Historic Humidity Trend for Dubai and Potential Energy Impact

Dubai is located in a region known for its extremely hot temperatures, and it experiences relatively high humidity due to its proximity to the Arabian Gulf. Increasing air humidity place additional strain on cooling systems and, consequently, the electrical grid. Using the satellite data of last 13 years the increasing humid trend in Dubai is analysed and then through simulations, the study quantifies the energy impact of increasing humidity on the performance of district cooling plants and residential air conditioning. Our findings show that the efficiency of district cooling plants might decrease by 1.26% for every 1g/kg<inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">dry air</inf> increase in humidity. Regarding buildings, the results indicate that on an average summer day, the cooling load might increase by 3% for every 10% increase in Relative Humidity (RH), while the peak hour demand might rise by 4.0%. These insights are crucial for informing future energy regulations and utility generation planning.