Energy Performance Contracting Initiative in Malaysian Public Hospitals

Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH) has integrated sustainability program in the management of its assets particularly hospital buildings in line with the national sustainability goals and the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals.  The fundamental sustainability change is significant since 2015 in the public healthcare sector where green business practice is more appreciable through formation of policy and sustainability related programme. Public hospital in Malaysia are very high energy consumers, therefore various energy projects have been implemented through Energy Performance Contracting (EPC). EPC projects in MOH is intended to deliver energy expenditure savings as well as to offset hospital building carbon footprint. EPC practice in government hospitals have managed to offset about 15.7 ktonne carbon emission in 2019 or about 16% of Government building national emission reduction target. Energy project such as energy efficient chiller retrofit, LED lighting retrofit and solar thermal hot water are some of the EPC initiatives by MOH in public hospitals. The energy projects not only serve to meet the overall Hospital Facility Management Contract sustainability goals but also to complement the green building target for Malaysian Healthcare building by 2025.  The aim of this paper is to review the development of the EPC projects in public healthcare sector and its impact on government energy spending as well as to the climate

Performance of Low Cost Alternative Radiant Cooling Panel in Malaysia

Radiant panel cooling is still considered uncommon in Malaysia due to unavailability of local manufacturers with limited architects or engineers who are familiar in the system. The initial construction cost for radiant cooling system may be higher than air system and not forgetting the need for a smaller supplementary air system to dehumidify the air to avoid condensation which is an inherited problem of the system in hot and humid region. Promotion and public awareness is lacking in the country and very much dependable on government demonstration program of green technology application where only a few governments owned building having such system. With the aim of long term energy and cost saving this study looks into the development of custom design and locally assembled low cost radiant cooling panel and how its performance in comparison to its overseas and more expensive counterpart could help in provide alternative cheaper building cooling system. Custom build cooling panels with selected materials were constructed and tested to find out its cooling capacity. Finite Element Method (FEM) software was used to establish a design chart to assist in the design and sizing of the alternative radiant panel for Malaysian residential house. The experiment shows that cooling performance in term of mean surface temperature and its cooling capacity is almost identical to its overseas counterpart. Use of cooling radiant panel with free night cooling of water as its chill water supply shows a significant energy saving potential while at the same time provide an acceptable room thermal comfort. Given the local made product having similar performance and suits local condition the technology could grow and be applied with confidence.       Â

Making Malaysia’s public healthcare system ‘greener’

Dr Khairul Azmy Kamaluddin, Ts Noor Muhammad Abd Rahman, and Dr Muhammad Syukri Imran Abdullah, discuss the advancement of sustainability programmes by the Malaysian Ministry of Health (MOH) to reduce carbon emissions within the country’s public healthcare sector

Decarbonizing Facilities in Malaysian Healthcare

This article provides an overview and updates on the advancement of sustainability programmes by the Ministry of Health (MOH) to reduce carbon emissions particularly in the public healthcare sector. Major adaptations by MOH include energy efficient building, adopting renewable energy resources to offset power demand, and waste reduction, as well as a green building initiative program. MOH will continue to commit towards sustainability and make planetary health and the climate agenda a priority in its actions

Virtual Environment Imaging Technology Enhances Maintenance of Biomedical Assets

Government hospitals provide a wide range services and house many facilities including biomedical equipment to ensure 24-hour healthcare services. The hospital’s facility managers need to leverage current resources to ensure minimum interruption to all critical functions which heavily rely on various type of biomedical equipment (BE). There are opportunities to integrate the use of emerging technologies such as 3D virtual environment imaging in facility management services of hospitals. The visualisation capability provided by such technology could greatly improve BE maintenance management process such as BE inventory upkeep, BE operation and routine maintenance processes, BE replacement and upgrades and BE safety and health. It also helps in the disaster management process as seen in increased mobility of BE across the Ministry of Health (MOH) facilities during the recent COVID 19 pandemic. The feasibility and acceptability of such technology in BE management should be further explored to optimise disaster response as well as out-of-hospital management of BE. MOH have taken a keen interest in such technology and is moving forward to test and implement such tools in this era of distance learning and distance managing

DEVELOPMENT OF ENERGY BENCHMARKING OF MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT HOSPITALS AND ANALYSIS OF ENERGY SAVINGS OPPORTUNITIES

