Sustainable Retrofit Solutions for Decreasing Energy Consumption and CO2 emission of a Residential Building in Tabriz, Iran

The rapid growth of Iran's population in the last four decades has caused many residential buildings. Since Iran subsidizes energy costs as well as water and electricity tariffs, energy is cheap in Iran, and most buildings are not occupied with energy efficiency measures. Therefore, the number of conventional residential buildings is increasing. This study aims to retrofit a residential building in Tabriz, Iran, to show the importance of sustainable retrofits for decreasing building energy consumption. For this purpose, a case study building (i.e., reference building) was modeled using Design Builder and PVSOL®. Four scenarios addressing sustainable retrofits were applied to decrease the energy consumption and co2 emission of this residential building. The results demonstrate that all four scenarios successfully reduced the building's total energy usage to 65%. Accordingly, this study contributes to the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) literature and industry by demonstrating the significance of sustainable retrofits to reduce building energy consumption and carbon emissions.