The Impact of Bio-Sourced Materials on the Building’s Energy Performance in a Semi-Arid Climate

The use of bio-sourced materials (construction materials derived from renewable resources such as plants, animals, or waste products) has become a trend toward sustainable building practices. Furthermore, in terms of sustainability, bio-sourced materials have been shown in various studies to be effective thermal insulators in a diverse selection of compositions. To get around this topic the paper aims to integrate 4 bio-sourced materials that are existing in the Moroccan continent (wood, reed, hemp, and Pennisetum setaceum fibers) into a residential building in a semi-arid climate and investigate their effects on building energy performance and indoor environment quality. The work is carried out using dynamic thermal simulation. The findings showed that incorporating hemp and Pennisetum setaceum fibers can help to reduce energy needs by 40% and 34%, respectively, when compared to the typical construction that is normally used in the region based on concrete blocks, as well as reducing the discomfort hours of the buildings by nearly 850 h. Most of the materials used demonstrated higher efficiency and positive effects on thermal behavior and energy savings, but compared to each other, the integration of hemp wool in the building envelope generated the best results in terms of energy savings and indoor thermal comfort, by reducing discomfort hours inside the building to 2514 h and saving approximately 1952 kWh compared to the reference case.