Professor Bassam AbuHijleh
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Prof. Bassam is currently assigned as the Dean of Faculty of Engineering & IT as well as the AtkinsRéalis Chair of the Sustainable Design of the Built Environment at the British University in Dubai (BUiD). He holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Ohio State University-USA. His current research interests focus on Experimental and simulation study of solar energy, Renewable/alternative energy sources, advanced energy production practices and Energy conservation & management. He published more than 130 papers in international journals and conferences. He also holds several professional certifications related to energy and sustainability including LEED AP, CEM, CEA, CMVP, PCF, CBCP, and CDSM.
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Recent Submissions
Item Feasibility Study for Floating Offshore Wind in the Arabian Gulf(2022) Donnelly, Orla; Carroll, James; AbuHijleh, BassamWind energy is a largely untapped resource in the Middle East region. With a growing understanding of wind technology globally, offshore wind could be a viable energy source in the Arabian Gulf. This study focuses on the concept of floating offshore wind for the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It’s purpose is to evaluate the wind resource at different four site locations off the coast of the UAE and subsequently do a complete cost analysis for a theoretical floating offshore wind farm. This analysis will contain two different types of turbines, 3.45MW and 5MW, and two different types of floater technologies for the platforms, tensioned leg platform (TLP) and semisubmersible (SS). The viability of the different scenarios will be based on the final LCOE estimation. A short comparative conclusion will be made on feasibility by changing location of the wind farm to a site off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea. A comparison will also be made to the leading renewable source in the UAE, solar PV.Item Review of museums' indoor environment conditions studies and guidelines and their impact on the museums' artifacts and energy consumption(Elsevier, 2018) Sharif-Askari, Hawra; Abu-Hijleh, BassamMuseums are the main link between the past, the present and the future. The presence of ancient historical artifacts is the main factor differentiating museums' environment from the environments of other types of buildings. This review paper, is focused on the indoor environment quality of the exhibition halls in the museums. The information presented is based on three main aspects. Gathering the required indoor environmental parameters related to the indoor exhibition spaces in the museums then discuss in terms of temperature, relative humidity, lighting, and indoor air quality (air pollutants and ventilations); this is done while considering the museum's artifacts, visitors and personnel. The second aspect focuses on the different researches carried out within the museum indoor environment focusing on temperature (T), relative humidity (RH), lighting (artificial lighting and daylight) as well as the studies conducted within the subject of indoor environment quality of museums (IEQ). The third aspect focuses on studies and guidelines designed for upgrading existing museums into more sustainable projects by focusing on energy efficiency part of museums. This review paper provides a rich guide of all the needed information in terms of museums indoor environments parameters for the museum officials to implement strategies and enhance the current conditions of the museums. It also highlights some of the remaining issues that researchers can look at in the future.Item Energy and economic impact of the new Dubai municipality green building regulations and potential upgrades of the regulations(Elsevier, 2019) Abu-Hijleh, Bassam; Jaheen, NohaDubai government has shown great interest in integrating sustainable principles into the different phases of construction. In 2011, the Green Buildings Regulations and Specification (GBRS) were issued to form a market shift toward a Green Economy for Sustainable Development. This research is to evaluate the effectiveness of the different building regulations in effect in Dubai, as well as assessing the benefits of raising the bar to the PassivHaus (PH) standards. The thermal impact of the building envelope on the energy performance and cooling load reduction are the core focus of this study. Hence, a case study villa in Jumeirah Park was selected to be analyzed, modified and simulated using the IESVE energy modeling software. The impact of each building envelope element was assessed individually based on current Dubai regulations, as well as the PH specifications. Cooling load savings of 5.9%, 8.67%, 1.55%, 11% and 20% were achieved when using the new Dubai GBRS glazing, roof, floor, green roof specifications and the best combination of all three elements, respectively. Upgrading the design to the PH specifications resulted in a 48% reduction in the cooling load. The addition of Monocrystalline and Thin Film PV systems reduced the electricity consumption from the grid by 73% and 57%, respectively. Enhancing HVAC efficiency was also identified as a potential approach to save on the electricity used to provide the required cooling load, around 30% reduction when increasing the HVAC′ EER from the minimum current value of 8.53–12.2 (at T1 conditions). The economic analysis showed that the only viable solutions, based on simple payback period analysis, are upgrades to the floor (case 17 and SPP of 6.5 years) and windows (case 24 and SPP of 7 years). The results of this study could help in future development of Dubai's GBRS based on the technical, as well as the economic, viability of upgrading different building elements. .Item Increasing efficiency of atriums in hot, arid zones(Elsevier, 2019) Vethanayagam, Vijayantha; Abu-Hijleh, BassamThis research evaluated the efficiency of Atrium in hot, arid regions and investi gated the parameters influencing the total energy consumption of an existing shopping mall in Dubai, UAE using the IES-VE energy modeling software. The parameters tested included: Roof profile, Roof ventilation, Number of floors, glazing’s Light to Solar Gain ratio (LSG) and the Thermal insulation of the building envelope. The impact of using light sensors was also studied. The light sensors and the roof’s thermal insulation resulted in the highest reduction of the atrium’s energy, 8.5% and 7.5%, respectively. Increasing the number of floors reduced the energy consumption by 5% per unit area. The roof profile, external wall’s thermal insula tion and height of the atrium resulted in similar energy reductions of 3.5% each. The external glazing’s LSG reduced the energy consumption by 3.25% while the roof ventilation resulted in a reduction of 1.3%. The internal glazing’s LSG did not affect the atrium’s total energy consump tion. An optimal combination of the parameters studies resulted in an energy reduction of about 20%. Thus, this paper presents the optimal design configuration to reduce the energy consumption of an atrium located in a hot and arid climate. ª 2019 Higher Education Press Limited Company. