Thermal Performance of the Extensive Green Roofs in Hot Dry Climate

Ashraf Muharam, ElSayed Amer, Nasser Al-Hemiddi

Thermal Performance, Green Roof System, Concrete Roof System, Hot Dry Climate, Internal Temperatures.

Green roofs have been used as an environmentally friendly product to encourage sustainable construction. Green roofs have a variety of advantages, such as reducing the energy consumption for cooling systems. The performance of these systems depends on the climates. The energy consumption for heating and cooling inside the residential and commercial buildings reach to 70% in hot dry climates such as Riyadh city which the temperature reached 50°C. So, the study aim to examine the efficiency of Extensive Green Roof system for reducing energy consumption of cooling in buildings in hot dry regions by compared it is performance with concrete roof system. The experimental validations were applied on residential building in Riyadh city during the summer season in 2014. The study used two rooms for testing thermal performance - the first room with extensive green roof system and the second room with concrete roof system. The results showed that using environmentally friendly insulation (Extensive Green Roof System) could reduce 12% to 33% for energy consumption of air conditioning in hot dry climates.