Evaluation and optimization of the thermal and energy performance of a university classroom in Medina, Saudi Arabia

In 2022, buildings in Saudi Arabia consumed 1.369 million barrels of oil daily an increase of 17% from the consumed amount of energy in 2020. This huge amount represents 29% of the total energy consumption. Air-conditioning systems alone make up 70% of the electricity consumption in buildings. The educational buildings are no exception, where the consumed energy is sometimes overcooling the internal environments. This highlights the importance of integrating climate-responsive design strategies to achieve thermally comfortable spaces without consuming high amounts of energy. In a previous study, the performance of lighting and cooling systems at Najran University, Saudi Arabia, was monitored using on-site measurements and a survey. Globe temperature, airspeed, and relative humidity were recorded in staff offices and classrooms for 24 hours on several days between September 2022 and October 2023. The measured globe temperature ranged from 14.3 °C to 25.3 °C, which is cooler than the thermal comfort range during the majority of the year, despite that 57.7% of the respondents to the survey reported being satisfied with this range (Elbellahy et al., 2024).

Another study argued the importance of designing school buildings in Saudi Arabia to respond to the local microclimate conditions in optimizing energy consumption. thermal and energy performance of typical school building was evaluated through computer simulations in two cities with different climatic conditions. The results revealed the potential of integrating natural ventilation techniques to reduce the operation energy of the building in both cities (Alwetaishi and Balabel, 2019).

The study aims to quantify the effect of integrating selected design strategies to improve the thermal and energy performance of an existing educational building at Taibah University, Saudi Arabia. Taibah University is located in Madinah City, which has an extremely hot summer and warm winter seasons. The current thermal conditions of the investigated spaces are monitored using physical equipment to measure air temperature, air velocity, relative humidity, globe temperature and internal surface temperature of external surfaces. The students are surveyed to explore their thermal perception and its effects on their productivity.

The effect of the integrated design strategies is quantified using thermal and energy performance simulations using EDSL TAS software. The preliminary results indicated that retrofitting such buildings not only improves the indoor thermal environment and energy consumption but also improves students’ productivity. The importance of this study evolves from the expected improvements in the thermal comfort conditions and the expected reductions in the consumed energy.