Keeping Cool in the Desert: Using Wind Catchers for Improved Thermal Comfort and Indoor Air Quality at Half the Energy

Date

2021-03-06

Advisors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

ISSN

2075-5309

Volume Title

Publisher

MDPI

Type

Article

Peer reviewed

Yes

Abstract

In hot arid climates, air conditioning in the summer dominates energy use in buildings. In Kuwait, energy demand in buildings is dominated by cooling, which also determines the national peak electricity demand. Schools contribute significantly to cooling demand, but also suffer from poor ventilation. This paper presents analysis of a ventilation and cooling system for school classrooms using a wind catcher for natural ventilation and evaporative cooling. A school classroom in Kuwait with single-sided ventilation was modelled using the DesignBuilder V5.4/EnergyPlus V9.1 software and calibrated using field data. The model was used to analyse the performance of a wind catcher, with and without evaporative cooling, in terms of energy use, thermal comfort and indoor air quality. Compared to the baseline of using air-conditioning only, a wind catcher with evaporative cooling was found to reduce energy use by 52% during the summer months while increasing the comfortable hours from 76% to 100% without any supplementary air conditioning. While the time below the ASHRAE CO2 limit also improved from 11% to 24% with the wind catcher, the indoor air quality was still poor. These improvements came at the cost of a 14% increase in relative humidity. As the wind catcher solution appears to have potential with further development; several avenues for further research are proposed.

Description

open access article

Keywords

natural ventilation, energy efficiency, thermal comfort, cooling load, air-conditioning, wind catcher

Citation

Saif, J., Wright, A., Khattak, S., Elfadli, K. (2021) Keeping Cool in the Desert: Using Wind Catchers for Improved Thermal Comfort and Indoor Air Quality at Half the Energy. Buildings, 11(3), 100. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/buildings11030100

Rights

Research Institute