A building retrofit and sensitivity analysis in an automatically calibrated model considering the urban heat island effect in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Villas are a very common building typology in Abu Dhabi. Due to its preponderance in residential areas, studying how to effectively reduce energy demand for this type of building is critical for Abu Dhabi, and many similar cities in the region. This study aims to show the impact of proposed energy efficiency measures on a villa using a calibrated model and to demonstrate that to be accurate, the model must be driven using urban weather data instead of rural weather data due to the significance of the urban heat island effect. Available data for this case study includes construction properties, on-site (urban) weather data, occupancy-related loads and schedules and rural weather data. Four main steps were followed, weather data customisation combining urban and rural weather variables, model calibration using a genetic algorithm-based tool and simulating retrofit strategies. We created a calibrated model for electricity demand during 2016-2017 with a 4% normalized mean bias error and an 11% coefficient of variation of the mean square error. Changing from none to all retrofit strategies results in a 34% reduction in annual energy consumption. According to the calibrated model, increased urban temperatures cause a 7.1% increase in total energy consumption.