ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN THE BUILDING SECTOR IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICAN REGION

摘要

As global warming is a major threat for each country worldwide, in particular however for the Middle East and North African (MENA) region, it comes not as a surprise, that seven out of the twenty MENA countries have already developed energy efficiency (EE) policies. The present paper is based on a literature research on the green building standards of these countries and outlines that Israel and Egypt present the most advanced examples for this policy. This research then proceeds a qualitative evaluation and a quantitative analysis, providing proposals related to EE measures upon the building sector of Israel and Egypt. Besides their similarities from a macroscopic point of view, Israel and Egypt have to adjust the proposed common strategies to their local needs and characteristics, because there are some stark differences: Egypt is expecting high annual economic growth rates and a significant growth of population, while in the case of Israel the energy refurbishment of existing building stock is necessary. The EE measures target mainly in electricity consumption and related CO_2 emissions reduction, because of the high cooling needs of the region. If full implementation of the Israeli green building regulations is established, then the residential building stock can achieve a reduction of up to 30% in the electricity consumption. The corresponding value for Egyptian would be 20%.