Improving thermal performance and minimizing energy use in buildings, Jordan, 2005–2008

Project summary
The overall objective of this project between the Royal Scientific Society (RSS), Jordan, and Housing Development & Management and Energy & Building Design at Lund University, Sweden, was to define the means and criteria for improving thermal performance and minimising energy use in buildings in Jordan. The project was divided into three main parts, Theoretical concepts, Practical experiments and Training and awareness campaign. This report presents the results of the two first activities.

The Theoretical concepts dealt with climate-conscious and energy-efficient design, both at the building and urban level, focusing on the capital city Amman.

A climatic zoning for Jordan was proposed based on the classical degree day method and computer simulations of a typical building’s thermal performance.

Good indoor thermal comfort can be achieved through a climate-conscious design without the excessive use of energy. The optimization process showed that an improvement of the thermal transmittance (U-value) for both roofs and walls would allow a total saving in energy for cooling and heating of up to 70% for a typical apartment in Amman.

As for the urban microclimate, more shading on the street level is necessary to provide a climate-conscious urban design that takes the hot summer conditions into account. This can be provided through higher height-to-width ratios of urban street canyons and through different forms of overhead shading. However, the cold season also has to be considered and some wider streets and open public spaces should be designed for solar access. The urban codes of Amman were found to be inappropriate and need to be changed to promote shading of pedestrians.

The Practical experiments included both laboratory tests and software development. The laboratory tests included measurements of the g-value, the thermal resistance of Jordanian solar shutters and the ventilation rate of a typical apartment in Amman.

Cost-effective improvements and possible future tests at the RSS laboratory are suggested. In addition methods to measure the solar transmission through windows and of the g-value for different combinations of windows and solar shutters are proposed, as well as testing the performance of different solar energy systems including both solar collectors and photo-voltaic systems.

The software tools DEROB-LTH and ParaSol were adapted to Jordanian conditions. DEROB-LTH can simulate both mechanically and naturally ventilated buildings and schedule leakages through opened windows and between internal volumes. A Jordanian type of window shutter has been included in ParaSol and the range of possible external wall U-values has been extended.

Project participants

• Building Research Centre, Royal Scientific Society, Jordan
• Housing Development & Management, Lund University, Sweden
• Energy & Building Design, Lund University, Sweden

Contact persons

Erik Johansson
e-mail: erik.johansson@hdm.lth.se
tel: +46-46 222 4263
fax: +46-46 222 8181

Reports
Final project report