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Item Potential for retrofitting a federal building in the UAE to net zero electricity building (nZEB)(Elsevier, 2019) Alkhateeb, Enas; Abu-Hijleh, BassamDemand Side Management of the building sector has attracted great attention in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). However, the challenge lies in the existing buildings that form the majority of the built environment. Therefore, retrofitting the existing stock has become a priority and many initiatives have emerged to speed up the pace within the retrofit market. This paper aims to assess the potential of retrofitting an existing federal office building to a net zero electricity building through a holistic retrofit approach. Several passive and active measures are implemented in order to achieve this goal including the integration of different grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems. The commercially available Integrated Energy Solution – Virtual Reality (IES-VE) building energy simulation software is used to evaluate the impact of all the implemented strategies on reducing electricity consumption in order to highlight the optimal scenario prior to introducing the PV systems. In this particular study, the imple mentation of active measures has proven to be more effective in reducing energy demand than passive measures. The passive strategies reduced electricity demand by 14.7%, whilst active measures reduced electricity demand by 63.2%. A PV system was able to cover the reduced energy demand resulting in a net Zero Electricity Building (nZEB).Item The effect of building height diversity on outdoor microclimate conditions in hot climate. A case study of Dubai-UAE(Elsevier, 2020) Shareef, Sundus; Abu-Hijleh, BassamUrban geometry and buildings' morphology affect the thermal behaviour of the spatial en vironment. Urban compactness is a key variable that affects thermal performance in hot climates. Previous studies focused on traditional methods of increasing the shading effect, e.g. buildings' height/canyon width (H/W) ratio. This research looks at alternative methods to increase the shading effect by changing the block's orientation and buildings' height diversity within the urban block. ENVI-Met 4.1 software is used to predict the outdoor thermal performance of a base case urban configuration then used to evaluate several proposed urban configurations and compare their thermal performance to the base case configuration. Orientation was the most influential factor in the outdoor air. For the base case, a reduction of 1.8 °C degree was noted between the N-S and NE-SW orientations. An urban configuration with significant variation in the buildings' height resulted in more reduction in outdoor air temperature compared to a config uration with gradual variation in the buildings' heights. Orienting the significant variation in buildings' heights along the short axis of the urban block resulted in a reduction of the air temperature in NW-SE orientation by 1.1 °C.Item Optimization of PV Cleaning Practices: Comparison Between Performance-Based and Periodic-Based Approaches(ASME DIGITAL COLLECTION, 2020) Abdulla Alhajeri, Rashed; Bassam Abu-HijlehSoiling of photovoltaics (PV) panels is affected by various factors such as relative humidity, dust concentration, and panel tilt angle. The soiling can lead to significant losses in elec tricity production, especially in a place like Dubai, UAE. Soiling can also lead to long term damage of the PV panels such as degradation and delamination due to the hot spots caused by dirt deposition. It is important to choose the right cleaning strategy (method and frequency) to maximize the electricity production and economic performance of the PV facility. An optimization algorithm was developed and tested for multiple PV panel configurations based in Dubai Water and Electricity Authority’s (DEWA) outdoor test facil ity (OTF) solar lab. The algorithm’s input included electricity production, soiling rates (SRs), electricity price, and cleaning costs. The output included number of cleaning events and the extra revenue as compared with the current practice of periodic (5-day cycle) manual cleaning. Four different cleaning scenarios were tested and compared with the current scenario. Three scenarios resulted in improved net cost benefit (NCB), up to 34% for the case of performance-based manual cleaning. The fourth scenario resulted in diminished NCB, down by 245% for the case of daily automatic cleaning. Other findings of the study included higher tilt angles that resulted in lower cleaning requirements and thin-film PV panels that required less cleaning than first generation PV panels (mono/poly crystalline). The algorithm is an effective yet simple tool to help operators optimize the NCB of their PV facilities. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4046918]Item Testing and Evaluation of a Smart Irrigation System Towards Smart Landscaping in UAE(AENSI Publications, 2019) Al Sulaimani, Fatma; Abu-Hijleh , BassamThe population is growing drastically causing an increase in urban development and landscape expansion, which as a result increase the demand for water. In the GCC region, water is becoming a threat to the impact of climate change and the lack of water resources. The main source of water is mostly desalination plants. Current irrigation systems are not suited to solve the issues of water in the near future. This study is an evaluation of the impact of innovative technology, especially the use of the Internet of things (IoT) on the performance of a typical irrigation system currently used in Dubai, UAE. A field experiment was conducted to measure the selected parameter: Water consumption and irrigation management. This means a profound measurement on the impact of integrating soil moisture sensor into the current irrigation system is evaluated to assess the impact