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Five story apartment block with 30  apartments, part of the New Youth Residential Complex consisting of 18  buildings with 12,600 flats in total, situated north west  of Damascus in  the Kudsia Suburbs.

The apartment block has a total floor space  of 480 m²;  passive building design measures and solar energy are used to improve energy  efficiency.

Partners:

General Company for Engineering Studies and  Consulting (GCEC) tech-studies-co@mail.sy General Institute for  Housing (GIH) jhe@net.sy National Energy Research Centre (NERC) nerc@mail.s

In 1998,  GCEC did a research called "Towards Better Climatic Responses in Architecture  and Urban Design" examining the comfort in houses of Old Damascus and comparing  it to ordinary "modern" houses. The results persuaded the team to promote the  advantages of the old traditional ways of building in Old Damascus and to rediscover  design measures already implemented in the past.

The overall  energy concept is based on passive building design measures combined with new  energy efficient technologies and the use of renewable energies.

Profitability:
  Compared to a conventional building, the  total primary energy consumption of the pilot project is reduced by over 60%.  Due to the 35% higher investment costs, however, the project is economically  not feasible. Only concentrating on the most cost efficient measures brings the  pay back time down to around 10 years.
 

The role of passive solar design has been  maximized to limit as much as possible the use of active solar systems.

Basic measures with high / moderate cost  efficiency

 
• enhanced insulation of the building envelope and the roof
 
• double glazing
 
• PVC shutters for the windows
 
• shading of the windows and the building by surrounding trees
 
• glazed stairwells to enhance natural cross ventilation due to solar chimney effect
 
• solar water heating
 
• energy efficient lighting

Additional demonstration measures

 
• solar assisted floor heating (25% solar thermal, 75% fuel)
  

The pilot project reduces the energy  consumption by 63%, compared to a conventional building, due to passive  measures and the use of solar thermal energy for space and water heating.

The incremental costs for the pilot project  are rather high with nearly 35%, the pay-back for the realized measures is  hardly attractive. Major reasons are

 
• unavailability of cheap insulation products on the national market
 
• lack of know-how for identifying and applying appropriate energy saving technologies and products
 
• low cost-efficiency of solar space heating
 
• subsidized energy-prices.

The replicable solution has been based on  learning and scale effects in a large building program and on skipping the more  expensive measures. This brings the pay-back period down to 10 years.

Graph 1:
   

When realizing this "replicable solution",  significant additional benefits for the country in form of reduced energy  subsidies arise. Considering these benefits, the State may have an interest in  subsidizing this type of building, increasing thus the pay-back. (graph 2)

Graph 2: