The Dead Sea is a unique landscape with great cultural and economic significance for Jordan. Its tourism sector is expected to increase by 14,000 new rooms over the next 20 years. In this fragile ecosystem, such a development needs to be handled with care, which explains why Jordan Development Zones Company sets high environmental standards in the Dead Sea Development Zone Master Plan. For the energy part of it, MED-ENEC provided support through an Energy Efficiency Study, identifying three energy saving packages for the Corniche District, the first stage of the development. Five reference building types were indentified (residential, hotel/3-star, hotel/5-star, resort, and mixed use). For each, three packages (Baseline, Economical and Ecological) were assessed by the Energy Balance Model, based on the EN 13790 standard for thermal performance of buildings.

 

The baseline package was initially based on the practice of the Jordan Building Code only. The first simulations showed that the cooling and the hot water supply (especially for the hotels and resorts) represent the most significant energy demands.

 

To reach out above national standards, as part of the environmental ambitions of the project, this baseline was improved with passive, almost no-cost, measures on the design level as optimized orientation, use of light colors, (absorbance rates less than 0.350), window-wall ratio of maximum 15% for west and east facades, 20% for facing elevations, 30% for north orientation, and window shading indicated by a Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) of maximum 0.25.

 

A remarkable finding in this case was that, due to specific climatic conditions (high solar gains resulting in dominant cooling loads and hardly a need for heating), there was no need to increase the thermal resistance of the building envelope. These improvements resulted in a reduction of the final energy consumption of 7% for a 3-star hotel (mainly due to the reduction of the wall window ratio), and 29 % for a residential building (mainly due to external shading). This improved baseline package is to be mandatory for all buildings in the project

 

The Economical package showed a reduction of the final energy consumption, compared to the Jordanian Building Code, of 47% for the 3-star hotel (mainly due to the solar water heaters), and 64 % for the residential building.This package includes all the passive measures of the baseline plus energy efficient options, stated by certified label, for lighting, ventilation, cooling, and solar thermal for hot water.

 

The Ecological package includes international best technical practices and increased renewable energy measures, minimizing the final energy consumption to 91% for the 3-star hotel, and to 125% for the residential building (becoming an energy supplier to the grid).

 

The following measures are included on top of the economical package: building envelope air-tightness improvement, lighting systems with LED applications and occupancy sensors, HVAC system with demand controlled ventilation (CO2 or VOC), heat/cold recovery and most efficient (high temperature and surface) cooling systems (COP 5.5), and Photo Voltaics (PV) for electricity generation.

 

To make the ‘Economical’ and ‘Ecological’ energy saving packages visible, the study proposed to market the packages as Gold (economical) and Platinum (ecological) levels, with a related possible benchmark of final energy consumption in kWh/m²y, for innovation in design and technology development, as indicated in the below table:

 

 

 

Image: Dead Sea Development Zone Commission - Jordan

 

 

Dead Sea Development Zone Project by the Jordan Development Zones Co. www.jdz.jo/page.php?pageName=dead-Sea-Development-Zone&pageTitle=Dead Sea Development Zone

The Dead Sea master plan energy efficiency study was carried for MED-ENEC by Ecofys (Riadh Bahr) can be downloaded from: www.med-enec.eu/sites/default/files/user_files/downloads/2013.03.11%20-Large%20Building%20Projects-%20MED-ENEC%20Report%20EE%20for%20Dead%20Sea%20Masterplan%20JOR.pdf