A few months ago, hundreds of UK churches were going green, through switching to clean energy, and “greenarea.info” tackled the issue in an article back then. Nearly the same thing will be translated in UAE mosques, which will turn into “smart mosques”, by saving both, energy and money.
Why are religious places adopting eco-friendly solutions though?… Well, one of the reasons might be that a large number of people visit these places, hence, a large amount of money is required for operating them, along with wasting lots of energy.
In UAE’s mosques, however, worshippers have been complaining about chilly and overcrowded mosques, as well as spiraling energy bills, The National reported.
Air conditioning accounted for almost 70 per cent of the UAE’s electricity consumption. Energy use needs to be monitored and checked though, especially that mosques are visited at five times during the day.
“Smart Mosque”
“Smart Mosque” is the new project by “The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology”. It aims to save money and energy by controlling air-conditioning systems and monitoring occupancy rates at places of worship so the people can choose where they want to pray in space and comfort.
Dr. Talal Rahwan, assistant professor of computer and information sciences and project leader at “Masdar” said: “The idea came up when I noticed how occupancy rates vary from one mosque to another,” adding “I thought there should be some intelligent building management system that can adjust air conditioning to reflect the occupancy rate.”
Rahwan and colleague Dr. Sid Chau, also assistant professor of computing and information sciences at “Masdar”, developed a video program that counted the number of people entering the mosque.
Rahwan said that “It can keep track of the occupancy rate. You need an algorithm to predict occupancy rate as well as an optimized control over the air conditioning to reflect the need for cooling, controlled wirelessly.”
Varying Occupying Patterns
Although the project is at the study stage, its effectiveness was demonstrated at two mosques – “Masjid Fatah”, near Madinat Zayed in the capital, and at “Masjid Al Haq”, in Khalifa City A.
The project leader Rahwan said that they chose those two mosques, because “one is always packed and the other not as much.”
He also said that “This really shows there needs to be a system that can adapt to the varying occupying patterns we see,” confirming: “We managed to find a study quantifying people’s different levels of comfort in temperature, given various activities.”
Ideal Temperature
Fatiha AlBarqi, head of mosques services at the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments, said: “We expect the technology to minimize power consumption of mosques while also helping with the overall management.”
“When people do different activities they prefer a different temperature. The ideal temperature for people to be comfortable when they pray is the same temperature as when walking slowly.”
The project developers pointed out that “a mobile application is expected to be developed to show occupancy rates in each mosque”.
While the trial in Khalifa City A is nearly complete, the aim is common for all the other mosques the trial will take place at: helping worshippers make informed decisions when selecting where to pray, to avoid overcrowding.
Once worshippers leave a mosque amid applying the “Smart Mosque” project, the system in the mosque will automatically switch off the air conditioning.
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