There has been a growing interest in the Malaysian government on the issue of energy efficiency and the environment. This study presents the investigation and analysis of electrical energy performance characteristics of government hospital buildings in Malaysia. A generic questionnaire was developed to collect energy data of all government hospital buildings and a regression analysis was performed based on the feedback to predict the annual energy consumption of a Malaysian hospital building. Using the available surveyed data a generic hospital energy benchmark in Malaysia was developed and the surveyed data was also used to construct a typical base-case hospital building model using Energy Plus software. Using building simulation method with local weather data, areas of energy savings opportunities and its cost effectiveness are investigated. Simulation using selected cost effective energy savings measures suggests that the Annual Electrical Energy Use Index (EEUI) of the base-case hospital building model can be significantly reduced to as much as 28.85% with a simple payback of 3.7 years by applying energy saving measures such as improved glazing, lighting as well as optimization of ventilation and cooling syste

Investigation of earth tube system application in low income building in Kuching, Sarawak

Modern residential building in Malaysia particularly in Sarawak rarely consider the ground as a source of heat sink to cool down the building. This is probably due to the lack of information on surveyed ground temperature and energy modelling of such building. A typical low income residential building in Sarawak with earth tube was modelled in Energy Plus to determine the effect of earth tube to passively cool the building in Sarawak. From the simulation result, the indoor air temperature of the east facing zone of the building could be lowered from 33°C to 29.5°C. A further drop of about 0.6°C could be achieved if the room volume served by the earth tube is reduced. The PMV of the building were greatly reduced from 3 to 1.5 on a thermal sensation scale. The operative temperature is within 80% acceptability limits of 30.3°C operative temperature as per ASHRAE Standard 55 for naturally conditioned spaces. © School of Engineering, Taylor’s University

Performance of Low Cost Alternative Radiant Cooling Panel in Malaysia

Radiant panel cooling is still considered uncommon in Malaysia due to unavailability of local manufacturers with limited architects or engineers who are familiar in the system. The initial construction cost for radiant cooling system may be higher than air system and not forgetting the need for a smaller supplementary air system to dehumidify the air to avoid condensation which is an inherited problem of the system in hot and humid region. Promotion and public awareness is lacking in the country and very much dependable on government demonstration program of green technology application where only a few governments owned building having such system. With the aim of long term energy and cost saving this study looks into the development of custom design and locally assembled low cost radiant cooling panel and how its performance in comparison to its overseas and more expensive counterpart could help in provide alternative cheaper building cooling system. Custom build cooling panels with selected materials were constructed and tested to find out its cooling capacity. Finite Element Method (FEM) software was used to establish a design chart to assist in the design and sizing of the alternative radiant panel for Malaysian residential house. The experiment shows that cooling performance in term of mean surface temperature and its cooling capacity is almost identical to its overseas counterpart. Use of cooling radiant panel with free night cooling of water as its chill water supply shows a significant energy saving potential while at the same time provide an acceptable room thermal comfort. Given the local made product having similar performance and suits local condition the technology could grow and be applied with confidence.       

Night Cooled Radiant Cooling Panel for Sustainable Building Cooling Mode in Malaysia

Night air temperature in Malaysia is generally about 23°C and is a potential source of heat sink to dissipate heat gain from a building. A thermal storage tank was used to store a certain quantity of water and was passively cooled during the night using the pitched roof as a heat exchanger to chill the water to as low as 22°C. The free cooling of water was then used as a cooling medium to cool the modular radiant cooling panel during the day time when the outdoor temperature exceeds 30°C. The experiment shows that the system was able to maintain an indoor temperature of less than 28°C when the outdoor temperature peaked to nearly 34°C while providing acceptable thermal comfort with certain controlled air movement. The use of the hydronic radiant cooling panel with free night cooled water as its coolant is proven to have signifcant energy saving potential of up to 85% while at the same time provide an acceptable room thermal comfort which meets the international standard criteria such as the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 55

In Situ Measurement and Remediation of Condensation Issue in Sarawak General Hospital Molecular Lab During COVID 19

Sarawak General Hospital Molecular laboratory suffers significant condensation issues particularly above its ceiling due to combination of design and construction shortfall. Overcooling of laboratory and inappropriate selection of insulation were found to be the major contributing factor. The solution was to introduce 50 mm Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) layer as a thermal barrier within the ceiling layers. Two units of dehumidifier with a total capacity of 70L/day were installed at attic level to control humidity to 60%. The corrective measures have been able to reduce the condensation risk greatly by increasing the difference between air dew point and surface temperature of ceiling by 6.7 °C. In general, the rectification work selected was able to minimize the laboratory downtime using a sustainable, environmental and budget friendly materia