22564933.
E-mail address: hhsait@kau.edu.sa
0196-8904/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2012.10.005

accurate measurement and storage of operational data and proper

schedule of the different processes are prior actions. Consumption
of electricity must be automatically monitored and an individual
must be made responsible for energy use. Pro-active actions are
necessary and facilities must be modied to enable easier management. These actions have been tested in several buildings at the
Universit at Politcnica de Valncia (UPV) and considerable nancial savings were being made. It also facilitated the building manager to manage the premises more efciently. Also, Haris et al. [2]
presented an intelligent decision support model using rule sets
based on a typical building energy management system. The models impact on the energy consumption and indoor quality of a typical ofce building was also highlighted. Based on the results of its
pilot application, it was determined that the current models operation was satisfactory, since it contributed to the improved indoor
air quality of the building, while assuring the possible energy saving. In addition, its interface was characterized as very friendly and
facilitative, based on the users comments on its pilot application.
Moreover, its open architecture allowed easy and continuous updates and unlimited horizontal and vertical expandability.
Energy auditing has been found useful in studying building energy performance, and energy consumed by different utilities in
the building. The detailed energy audit involves detailed recording
and analysis of energy consumption, by sector during a longer and
representative time span. Many authors are concerned in doing detailed energy audit for certain buildings which belong to certain
sector like residential, ofces, educational or industry in certain

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H.H. Sait / Energy Conversion and Management 66 (2013) 143152

area. Umberto and Stefania [3] performed energy audit analysis for
school buildings of a province in central of Italy. They studied both
thermal and electric energy consumption through energy auditing
technique for 13 school buildings. Energy analysis of the school
buildings showed that electric energy consumptions was between
15% and 25% due to non-A/C sources, while thermal consumption
contributed up to 80% of the total annual energy consumptions.
By comparing the electric energy consumptions and thermal energy consumptions per unit volume, students and classes, they
proved that thermal energy saving can reach up to 38% and electric
energy consumption can be reduced by 46%, if the minimum optimal energy consumption is reached. Recently, Alajmi [4] carried
out energy audit technique to identify Energy Conservations
Opportunities (ECOs), for a two storey building located in hot environment of (state of Kuwait). His worked consisted of two levels;
walk through assessment and survey and data analysis over all
building zones. This assessment found that the electrical and
mechanical systems in the building were not properly operated
and not well maintained. By suggesting some recommendations
he founds that a saving of up to 49.3% of the building annual energy consumptions with a payback periods of less than six months
is possible. Jing et al. [5] reported large-scale investigation of energy efciency (EE) in buildings in contemporary China which
was done in 22 provincial capitals and major cities in China. The
aim of this project was to provide reliable information for drawing
up the Decision on reinforcing building energy efciency by the
Ministry of Construction of China. The surveyed organizations include government departments, research institutions, property
developers, design institutions, construction companies; construction consultancy services companies, facility management departments, nancial institutions and those which relate to the business
of building energy efciency. In addition to the common benets
that are obtained because of the energy efciency, it was also
found that the installation of thermostats and a metering payment
system can achieve a 30% energy saving.
In this study an educational building, namely: College of Engineering Building located in the coastal city of Rabigh is investigated for thermal performance. Detailed energy audit was carried
out. Temperature, relative humidity and power meters were installed on the building to determine the building thermal and energy behavior. Analysis of the measured data was made and
recommendations were generated to lower the building energy
consumption. Payback method was used to analysis some of the
suggested solutions. Typical studies have been done by earlier to
account for the local environmental conditions which can severely
affect the energy efciency of commercial buildings. Hassan [6]
discussed a systematic methodology for optimizing the energy performance of buildings in Bahrain. The methodology is based on
Building Management Systems (BMSs), simulation tools and other
technologies. This methodology was implemented using Visual
DOE and was directly related to collectively gathered data gained
form experimental works and practical applications. In the building under study, approximately 65% of electricity was used for
cooling systems. This was due to the large amount of external
and internal heat gains. It was concluded that the governmental
building, MEW-Bldg., is poor energy and environmental performer.
Xiangfei et al. [7] has studied the energy performance and indoor
environment quality of typical public buildings in Hainan, which
is the only the tropical and island province in China. The author
investigated the energy consumption of in public buildings, including hotels, ofce buildings and department stores. The building energy consumption (BEC) was found to be highest for departmental
stores. The main drivers for this increase in the departmental
stores were also identied. However, BEC of Hainan province was
on a low-level as compared with that of foreign countries and
other provinces or cites in China. Additionally, for rating the IEQ

in Hainan province, related eld tests were carried out as well.

