Journal of Green Energy Research and Innovation
Quarterly

An Analysis of Heating and Cooling Energy Consumption in High-Rise Versus Low-Rise Buildings with Reference to The Predicted Mean Vote (pmv) Comfort Index: A Case Study

Document Type : Research article

Authors

Hamed Safikhani 1
Mohammad Farahani 2
Kimia Rezaei 3
Asgar Minaei 4

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of ‎Engineering, Arak University, Arak, Iran.‎

2 School of Mechanical Engineering, Arak University of ‎Technology, Arak, Iran.‎

3 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty ‎of Engineering, Eastern Mediterranean ‎University, Famagusta, North Cyprus via Mersin, ‎Türkiye.‎

4 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of ‎Engineering, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, ‎Ardabil, Iran.‎

https://doi.org/10.61882/jgeri.2.3.1
Abstract
The choice between residing in tall buildings and in few-story or detached dwellings has ‎been the subject of considerable debate, with each approach attracting its own proponents ‎and critics. This study investigates and compares the heating and cooling energy ‎consumption of multi-story and low-elevation buildings, incorporating the Fanger comfort ‎index as a measure of thermal comfort. Energy performance is evaluated on eight building ‎configurations with varying numbers of floors, under three distinct climatic conditions, ‎using the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) index as the primary comfort criterion. The building ‎scenarios range from single-story detached houses to 50-story high-rise structures. The ‎climatic cases—representing hot (Yazd), moderate (Arak), and cold (Shahr-e Kord) ‎environments—are simulated and analyzed using DesignBuilder software. The results ‎section presents detailed analyses of heating and cooling loads, comfort index values, and ‎electricity and gas demand for each building–climate combination, with monthly and annual ‎performance trends. The findings reveal that the number of shared walls exerts a greater ‎influence on energy consumption than the number of floors. Specifically, detached single-‎story buildings, which lack shared walls, exhibit up to 58.9% higher heating demand and ‎‎67.1% higher cooling demand compared to their counterparts with shared walls‎‎.‎

Graphical Abstract

An Analysis of Heating and Cooling Energy Consumption in High-Rise Versus Low-Rise Buildings with Reference to The Predicted Mean Vote (pmv) Comfort Index: A Case Study

Highlights

❖ The energy consumption for the cooling and heating across eight different building scenarios was compared.
❖ The three climate scenarios represented the cities of Yazd (hot), Arak (moderate), and Shahr-e Kord (cold) were modelled.
❖ buildings without common walls (single floors) could have 58.9% and 67.1% more load and energy consumption in heating and cooling, respectively.
❖ The difference between the energy consumption of the building with the highest and lowest number of shared walls was observed to be about 60% on average. 

Keywords

Energy Optimization
Residential Buildings
High-Rise and Mid-Rise Buildings
Urban Housing Efficiency
Fanger comfort index

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The ethical issues, including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and/or falsification, double publication and/or submission, redundancy, have been completely observed by the authors.

Credit Authorship Contribution Statement

Hamed Safikhani: Conceptualization, Software, Supervision, Roles/Writing - original draft. Mohammad Farahani: Methodology, Software, Visualization. Kimia Rezaei: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Software, Validation. Asgar Minaei: Resources, Supervision, Writing-review & editing.

Bibliography

Hamed Safikhani born in 1986 in Arak, Iran, pursued his academic studies in Mechanical Engineering and obtained his B.Sc. degree from the University of Guilan, Iran, in 2008, his M.Sc. degree from the University of Tehran, Iran, in 2010, and his Ph.D. degree from Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran, in 2014. He joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Arak University, Iran, as an Assistant Professor in 2015. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019 and achieved the rank of Full Professor in 2023 at the same university. During his academic career, he has held several administrative and executive positions, including Vice-Chancellor for Research and Technology, Director of the Office for Industry and Society Relations, and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Arak University. Professor Safikhani has published more than 150 scientific papers in high-ranking international journals and in national and international conference proceedings, in addition to authoring several specialized books in the field of Mechanical Engineering. He also serves as an editorial board member and editor-in-chief of several international scientific journals. He was recognized as the Outstanding Researcher of Markazi Province in 2015 and 2020, and from 2020 to 2023, he has been consecutively listed among the world’s top two percent of scientists in Mechanical Engineering, according to the Stanford University ranking. His research interests include optimization of energy systems, energy efficiency in buildings, and renewable energy technologies.‎

Mohammad Farahani was born in 1990 in Arak, Iran. He received his B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from K. ‎N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2013, and his M.Sc. degree in Mechanical ‎Engineering – Energy Conversion from Arak University of Technology, Arak, Iran, in 2020. He is ‎currently pursuing his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering – Energy Conversion at Arak ‎University of Technology, Arak, Iran. In parallel with his academic career, he serves as the ‎Executive Director of Form Dama Company in Arak, where he is engaged in the design and ‎production of heating, cooling, and HVAC systems. His research interests include the ‎optimization of energy systems, energy efficiency in buildings, and renewable energy technologies. 

Kimia Rezaei born in 1998 in Arak, Iran, received her B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Arak University, Iran, in 2022. She then obtained her M.Sc. degree in Energy Systems Engineering with a focus on Building Energy Simulation and Calibration from Eastern Mediterranean University, Turkey, in 2025. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering – Energy Systems at Eastern Mediterranean University, where she also works as a Research and Teaching Assistant. Her main research interests include building energy simulation, HVAC optimization, energy model calibration, lithium-ion battery modeling, renewable energy integration, and sustainable energy systems.

‎

Asgar Minaei associated professor at the University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, holds a BSc from the University of Tabriz, an MSc from the University of Tehran, and a PhD from Tarbiat Modares University. His research expertise lies in convective and conductive heat transfer, building energy systems, and renewable energy.‎

Citation
H. Safikhani, M. Farahani, K. Rezaei, and A. Minaei," An Analysis of Heating and Cooling Energy Consumption in High-Rise Versus Low-Rise Buildings with Reference to The Predicted Mean Vote (pmv) Comfort Index: A Case Study," Journal of Green Energy Research and Innovation, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 1-13, 2025.

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  • Receive Date 23 February 2025
  • Revise Date 27 April 2025
  • Accept Date 02 May 2025
  • Publish Date 01 September 2025

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