a b s t r a c t
This paper discusses sustainable strategies have been implemented to improve the energy performance
for
 the housing sector in arid climate, especially villas. A practical case study along with field measurements

is presented in order to highlight the behavior of the energy performance after implementing
energy
 conservation measures in practice. The residential sector in arid climate especially in GulfCountries

has a significant share of carbon emissions. Millions of householders occupy villas and town houses.
The
 harsh hot weather of this region is one of the reasons for a high demand on the cooling energy and the
electricity
 consumption in the housing sector. Thus, there is a real potential to retrofit the existing houses
with
 practical energy conservation measures. These techniques are affordable and feasible economically.
Also,
 they play a substantial role to increase the energy efficiency of the residential units on the demand
side.
 This study discusses the results of 12 months were monitored after implementation of energy savings

measures on selected 10 villas in the capital of UAE – Abu Dhabi. This research highlights different
responses
 by each villa against the implemented energy savings opportunities. The target of these executed

strategies is to improve the energy performance of these selected villas after conducting a detailed
energy
 assessment and implementing its recommendations. A detailed analysis of the electricity performance

of the baseline and the monitoring period has been performed by using the actual readings
of
 the existing power meters according to the international performance measurement and verification
protocol.
 This research presents the energy data for the entire year before and after the implementation
of
 the energy conservation measures – ECMs. These ECMs show the potential of improvement of energy
performance
 in the housing sector by increasing the energy efficiency by 25.1% in average through low
and
 medium cost techniques. The percentage of savings varies from 14.4% to 47.6% of the total electricity
according
 to the individual operating conditions for each villa and the behavior of occupants. As a result,
they
 contribute reducing the carbon and GHG emissions, and open new perspectives of energy savings
for
 housing sector in arid climates.
©
2016ElsevierB.V.Allrightsreserved.