Energy Retrofitting of School Buildings in UAE Abdelsalam Aldawoud * , Fatma Elzahraa Hosny and Rasha Mdkhana Architectural Engineering Department, College of Engineering, University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates  Corresponding Author: Abdelsalam Aldawoud. Email: aaldawoud@sharjah.ac.ae Received: 02 June 2020; Accepted: 03 August 2020 Abstract: The opportunities for energy savings by retrofitting of the existing school buildings in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are significant because of their excessive energy consumption and space cooling demand. In this research, energy modeling and simulation are utilized with the use of Design Builder soft- ware to examine the influence of various retrofitting measures of air-conditioning (A/C) system and building envelope components on the energy use. Several com- bined measures are implemented and assessed to achieve the main goal of this research of selecting the best course of action to reduce cooling energy consump- tion for existing school buildings in the UAE. The results show that the intensity of the reduction in cooling energy requirement varies from one retrofitting set of measures to another. The used electricity can be reduced by 29% to provide the required cooling demand by replacing the existing air conditioning equipment with more energy-efficient and properly sized system. A reduction of 21.5% in the annual electricity consumption to provide the required cooling demand can be obtained by adding insulation to the building roof and exterior walls. Besides, a reduction in electricity consumption of 57% can be potentially achieved to pro- vide the required cooling load by improving the thermal resistance of the existing school walls, roof, and windows combined with high-efficiency air conditioning (A/C) system. Keywords: Cooling demand; energy consumption; energy efficiency; retrofit; thermal insulation; existing buildings; school buildings 1 Introduction The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has one of the fastest-growing populations and a rapidly expanding economy [1]. Due to this growth and urban development, the demand for electricity and water continues to rise to reach unprecedented levels. Current estimates indicate that the domestic electricity demand in the UAE reached nearly 131,031.000 GWh in December 2017 compared to the previous number of 127,205.000 GWh for December 2016 [2]. This high consumption places the UAE among the highest electricity consumers per capita in the world. The UAE’ s State of Energy 2016 Report states that electricity peak demand has almost doubled over the past 10 years. This can be easily noted in the primary energy consumption as several research studies indicated that the building sector in the UAE is considered the largest energy consumer and one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions [3]. In response to these figures of rising demand for electric power, local UAE governmental This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Energy Engineering DOI:10.32604/EE.2020.011863 Article ech T Press Science