Analysis of energy consumption and potential energy savings of an institutional building in Malaysia

The building sector is one of the major energy users and greenhouse gasses emitter. An energy audit is one of the effective approaches to identify efficient energy usages and energy savings. A details walk-through energy audit has been conducted to analyse the energy consumption pattern and potential energy conservation opportunities (ECOs) in Research and Development (R&D) building at Universiti Malaya from March to May 2017. Eight different appliances were categorised to analyse and the audit results were verified with the building's utility bill which on average were between 160 MWh to 250 MWh and RM 80 k to RM 120 k per month. In this case, it was found that the air-conditioning (34%), lighting (18%) and PC/laptops (10%) are the main appliances that contributed to the total energy consumption for the building. The replacement to LEDs light in three different stages marked as Level A, Level A + B and Level A + B + C revealed to be a good solution for energy conservation which resulted in annual energy savings of 72,750 kWh, 110,381 kWh and 144,386 kWh. It concurrently contributes to annual savings of RM26554, RM40289 and RM52701 based on 9 h daily operating time with the payback period of about 1 year. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University.

Automated summary

The building sector is a major energy user and greenhouse gas emitter. Energy audit is an effective approach to identify efficient energy usage and savings. A detailed energy audit for a Research and Development building revealed that air-conditioning, lighting, and PC/laptops are the main contributors to energy consumption.