The result showed that the indoor air temperature, RH, and CO2
concentration were in a sound condition, but the illumination
was not ideal. The BEC for the College of Engineering Rabigh has
been investigated for various seasons and have been duly outlined
later in this paper.
2. Building data collection
2.1. Building location
Rabigh is located on the west coast of the red sea of Saudi Arabia
at the Longitude of 39E and Latitude of 22.48N. Rabigh is a city
that belongs to Makka Al Mukarrama zone, it is located about
150 km North of Jeddah. The total population of Rabigh is about
35,000.
The university campus is overlooking the sea, about 7 km on
West of the city center. The new campus now consists of ve faculty buildings plus one preparatory year building. Since Rabigh is
located in hot region of SA where the hot season covers most of
the year and air conditioning is a must. Fig. 1 shows the average
monthly maximum and minimum temperature and relative
humidity distribution around the year [8].
It is clear from Fig. 1 that the hottest months are July and August with the lowest relative humidity. It also shows the lowest
temperature occurs in January, February and December with the
highest relative humidity.

(a)

(b)

Fig. 1. Monthly average: (a) temperature and (b) relative humidity during the year,
Rabigh [8,9].

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145

2.2. Building specication

The building under consideration has dimensions of
30  30  16 m in size. It has three oors included the ground
oor. The front side elevation (main entrance) of the building is
facing North/West. The next adjacent building in this direction is
at a distance of 35 m from building. The north side elevation of
the building is adjacent to another building of the same size with
a distance of 15 m between the two buildings. There are no buildings adjacent to the building in the South and East side of the
building. Table 1, gives a summary of the building specications.
The building is constructed using huge steel beams, 30  30 cm.
The exterior walls are consist of 20  20  40 black concrete
blocks, 5 cm polystyrene insulation and 2 cm granite tiles surrounding all exterior walls as shown in Fig. 2. The roof consists
of 10 cm concrete slab, poured above metal sheet hung above the
beams. Above the concrete slab there exists water insulation and
then 5 cm thermal insulation materials. Above them cement tiles
are xed using concrete slabs. The widows consist of double glass
materials with frames panel. The windows area represents about
15% of the front and rear elevations area and about 12% in the right
and left sides. The room partitions are all gypsum board and xed
with metal frames. Table 2 gives thermal conductivity and thermal
resistances for materials that are used for walls, roof and glass.
The roof and walls of the building are insulated using 5 cm polystyrene thickness. The overall heat transfer coefcient, U-values for
the existing building are as follows, 0.46, 0.43 and 1.88 W/m2 K for
the walls, roof and windows respectively.
On the other hand, the buildings wall is covered by 2 cm, Granite tiles which have dark color, in which this is considered as a
drawback for building in such hot areas.

2.3. Thermal performance of the building

In order to save energy in buildings, one has to focus on the
thermal performance of the entire building, not just a component
or a system. The investigation should include:
1. Construction materials, color of exterior walls and thermal
insulation.
2. Proper solar orientation of the building, and its geometric
shape.
3. The number of stories for a given oor area requirement.
4. Shading or reections from adjacent structures.
5. Opportunities for natural ventilation; wind direction and speed.
6. Air inltration and efciently sized mechanical equipment.
Many authors, like Yesilata et al. [10], Sadineni et al. [11] and
Ternes et al. [12] emphasis that by insulating the exterior wall,
10% of energy saving can be reached. However, Han et al. [13] stated that using glasswool insulation can reduce space cooling load

Table 1
Summary of building specications.
Item

Description

Unit

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Total interior space (volume)

Total exterior walls area
Total roof area/oor
Total glass/windows/facade area
Total estimated number of employees/staff (estimated)
Total estimated number of visitors per day (estimated)
Total number of class rooms and PC labs
Total number of ofces
Total number of labs and workshops
Toilets

8910 m3
1783.2 m2
900 m2
242.64 m2
250300
100150
7
20
9
9

Fig. 2. Side photo for the exterior wall section and a schematic of the wall, shows
the wall layers, 1: inside air, 2: cement layer, 3: concrete block, 4: R7 board
insulation, 5: granite, 6: outside air.

