Spatial variation of building energy consumption in Egypt based on high-resolution typical meteorological year data

Abstract

Building energy consumption is a crucial aspect of the construction industry, as it significantly impacts operational costs and environmental sustainability. This study investigates the spatial variations of cooling energy consumption in Egypt, enabling the identification of regions vulnerable to high energy demands. To this end, we utilize high-resolution typical meteorological year (TMY) data developed from the reanalysis ERA5 dataset. EnergyPlus was employed to simulate a small office building for 535 grid points representing populous regions in Egypt. The Sandia method was utilized to generate TMY data for the last 30 years (1991–2020). The results reveal that the demand for cooling energy in the southern regions could be almost 136 % higher than in the northern regions of Egypt. The temporal patterns reveal the adverse influence of climate change on the average cooling energy consumption, with the peak values in July and August. The deviation between the TMY-based and long-term energy consumption showed a good agreement in different grids, with R² greater than 0.9 in all grids and normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) ranging between 12 and 32.2 %. Furthermore, the paired t-test results show no significant difference between energy consumption derived from TMY data and long-term data across 95% of the studied grid points in Egypt, indicating that TMY data effectively represents long-term energy consumption trends. The findings can inform energy-efficient building design strategies and policymakers on improving energy efficiency and reducing environmental impacts.