## 1 Introduction  
In 2017, Saudi Arabia consumed more than 35% of its oil production domestically, which constitutes 1.89% of world energy consumption [1], while in 2018, domestic consumption was found to be at 3787.568 barrels/day [2]. Furthermore, the consumption of natural gas was equal to the natural gas production [3]. Energy consumption and its associated costs are important elements of the operation of school buildings and represent a considerable cost in the building life cycle [4]. In 2018, the Saudi Ministry of Education allocated 192.92 billion Saudi Arabian Riyal (1 SAR = SUS0.27) for the Saudi general educational sectors [4]. This included finishing 719 new public schools. It is anticipated that more new schools are going to be constructed by the end of 2021. In Eastern Province in Saudi Arabia, there are 1500 public schools that provide services to a population of 5 million [5]. The financial success of operating this class of facilities, which is mainly supported and budgeted by the government, can only be measured realistically if the actual expenses are compared to target \"predicted\" values. The reason of that, in the absence of a reliable cost control tool, the real expenses can overrun the planned expenses [6]. Because of the fast population growth, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is observing increased economic development, especially in the energy sector and infrastructure construction fields. The government of Saudi Arabia initiated the Saudi Energy Efficiency Program (SEEP), which focuses s to reduce the domestic energy severity by around of 30% by the year 2030. Government-constructed buildings comprise about 13% of the consumption of the total energy in Saudi Arabia. Thus, predicting the energy consumption for constructed buildings and for newly constructed buildings at the conceptual or initial stage is crucial for owners and designers when carrying out economic analysis. Predicting energy consumption is also equally important for facilities maintenance managers and building owners for allocating a budget for operating buildings. School buildings represent a major portion of government buildings that are under the domain of governmental finance. Governmental buildings contribute about 13% of the total energy consumption in Saudi Arabia, as presented in Table 1. These figures are expected to increase by 5% annually in the near future [7]. Moreover, the oil consumption in Saudi Arabia is witnessing the largest demand from the electricity sector, as revealed by the Public Utilities Report in February 2016 [7]. According to the World Bank, in 2014, the Saudi consumption of electricity reached 9401 kWh per capita. Compared with four African hot climate countries, the energy consumption in Saudi Arabia is two times higher than the energy consumption of Sudan, Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria put together [8], while the total population of these countries is eight times higher than the population of Saudi Arabia. In response to such high demand in energy consumption, and as an attempt to control such high demand for electricity consumption, new regulations were introduced to all service categories and they have been utilized as per the Council of Ministers (Decree No. 95), as shown in Table 2. Therefore, a new construction code was imposed in 2018 since the existing structures system is the source of such high consumption. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c} \hline \hline
**Energy Consumption Category** & **Proportion** \\ \hline Residential & 48.1\% \\ Commercial & 16.2\% \\ Governmental buildings & 13\% \\ Industrial & 18.4\% \\ Others & 4.4\% \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Energy consumption in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in 2017 [3].