by 20%. By comparing the U-values with the standard mentioned

in [10], the roof value is beyond the standards.
Many authors [1416] studied the effect of geometric shape and
building orientation on solar absorption to the building, for the
high-rise buildings in hot humid area. They found the circular
shape building is the most optimum shape in minimizing the total
solar absorption. The square shape, as the building in hand, receives the lowest total solar absorption compared with rectangular
shape. However the east oriented wall receives the highest radiation followed by the south, west and north oriented side respectively. For the existing building, it is square in shape, and East
West oriented which makes its east side exposed to the highest solar radiation.
Peak design can be overestimated by 2531% because of the
shading effect, [17]. The building under investigation has a free
space almost from all sides except from the north, in which there
exists another building. The two buildings are 15 m apart. Because
of these factors, their shading effect and the reection on each
other are low.
All widows on the building, except for the ground oor, are nonopen windows. So natural ventilation into the building is not an
option. The ventilation occurs by providing fresh air through the
air conditioning systems. The wind in the area, is normally comes
from the north and west. Since the building is located close to the
sea, and is in an open area, the wind effect should be considered.
Fig. 3 shows average wind speed in Rabigh for selective 15 days,
which ranges between 12.8 and 32 km/h.
The building is considered as a tight building, since all windows
are sealed and non-opened types. The windows on the ground oor
can be opened for ventilations which make them a source of inltration. The three outside doors of the building are sources for the
inltration, too. The effect of the inltration is considered in calculating the heat load and designing the air-conditioning system.
Further details of the cooling load and choosing the proper size
of air-conditioning is described below.
Occupants behavior play an important role in estimating the
cooling load, heating and ventilation as well as the amount of
the electricity, water consumed and solid and liquid wastes produced from them [19].
There are about 200 students and about 70 faculty members
and staff. Some of the students and employees enter and exit the
building during the break, lunch time and between classes. The
estimated number of visitors coming in and out of the building is
about 300 persons a day. All of the previous factors affect the electric consumptions for lighting and air conditioning and other
services.

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H.H. Sait / Energy Conversion and Management 66 (2013) 143152

Table 2
Material thermal conductivity and resistances for wall, roof and glass.
ho (W/m2 K)

Granit

Insulation (Expanded
polystyrene slab)

Brick

Cement
layer

hi (W/m2 K)

Total resistance
for the wall

U (W/m2 K)

2.15

0.46

2.3

0.43

0.53

1.88

(W/m K)
Material for walls
k
R (K/W)

15
0.07

2.21
0.01

0.035
1.43

0.51
0.39

0.72
0.14

9
0.11

Material for roof

ho (W/m2 K)

Tiles

Cement layer

Insulation

Asphalt

Concrete
slab

Air

Gypsum

k
R (K/W)

15
0.07

(W/m K)
0.84
0

0.72
0.02

0.035
1.43

0.5
0.1

1.1
0.09

0.027

0.17
0.59

Material for glass

k
R (K/W)

hi (W/m2 K)
9
0.11

Glass (W/m2 K)
0.35

ho (W/m K)
15
0.07

Fig. 3. Average wind speed for Rabigh city during selective days, [18].

3. Data monitoring
3.1. Electric power requirements
The total power requirement and its percentage for various
types of electrical equipments in the engineering building are
shown in Table 3. The electric load for air conditioning system represents about 82% of the total installed power. The electric load for
light is about 5% which is low, since all lights of the building are
orescent types which consume very low electricity and produce
a good amount of light. Other electrical load for the building is still
low, since not all labs are equipped yet. Since the building is new,
the equipment is working with high efciency and without any
waste of power.
The daily energy consumption for the engineering building was
measured using NETWORK ANALYZER MPR-53S [20]. The daily
consumption of the building varies between 1600 kW h and
reaches up to 2000 kW h. The lowest electric energy consumption
was for the weekends. Otherwise, the consumption is considered
very high.
The variation of the electric consumption during the day is also
measured. It was found that during the working hours, 9 AM3 PM
the consumption was about 874 kW h, or about 145.7 kW h per
hour, whereas the consumption for the rest of the day and night
was 1049 kW h, or about 58.1 kW h per hour. This means about
45% of the electric energy is consumed during the working hours,
whereas the rest (i.e. 55%) is consumed during the off work hours.
This also indicates that there is a huge waste of energy during the
off work hours, i.e. the central air conditioning is still running and
the lights are ON.
As was shown in Table 3, it was found that the power consumption is mainly due to air-conditioning. This load was measured

