Riyadh's roofs soak up the sun all summer, and air conditioning fights back with oil-fired power. What happens if we paint the roofs white, or cover them with plants? And who should pay?
Pick a neighbourhood
Choose white paint or plants
Slide how many roofs
Decide how much the government pays
What is EcoPulse Riyadh?
It's a free calculator that shows what happens when Riyadh changes its roofs to fight the heat.
The problem
Riyadh is getting hotter. Its hottest surfaces reached 54.8 °C in 2022.
Roofs soak up the sun all day, so buildings get hot inside.
People run air conditioning to cool down. In summer, that's about 70% of the electricity used at home.
Much of Saudi Arabia's summer electricity comes from burning oil. That's oil that could be sold instead.
The idea
Change the roofs. There are two ways to do it:
White reflective paintCalled a "cool roof". It bounces sunlight back to the sky, so the building stays cooler.
Plants on the roofCalled a "green roof". The plants shade the roof, but they need watering.
What the tool tells you
Pick a plan, and EcoPulse answers three questions in plain words:
How much does it help? Cooler streets, less electricity, less CO₂.
What does it cost? And how many years until owners earn their money back.
Who should pay? Slide the government's share and watch the owner's wait get shorter.
Who it's for
City planners deciding where to start and how much budget to ask for.
Building owners asking "is this worth it for me?"
Students and the public who want to understand the heat problem.
What I found
White paint beats plants in Riyadh. It saves more electricity, costs about 6 times less, and needs no water.
Owners won't do it alone. Electricity is cheap for homes, so owners wait about 28 years to earn the money back.
Government help changes everything. If the city pays half, the wait drops to 14 years.
In summer, Saudi Arabia has burned up to 0.9 million barrels of crude a day for power. Every kWh of air conditioning avoided is fuel that can be exported instead.
White paint needs no irrigation. Plants on roofs do, and Riyadh's water is desalinated and piped in from the coast.
Who can make it happen
The Saudi Building Code could require reflective roofs on new buildings. Amanat Al-Riyadh could start with the hottest districts. The electricity company could offer owners a rebate.
Where the numbers come from (and change them)
Input
Value
Type
Source / note
This is a screening tool for comparing options, not an engineering design. Results scale linearly from a published simulation study.
How to use it
It takes about one minute. Make four choices on the left, then read the answer on the right.
1
Where?
Pick a type of neighbourhood. Industrial areas are the hottest in Riyadh, so they're a good place to start.
2
What goes on the roof?
Choose white reflective paint or plants. You can switch any time and compare.
3
How many roofs?
Slide to choose how many roofs change, from 0% to 100%. Then pick one neighbourhood (1 km²) or all of Riyadh's hot zones.
4
Who pays?
Slide how much of the cost the government covers. Owners pay the rest.
Reading the answer
The coloured label is the verdict for owners. Green means a good deal (under 10 years to earn the money back). Yellow means borderline (10 to 20 years). Red means owners won't do it alone (over 20 years).
The big sentence sums up your plan: what it saves, what it costs, and how long owners wait.
The four boxes show cooler streets, electricity saved, CO₂ cut and total cost.
The waiting bar shows how many years owners wait. The shaded part is under 10 years, which is the goal.
Paint vs plants puts both options side by side for the same plan.
What this means for Saudi Arabia links your plan to national goals, like the Saudi Green Initiative.
Three things to try
Click Hottest areas first. Then move Government pays until the bar turns green. How much help do owners need?
Switch from white paint to plants. Watch the cost jump and the wait go past 100 years.
Click All of Riyadh. See how much CO₂ the whole city could cut each year.
Changing the numbers
At the bottom of the tool, open Where the numbers come from. Every number is labelled sourced (from published research) or my estimate. If you have better data, like a real electricity bill or a contractor's price, type it in and every result updates.