Thermal Impact of Different Interior Finishing Materials on Energy Consumption in Bahrain

Abstract

The energy consumption is becoming increasingly important since last years. This has resulted in a movement towards designing more energy efficient buildings because buildings consume a significant amount of the energy. In Bahrain for example, buildings alone consume the largest amount of the total electric energy,it is (about 81%). Specifically, residential buildings consume 54.5% of the total energy use with an increasing rate of 7.5% in energy consumption every year. A large portion of this consumption is used to air-condition buildings for providing thermal comfort. So; the building envelope is one of the most important systems affecting energy efficiency of a building (e.g. walls, windows, roof and finishing).The main purpose of this research is to identify the effect of interior finishing materials on energy consumption for residential buildings in Bahrain and to provide a tool that could help designers to reach better understanding for energy conservation. In order to achieve the research objectives, a building evaluation model (a base case)had been designed and eQUEST 3-64 simulation program was used to evaluate the most common interior finishing materials on energy consumption. Another base case model was developed to simulate the impact of different  orientation of a selected material on energy consumption.The results of the simulation show that, the best material to use as interior finishing for the residential buildings in Bahrain is the plywood material. The results show that using of plywood as interior finishing material will consumes about 7.6% less energy, less cooling demand and around 10% and approximately (14%) less in ventilation fans demand. The annual utility bills can therefore be saved by almost 16% if plywood finishing material is used in comparison to the base case model. In light of these conclusions, further futuristic studies are recommended to ascertain the effect of various parameters of interior finishing materials such as thickness, colors and surface roughness on the thermal comfort.

Keywords: Energy consumption, residential finishing, finishing effects, energy simulations.