after turning off all electricity from all equipments in the building
except for air-conditioning.
Most of the electric energy consumption is due to air conditioning which reaches up to 91% of the total electric consumption
when all packages units and splits are ON. Electric energy consumption due to light and others miscellaneous load is only 9%
of the total load. Most buildings have the electric load due to thermal load between 70% and 80%, as indicated by Umberto and Stefania [3]. In the case of the existing engineering building, the
excessive electric load is due to oversize of the package units. This
was very clear for our building. When the set temperature is low
for the building, the temperature could reach a very low value in
the neighborhood of 18 C.
Fig. 4 below also shows the total energy consumption for the
engineering building for twelve months starting from May 2011
to April 2012. The highest energy consumption was found in September which is about 80,000 kW h. Noting that the ground oor
air-conditioning was operated in that month, which causes this
high rate of electric consumption, although 5 days of this month
was holiday due to Eid Al-Fitr. Plus, splits units at the ground oor
were fully operated for testing reasons all the time. October is the
most realistic load in which all equipments were operated in normal hours. Comparing the electric consumptions of October to June
or July, where the ground oor was not ready yet, it gave a consumption of 10,00014,000 kW h which is due to electric consumption of the ground oor.
It can be also noticed that the electric consumptions for the
months of November to April are low compared to other months.
The reason behind that is, for November there was Hajj vacation
which is about 12 days. Also, these months were considered of
the winter season in which the outside temperature and solar
intensity were lower than the values during the hot season from
May to September as it can be seen in Fig. 1. Another factor is that
the central air-conditioning was usually turned off during some
cold days. Since the total internal volume for the building is
8910 m3. The average estimated people occupying the building
during the working hours are 300. Number of rooms, classes and
ofces are 36. The department of standard in Malaysia, 2001 code
of particles for non-residential building, stated that the annual energy consumption for the non-residential building should be less
than 135 kW h/m2/yr, Chia et al. [14]. Total oor area for the three
oors is 2700 m2. The average usage of electric power is about
72,0000 kW h/yr, which represents 266 kW h/m2/yr. By comparing
these results with, Malaysia, 2001 code, the consumption is over by
1.97 times, whereas it should be i.e. 135 kW h/m2/yr. However, the
value is slightly lower than the average consumption of ofce
building in Malaysia, 269 kW h/m2/yr, and higher than those of

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H.H. Sait / Energy Conversion and Management 66 (2013) 143152

Table 3
Building electrical load (kW).
No
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19

Air conditioning

Light
Ofce equipment

Lab devices

Other equipments and elevators

Name of the components

Power (kW)

Total power (kW)

%Power

Air conditioning package units

625.469

82.9

Split units

246.180 (1st. Fl)

175.843 (2nd. Fl)
203.4

Florescent light
Computers
Copying machines
Printers
Scanners
LCD screen
Refrigeration cycles devices
Barometric device
Drilling machine
Welding machine
Elevators
Cosecant lamp
Water heaters
Ventilation fans
Pumps

36.648
38.4
1.2
4.5
1
1
3
1
1.5
4
17.904
10
6
1
2.3

36.6
46.1

4.8
6.1

9.5

1.2

37.2

4.9

754.9

9.0E+04
8.0E+04
7.0E+04
6.0E+04
5.0E+04
4.0E+04
3.0E+04
2.0E+04
1.0E+04
0.0E+00

Energy
Consumption (kW.h)

Total

Fig. 4. Monthly Energy Consumption in Engineering Building starts from May 2011
to April 2012.
Fig. 5. Temperature and relative humidity recording in different rooms.

Southeast Asia region, 233 kW h/m2/yr, Chia et al. [14]. By volume,

the engineering building has an average energy consumption of
80kWh/m3/yr and per person the consumption is 2400 kW h/person/yr.
3.1.1. Analysis of the energy consumption
The thermal performance of the engineering building was
investigated and found that the building had the following aspects:
Since the building consumes 55% of the total load on non-working hours, there is a good chance for energy saving.
It has been noticed when the load varies with the thermostat
setting, as the thermostat setting decreases, the electric consumptions increased, and vice versa.
If we increase the thermostat setting by 2 C (i.e. from 21 to
23 C) then the energy saving will be 744 kW h/day which is
about 37% of the total energy consumed per day. So, it means
that a slight adjustment in the temperature setting results in
great energy saving.
3.2. Indoor room temperature analysis
3.2.1. Indoor temperature and relative humidity measurements
Various rooms in the Faculty of Engineering building were monitored for dry bulb temperatures and relative humidies under various environmental conditions. The data were plotted and
compared with the thermal comfort psychometric chart developed
by American Society of Heating & Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers, ASHRAE 55-2010 [21]. The variation of indoor T and
RH for some rooms is shown below in Fig. 5. The analysis suggests
that most of the rooms lie within the thermal comfort envelope for

