Abstract
Residential and commercial building sector consumes a significant amount of nationally produced energy. Therefore, reducing buildings energy requirements is a key factor to achieve green buildings and sustainability. In this paper, the influence of adding overhang shading to a window on building energy consumption was investigated. An office room with one window was selected as a case study. The room is located in the city of Tripoli, Libya. The window and therefore the overhang shading face cardinals and intercardinals orientations by rotating the model room 45 degrees. The model was created using OpenStudio and EnergyPlus software to simulate the office room and estimate the energy requirements due to thermal and electrical loads. The projection factor of the shading changes between 0 and 1 for all orientations. The results presented here show that adding overhang shade to the South, Southeast, and Southwest orientations results in a significant energy saving. This amount could reach 20% of energy consumed when a projection factor of 1 is used. On the other hand, North facing window with an overhang shading provided a negligible energy saving for the range of the projection factors selected in this study. Recommended projection factors for all orientations were obtained and presented in this work for different levels of energy conservation.