Assessing Mosque Energy Efficiency Using Smart Occupancy Sensors to Mitigate Climate Change in Hot Regions

Mosques are distinguished from other buildings functionally and operationally, so there has recently been great interest in the energy consumption inside them in Egypt. Consequently, the novel proposed methodology in this study is integrating smart occupancy sensor systems inside mosques and analyzing their current and further impact on energy consumption. Thus, the main aim is to reduce mosque energy consumption with the integration of smart sensors inside mosques besides the prediction of the efficiency of this approach based on climate change during the future periods of 2050 and 2080. Hence, the DesignBuilder software program was used to build the model and investigate the improvement of energy consumption after integrating smart occupancy sensors currently and in the future. The findings indicate that the reduction in total energy consumption ranges from 16.2% to 21.2%, while the energy index reaches 69 kWh/(m2·yr). The study proves the efficiency of smart occupancy sensors in reducing energy consumption in the short and long term, in addition to being an eco-friendly system and not requiring changes to the building structure.