most of times during ofce hours. However, at times the thermal

comfort levels deviate from the recommended values. The temperature becomes too low causing discomfort condition. This is due to
low thermostat setting.
3.3. Thermal image analysis
Thermal image camera was used to generate an image showing
distribution of temperature for the selected object. This information amazingly gives a different sense to humans. In this way it
is possible to visualize the hot and cool air losses. These images
can also give information to detect cracks, moisture, and water
damages. Using this information, it is possible to x the building
walls with a little effort and very low cost before having bigger
problems. It is also possible to detect damaged buildings automatically even at night time. In order to appreciate the effect of the orientation of the building, thermal images of the windows located in
various rooms of the building were captured. This revealed the
maximum, minimum and average window wall temperatures.
From all thermal images it was clearly shown that the windows
surface temperature is higher than the surrounded wall. It reaches
to an average value of 95.7F (35.4 C) as shown in Fig. 6. The metal
frame of windows was at higher temperature since its temperature
reached 102.4F (39.1 C). The images indicate that the maximum
surface temperatures were observed on the windows which were
facing East and South. This in turn requires more cooling ow in
this room to compensate for excessive heat loss. The thermal image for the skylight window is shown on Fig. 6e. As the gure
shows its temperature surface reached 120F (48.9 C), which indi-

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H.H. Sait / Energy Conversion and Management 66 (2013) 143152

(a) Room 5-214 Facing North

(c) Room No (5-204) Facing South

(d) 5-219 Facing West

(b) Room No (5-209) Facing East

(e) Sky Light on 2nd Floor

Fig. 6. Thermal Images of windows located in various rooms on the 2nd oor, photos captured in June 18, 2011: 3:00 pm.

cated that it is a high source of heat into the building. Therefore, it

is highly required to shade the windows from outside and have
shading for the skylight to reduce the thermal load of the building.
4. Air-conditioning (A/C)
4.1. Thermal load calculations
Carriers Hourly Analysis Program (HAP) is a computer tool
which assists engineers in designing HVAC systems for commercial
buildings. HAP can be used to estimate loads and designing systems, as well as simulate energy use and calculate its costs. HAP
uses the ASHRAE-endorsed transfer function method for load calculations and detailed 8760 h-by-hour energy simulation techniques for the energy analysis. [22]
HAP estimates design cooling and heating loads for buildings in
order to determine required sizes for HVAC system components.
Ultimately, the program provides information needed for selecting
and specifying equipment. It can calculate cooling and heating
loads for spaces, zones, and coils in the HVAC system. After that,
the required airow rates can be determined. Sizes of all required
devices such as cooling and heating coils, fans, chillers and boilers
can be found.
The annual energy use and energy costs for HVAC and nonHVAC energy consuming systems in a building can be estimated
using HAP. This can be done by simulating building operation for
each of the 8760 h in a year. Energy use and energy costs of alter-

nate HVAC system designs can be compared. So the best design can
be chosen. HAP can simulates hour-by-hour operation of all heating and air conditioning systems, all plant equipment and nonHVAC systems including lighting and appliances in the building.
The results can be used to calculate total annual energy use and energy costs using actual utility rate. All the previous information
and the gathered data can be generated in tables and graphical reports for hourly, monthly and annual data.
This program was used to estimate the cooling load for the engineering building. All building specications are fed into the program.
Jeddah area was used as reference for the outdoor environment
behavior since Rabigh data were not incorporated into the program.
The building is divided into three zones, namely; ground, 1st oor
and 2nd oor. Each one of them is treated as separate system. The
program results estimates that the cooling loads are 35.5, 43.3 and
28.3 tons for the ground, rst and second oors respectively.
4.2. Air conditioning systems
Two air conditioning systems exist in the building. The ground
oor is cooled by split ducted system, while central air conditioning system is utilized at the 1st and 2nd oor.
4.3. Ground oor
The estimated cooling load for the ground oor which is consisted of eight labs and workshops plus the corridor is 57.94 tons

H.H. Sait / Energy Conversion and Management 66 (2013) 143152

149

Fig. 7. A schematic of the two packages units connected together.