this integration. The core methodology used in this research was the field experiment; statistical analysis was also required to validate the results obtained on site. The results observed from the experiment were that the use of smart irrigation system (SIS) has environmental advantages in the long term especially in terms of water consumption and irrigation management. Less water is required to irrigate when the soil is saturated enough causing a healthier plants growth. The outcomes of the use of SMS have shown better results in water conservation, 21%, and 26% decrease in water consumption for the months of September and October, respectively.Item Optimizing the Power Generation of a Wind Farm in Low Wind Speed Regions(MDPI, 2021) M. Taleb, Hanan; Abu Hijleh, Bassamt: The aim of this research is to optimize the power generation of a wind farm (WF) in order to maximize the energy output, especially in low wind speeds regions such as UAE. A new WF was proposed to be built in Sir Bani Yas Island in the UAE. This project was chosen to act as the main case configuration for this research. Four configuration parameters were proposed and assessed as follows: (1) inserting smaller turbines between the original larger main turbines; (2) changing the spacing between the turbines; (3) substituting new higher efficiency turbines in place of the existing ones; (4) moving the WFs to completely new locations in different emirates within the UAE. Through using the WindFarm simulation software, the impact of these four strategies was analyzed and calculated. The main finding of this research indicates that introducing more efficient WT units has a great impact in that it can increase output by 24.5%. Bearing in mind that the UAE has a vision for a renewable energy, as well as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, this paper will draw a novel recommendation to optimize the wind power generation in this low-speed region.Item A review on the current status and post‑pandemic prospects of third‑generation biofuels(Springer, 2022) Maliha, Azra; Abu‑Hijleh, BassamThe rapid increase in fossil fuel depletion, environmental degradations, and indus trialization have encouraged the need and production of sustainable fuel alterna tives. This has led to the increase in interest in biofuels, especially third-generation biofuels produced from microalgae since they do not compete with food and land supplies. However, the global share for these biofuels has been inadequate recently, especially due to the ongoing global pandemic. Therefore, this paper ofers a review of the state-of-the-art study of the production feld of third-generation biofuel from microalgae. The current review aims to focus on the diferent aspects of algal bio fuel production that requires further attention to produce it at a large scale. It was found that several strategies during the life cycle of algal biofuel production can sig nifcantly increase its quality and yield while reducing cost, energy, and other related attributes. This paper also focuses on the challenges for large-scale production of third-generation biofuels pre and post COVID-19 to better understand the barriers. The high cost of this fuel’s production and sale tends to be the major reason behind the lack of large-scale production, hence, inadequacy to meet the global need. Third generation biofuel has so much to ofer including many integrated applications and advanced uses in the future fuel industry. Therefore, it is important to cope with the ongoing circumstances and emphasize the future of algal biofuel as a sustainable source.Item Feasibility analysis of implementing an On Bill Financing program to promote energy-efficiency in Dubai-UAE(Elsevier, 2022) Zulfiquar Kamal, Hasan; Abu-Hijleh, BassamIn this paper, we examine the factors that may influence the implementation of an OnBill Financing (OBF) program for promoting energy efficiency in Dubai. The data was collected using a semi-structured expert on expert interview method. Interviews were conducted with institutional stakeholders involved in OBF program implementation. A forcefield diagram was created from the interview responses to understand better the iden tified conducive and deterrent forces that must be considered when implementing an OBF program locally. The main finding of the qualitative review suggests that an OBF program could be implemented locally in Dubai. The findings also show that implementation is not without challenges. A tailored OBF program that addresses the repayment model and covered equipment/projects under the program can mitigate these hurdles.Item The impact of global renewable energy demand on economic growth – evidence from GCC countries(Emerald Publishing Limited, 2023) Lahrech, Abdelmounaim; Abu-Hijleh, BassamPurpose – This study aims to examine the relationship between global renewable energy consumption and economic growth in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from 2001 to 2019. Design/methodology/approach – This paper used a panel regression model to study the six GCC countries over the period from 2001 to 2019. Findings – As expected, the findings indicated a significant and negative relationship between global renewable energy consumption and GCC economic growth. Additionally, there was a positive and significant relationship between GCC economic growth and the control variables, specifically labor, capital, CO2 emissions and non-renewable energy production. Practical implications – The results are of great importance to policymakers in GCC oil-exporting countries, as expected growth in renewable energy consumption will lower their economic growth in the future. Hence, they should first diversify their economy and lower their dependence on oil. Second, these countries can invest in solar energy through international joint ventures, especially with North African countries in close proximity to Europe, to become leaders in solar energy production. Originality/value – How global energy consumption is related to GCC countries’ economic growth remains unclear, not only in GCC countries but also in many oil-exporting countries around the world, so future studies are needed. Furthermore, GCC governments will be able to create appropriate policies for the green economy and achieve their objectives if they have a comprehensive understanding of how global growth in renewable energy demand affects GCC economies. Keywords Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Global renewable energy, Non-renewable energy, Economic growth Paper type Research pape