Assessing energy use and overheating risk for retrofitting a residential tower block prototype in Northern Cyprus

This study evaluates the energy performance of a residential tower block (RTB) development in Northern Cyprus in providing thermal comfort for its occupants. Severe summer temperature conditions in the coastal city of Famagusta includes significant daily oscillations in air temperature (14°C-45°C) and high levels of solar radiation, which contributes to the overheating of thermally inefficient building envelopes. Notably, 43% of the domestic buildings in Northern Cyprus are RTBs. As could be expected in residential buildings located in a hot and humid climate the cooling and heating comprise the largest part of the total energy consumption (73%). The aim of this is to investigate the applicability of passive design elements for the case study using three representative residential tower blocks (RTBs) each representing a different orientation (south-west, south-east and north-west). The research adopts a ‘quantitative’ research design; primarily building performance evaluation using modelling and simulation. The selected three RTBs are modelled using Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES) software where extensive dynamic thermal simulations have been produced to test passive design measures applied to improve thermal comfort and energy performance. This paper presents an analysis of the thermal performance of the three RTBs before different retrofit scenarios are applied to optimize the buildings energy performance and occupants’ thermal comfort. According to the results of the dynamic thermal simulation, cooling energy consumption saving of around 81% are achieved. The findings demonstrate the necessity to consider passive design strategies for effective retrofitting of existing RTB developments in Northern Cyprus