according to the consulting company of the project, AL RABIA. The

consultant originally uses Elite program Chvac.8 [23] for this calculations. Since the labs and workshops are not usually in use, therefore, each zone is air conditioned by separate split duct system
units installed on the top roof. Total of 20 split duct unites exist,
eighteen of them are of 3.2 tons capacity each and two of them
are of 2 tons capacity each. Refrigerant R-22 is transferred through
copper pipes to indoor units. The total supply air rate is 21,126 cfm
with 13% fresh air.
4.3.1. First oor and second oor
Since the 1st and 2nd oors are mixed of ofces, classes, library
and meeting rooms. They are full in use during the working day.
Therefore they are air-conditioned by roof type package units,
two compressors each, with cooling capacity of 70 and 45 refrigerant tons respectively, all air system. The 1st package unit provides
18,416 cfm of air with 10% fresh air to the rst oor, while
14,879 cfm of air with 11.5% is provided to the second oor by
the second package unit.
At the cooling zones, in each oor there exists one main thermostat that controls the main package unit and other sub-thermostats that control various zones at the oor. The fresh air is ltered
by passing through sand trap, aluminum lter and pleated lter.
The exhaust air discharges thorough separate duct with total off
600 cfm from toilets. There is no exhaust air opening near the
package unit.
Fig. 7 shows a schematic for package units that air conditioned
the 1st and the 2nd oor. A by-pass exists to combine the supply
air from the two package units. In case of maintenance, if needed,
the supply air from one unit can supply cooled air to both 1st and
2nd oor. The return air from each oor goes to its package unit.
According to the temperature set and the load, one or two compressors can operate. Fresh air is mixed with the return air and
then the mixed is passed over the evaporator. A smoke exhaust
fan was placed on, the by-pass duct. In case of re, the two units
will be turns off and the smoke exhaust fan will discharge all air
from the building. At the same time, fresh air will be provided to
the stairs through fresh air fans placed at the top of the stairs roof.
As it was mentioned earlier the installed air-conditioning unit
capacities are 58 tons for the ground oor, 70 tons for the 1st oor

and 45 tons for the second oor. By comparing the estimated values of cooling load from HAP 4.5 with installed air-conditioning
equipments, it is clear that the installed ones are over sized. This
claries the high electric consumption as presented in the previous
section. To tackle this problem it is highly recommended to manage the air-conditioning system very well. First of all, the main
thermostat for each oor needs to be adjusted to 23 C. Since lowering the setting value below this can cause excessive energy consumptions. The second recommendation is to turn the A/C units off
after the working hours and during the non-working days, and
vacations. This will help in reducing the electric bills. The third recommendation is to have all A/C units shaded. It is believed that
shading the A/C units from direct sun lights might increase their
efciency.
5. Lighting
5.1. Lightening load of the engineering building
Lighting is the second important source for load in the building.
Depending on type of lamps used and operating hours, the thermal
load and energy use would vary. Spot lights generates high amount
of heat, although they are of low cost. Florescent lamps can give
more light intensity than the spot light without producing waste
heat. Therefore, most of lamps used in the engineering building
are Recessed Luminas with Electronic Florescent Lamps. The lighting installed at the Faculty of Engineering building was duly analyzed the light intensity was measured in the building using
Omega-FLO Lux meter [24]. The effects of window blinds were also
analyzed.
The building has an opening of 2.5  3.5 m, in the roof of the 1st
and the 2nd oor directed to skylight. The opening is located in the
middle of the entrance of the main gate. The building has also 100
outside windows, with three different sizes, of 1.5  1, 1.5  2 and
1.5  2.4 m. The total area of all windows is about 242.64 m2. The
windows have double glass, and all have blinds inside. Most lights
are orescent type which gives good lighting to the users of the
building. The stairs have compact uorescent lamps.
The lighting layout is shown in Fig. 8. The types of lighting xtures used in the building are shown in Table 4. The measurement

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H.H. Sait / Energy Conversion and Management 66 (2013) 143152

.2E+03
.2E+03
.1E+03

.1E+03
.8E+02

Lux

.1E+03

.6E+02
.4E+02
.2E+02
.0E+00

Fig. 8. Light Intensity in Lux for various locations of the engineering building.

Table 4
Summary of lighting xtures in the building.
Location/type

Quantity in ground/
rst and second
Power
Total lighting load
(W)
% of Total
contribution

Recessed Luminas with 4  36 W

electronic uorescent lamps

Recessed Luminas with 4  36 W

rapid start uorescent lamps

Compact
uorescent
lamps

Surface mounted Luminas with

2  36 W uorescent lamps

172

67

64

15

144
24,768

144
9648

18
1152

72
1080

67.5%

26.3%

3.1%

2.9%

of lighting intensity (Lux) in various rooms shows that the average

values of Lux are higher than the normal which is used for ofce
building. The normal Lux values for ofce building can vary from
300 to 500 Lux. It has been noticed that some classes and ofces
have very high Lux intensity, which exceeds 1000 Lux. To reduce
the monthly electricity bill and to decrease the contribution of heat
generated from lighting xtures in the cooling load, it is recommended to adjust the lighting intensity to an average value of
450 Lux. The electric energy consumption for lighting in the engineering building is only 5% of the total energy consumption. More
steps can be taken to further conserve energy like having a timer or
light sensors in the corridor.
6. Improving the building thermal efciency and suggested
solutions
The proposed solution deals with a number of options including
the A/C system and control, lighting, walls insulation, and shading.
From the audit analysis the following points were reached:
(a) High variation of lighting intensity (Lux = lumen/m2).
1. Remove between 40% and 50% of the uorescent tubes in each
xture, in the rooms that have a very high light intensity and
measure the lighting intensity again and make sure that it is
in the range of 400500 Lux. The tubes can be stored and used
in future maintenance to replace the faulty tubes.
2. Install occupancy lighting sensors (motion sensors) to switch
off the lights in case there are no users in the rooms. This can
be installed in meeting rooms and common zones.
(b) Air temperature and relative humidity fall in comfort zone.
(c) Package units and A/C System ndings:
 Room temperature is not efciently set.

Total
(W)

36,648

 Package units are oversized.

 No shading of the condensing units of the A/C system.
(d) Electric consumption is not well managed.
A Building Management System (BMS) is an ideal choice to control and maintain the Air conditioning system, in addition to energy saving benets.
(e) Power quality.
It is known that majority of equipment in the building is nonlinear equipment, such as computers, printers, imaging devices
and motors speed adjustable. Continuous voltage and current variations are features of nonlinear equipments. These differences lead
to high consumption of energy in the devices, increase the power
losses and increase the cooling load in the building. Many electrical
types of equipment are available in the market to reduce the energy consumed in nonlinear loads by improving power factor
[25]. An average of 8% in energy savings can be achieved by using
such equipments as shown in Table 5 [26].
7. Analysis of payback period
The following is a summary of suggested ways for modications
in order to save energy in the building
 Precise control of the air-conditioning system and lighting.
 Add insulated curtains and insulating lm to the external
windows.
 Reduce numbers of lights; the light intensity must be adjusted
according to the criteria recommended for ofce buildings
(300500 Lux).

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H.H. Sait / Energy Conversion and Management 66 (2013) 143152

Table 5
Analysis of cost and energy saving.
Building

Annual total energy cost (SR) for current condition

Annual energy cost for existing chiller (SR)

Cost of new investment (SR)

Energy saving (SR) (yr)

Item
Glass lm (m2)
Control system
Shading (m2), 11 chillers
Lighting Fixture Reduced No. of lightings
Equipment for PQ
Total of new investment, TI (SR)

Based on local manufacturer

Payback period: 2.7 years

Total cost (SR)

10,000
10,000
14,200
0
5000
39,200

Comparison with others

Item
Glass insulation
Air conditioning
Shading of chiller
Lighting adjustment
PQ equipment
Total cost of saving of energy, TC (SR)

5.

8. Conclusion recommendations
The energy audit is an effective tool to evaluate, analyze, diagnose the energy consumption of the building and help to propose
solutions and retrotting. Modications can be evaluated using
the payback method. In this work a building was selected and analyzed from energy consumption point of view. Suggested remedies
to lower energy consumption were also presented. In summary the
followings are the main conclusions:
6.
1. The thermal load calculated based on HAP 4.5 program suggests
that the cooling load for the ground, 1st and 2nd oor are about
36 tons, 44 tons and 29 tons respectively. However the installed
air-conditioning units capacities are 58 tons for ground oor,
70 tons for the 1st oor, and 45 tons for the second oor. By
comparison it is clear that, the installed units are over sized.
2. The electrical load analysis suggests that most of the electric
load in the engineering building is due to air conditioning which
reaches up to 91% of the total electric energy consumption
when all packages units and splits are ON. Electric energy consumption due to light and others miscellaneous load is only 9%
of the total load. However, in most of the commercial buildings,
the electric load due to air conditioning is between 50% and
70%.
3. Since the energy consumption depends mainly on A/C size, it is
important that the correct size should be installed for long term
energy savings. This should be guaranteed at the A/C designing
stage and the design should be veried by an independent A/C
consultant.
4. Wastage of energy has been noticed when the consumed energy
during the working hours was compared to the energy consumed during the non-working hours. It was found that about
45% of the electric energy was consumed during the working
hours, whereas the rest which is 55% was consumed during
the off work hours. It is suggested that, automatic timers be
installed on the air conditioning units to turn the units off after
prescribed ofce hours and during the weekends, and also to
turn it ON before the starting of the working hours with some
adequate time. Electronic cards circuit breaker may be installed

Savings, S
1000
10,000
265
900
2400
14,565

%of Saving = S/TI

2.5
25.5
0.6
0.6
6.1
TC/TI = 35.3%

[3]

38%

[4]

49.3%

[5]

30%

[13]
20%

6 months

 Shading for the condensing units of the A/C system.

 Equipment for power quality.
Table 5 shows the details of costs for the suggested modications and the energy saving using the above modications. The table also shows that the proportion of the overall rationalization of
energy can reached up to 35.3% of total annual consumption by
using the suggested modications. The repayment period of the
proposed amendments will be around 2.7 years.

36,000
26,500

7.

8.

9.

in each class room and ofce to help in conserve the energy

well. A Building Management System (BMS) is an ideal choice
to control temperatures in individual room, and conserve
energy.
It was noticed that the main thermostat was sometimes set
below the normal setting for human comfort, 23 C according
to employee request for feeling uncomfortable. This actually
causes an extra waste of energy. It was measured that for two
degree of temperature difference, i.e. setting the thermostat to
23 C instead of 21 C, the energy saving can reach up to
744 kW h/day which is about 37% of the total energy consumed
per day. So it means that a slight adjustment can results in a
great saving. It is important that the thermostat should not be
set less than 23 C or according to the thermal comfort requirements. Other solutions may be suggested to t the requirement
of the employee, such that having an extra fan. Of course one
can investigate this phenomenon that some people require lowering the temperature below the standard value for the thermal
comfort.
Many staff and students complain that the room thermostat is
not working. By investigating this issue, it was found that the
thermostat in each room control an onoff damper, by full
opening or closing the gate. This type of thermostat has long
time response which causes this complaint.
It has been noticed that some classes and ofces have very high
light intensity, which exceeds 1000 Lux. To reduce the monthly
electricity bill and to decrease the contribution of heat generated from lighting xtures in the cooling load, it is recommended to adjust the lighting intensity to an average value of
450 Lux. Lights have double effect in energy consumption. Light
need electric energy to operate and energy is needed to overcome the heat gain from these lights. Natural lighting by opening the blinds should be encouraged to use.
The thermal image analysis indicates that windows and their
metal frames have high surface temperatures which reach
50 C sometimes. Sky light glass is also another source of heat
gain to the building with its high temperature surface. To x
this issue shaded plates can be xed from outside above the
windows. In the same way, sky light glass can be shaded.
The analysis of the cost for the suggested modications shows
that the saving in energy might reach up to 45% and the payback periods will be around 2.7 years.

It is recommended to establish a national statistical system for

building energy consumption in Saudi Arabia. This will make the
energy building consumption more conservative. Abundant date
can be collected for energy efciency work and energy consumption status in different regions can be compared to provide more
instructions for energy management [27].

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H.H. Sait / Energy Conversion and Management 66 (2013) 143152

Energy efciency in non-residential buildings can result in a

multitude of positive effects: decrease of the use of fossil fuels, reduce undesirable emission for gases and nally decrease the
wasted energy. Additional support actions are necessary for implementation of the suggested solutions to conserve energy. For
example, a public campaign to inform consumers about the advantage and benets of energy conservation. This is a key action for
market acceptability, which is the main driving mechanism for
the successful implementation of any policy [28].
Acknowledgements
This project was funded by the Deanship of Scientic Research
(DSR), King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, under Grant No. (439829/431). The authors, therefore acknowledge with thanks DSR
technical and nancial support. A great thank to Professor Omar
Al Rabghi, the Consultant of the project, for his advise and excellent
comments. The author thanks Dr. Ahmed Hussain and Mr. Hameed
for their help in setting up the devices and collecting the data.
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