The development of an effective energy management framework for energy efficient buildings

Energy management in government office buildings is to ensure continuous energy efficiency over a long period of time by applying the methods that suit the needs and the budget. Effective energy management is not only to achieve and maintain optimum energy consumption and to minimize energy costs, but also to ensure that its performance will not affect the performance and quality as well as to maintain the energy efficiency levels that has been achieved. The achievement of energy efficiency is continuous through the involvement of various parties concerned. Therefore, effective energy management programs could improve energy efficiency in the government office buildings with several criteria and practices, establishing good cooperation between top management, employees, energy management committee and various teams. This research aims to develop a framework for improving the energy efficiency practices for a more effective energy management environment. The thesis begins with a review of the literature on energy management concepts, issues, advantages and the importance of increasing the consideration of energy efficiency measures in the office building. Existing references and interviews show how common practices do not involve the relationship between top management, employees and energy management committees in ensuring the implementation of energy efficiency practices more effective and sustainable. A framework of working practices for improving the energy management program is based from three case studies as well as analysis of literatures and insights from the experts. The results from analysis of the case studies show that energy efficiency programs and activities can be implemented well through the involvement and cooperation of many parties with the guidance on energy management planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation that help them to improve building performance. Therefore, the framework developed within the research, provides team leaders or energy managers with a holistic and structured approach for achieving energy efficient buildings through the appropriate practices of the effective energy management program. Recommendation for future work may focus studies on a larger scale to investigate other government-owned buildings and taking into account as well the technical aspects of technology so that the approach of the study becomes more comprehensive, integrated and systematic

Implementation of energy management in designing stage of building construction

The design stage in construction project, in fact, is one of the significant stages in a project life cycle.This research aims to emphasize the needs of energy saving element in the design stage of building to face the future changes of building’s energy consumption.This research still in its initial phase, therefore the findings and discussion is based on previous studies and looks into the key issues while exploring the potential for further research This research has been carried out to discover the importance of considering the energy management elements during the design stage of commercial building construction for the conventional building in Malaysia.The main reason is that in tropical climate, commercial buildings have very high energy needs usually during the peak periods of business hour.Hence, the research objective is to minimize the total energy consumption during the building occupancy besides various energy saving strategies that is usually implemented later in operation and maintenance stage.Overall this paper reviews the previous works and potential implementation to the industry in order to enhance this research for further investigation

Value Management (VM): A Strategic Approach for Improving Energy Efficiency

Value Management (VM) is a multi-disciplinary process, consist of team oriented, structured, analytical process and systematic analysis of function, to seeks best value in the project process and meet the clients needs. While the important of Energy Efficiency (EE) in buildings is a must nowadays because of energy consumption rising very high and this situation occurs not only in developed countries but also in developing countries such as Malaysia. In fact, there is demand towards building with energy efficiency features at this time, however most of the current buildings types are still being constructed with conventional designs thus contribute to inefficient of energy consumption during the operation stage of the building. Based on the relevant literatures, VM has provides an efficient and effective delivery system to fulfil the objectives and clients requirements. Therefore, this paper presents the concept and the application of VM approach and potential to improve energy efficiency within pre-construction process and contribute to better optimize the energy consumption in a building by seeking the best value energy efficiency through the design and construction process

Strategy for Energy-Efficient Office Building of Public University in Malaysia: Case Study

Malaysia’s public university campuses should be a good example of pioneering efforts to achieve good energy efficiency in government-owned office buildings. While there is concern about achieving energy efficiency in office buildings, there are still many energy efficiency problems that cause an increase in operating expenses every year. Based on a preliminary energy audit of two main office buildings at two separate public university campuses in Malaysia, this study investigated possible strategies. During the audit process, there was a range of different approaches that were introduced and proposed, which include no-cost, low-cost, and high-cost energy measures. However, in addressing energy efficiency issues, there are three practical energy-saving measures to be considered, not only in the university’s main buildings but also in other government office buildings. Such energy-saving measures involve the lighting system, air-conditioning system, and building envelope. The measures chosen as a strategy described in this paper have been researched recently, or are currently on-going studies. All of these strategies have been and are being implemented in these two campuses, and are therefore examples of practical solutions that can be applied according to budget planning and annual budget allocations. The findings and strategies of this study are expected to be a form of guidance to address issues related to energy management in office buildings. The end of this paper provides some recommendations in future and similar studies that may be conducted for all office buildings within these two campuses containing different building designs and features. &nbsp

Energy management study: A proposed case of government building

Align with the current needs of the sustainable and green technology in Malaysian construction industry, this research is conducted to seek and identify opportunities to better manage energy use including the process of understand when, where, and how energy is used in a building.The purpose of this research is to provide a best practice guideline as a practical tool to assist construction industry in Malaysia to improve the energy efficiency of the office building during the post-production by reviewing the current practice of the building operation and maintenance in order to optimum the usage and reduce the amount of energy input into the building. Therefore, this paper will review the concept of maintenance management, current issue in energy management, and on how the research process will be conducted.There are several process involves and focuses on technical and management techniques such as energy metering, tracing, harvesting, and auditing based on the case study that will be accomplish soon. Accordingly, a case study is appropriate to be selected as a strategic research approach in which involves an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using multiple sources of evidence for the data collection process.A Government office building will be selected as an appropriate case study for this research. In the end of this research, it will recommend a strategic approach or model in a specific guideline for enabling energy-efficient operation and maintenance in the office building

Energy efficency of chancellery building at Universiti Utara Malaysia

There are various initiatives in ensuring the optimum and efficiency usage of energy in the government owned buildings. By complying with the MS1525:2007 standard, the energy efficiency of buildings is taken as a reference to ensure the buildings meets the current standard. This paper presents a three years energy consumption data of the Chancellery building at Universiti Utara Malaysia. This study aims to ensure that the building is able to meet the standard requirements of the Building Energy Index (BEI). Based on MS 1525:2007 any building which implements energy efficient measures can achieve the BEI of 136kWh/m2/year. Preliminary audit conducted involves a brief review of utility and building operation, observation and a walkthrough in the building. General audit has been conducted in order to get a better understanding of major energy consumption and to collect more detailed information about the operation of the building. Data from monthly energy usage and gross floor area of the building has been collected and the BEI was calculated. Recommendation on how to improve energy saving and enhancement for building performance are presented. Several energy efficiency practices that do not involve higher operation cost or without any additional cost are also introduced. By implementing some of the good energy efficiency measures in the building enable better assessment and continuous monitoring of energy usages within the university campus

Optimal step-function approximation of load duration curve using Evolutionary Programming (EP)

This paper proposes Evolutionary Programming (EP) to determine optimal step-function approximation of Load Duration Curve (LDC) at minimum error. The EP model optimally discretized a load duration curve based on Malaysia’s hourly load data in year 2012 for three and six segments of discretized LDC.The EP is developed using MatLab programming software.Results show that EP technique is able to provide optimum break points of discretized LDC at minimum error.In the analysis, it shows that the 6-step functions of LDC has a lower total error than the 3-step functions of LDC.The EP technique proposed in this paper is also compared with Dynamic Programming (DP) technique.Results show that EP provides a much shorter elapsed time than DP and have a lower total error for 3-step functions of LDC.This EP-based model step function approximation of LDC is very useful for the power system planner to develop accurate generation expansion planning

Forecasting Impact of Demand Side Management on Malaysia’s Power Generation using System Dynamic Approach

Rapid economic growth, increasing population, industrialization and high living standards have increased the electricity demand more than ever before. Efficient energy planning and management is always considered as the greatest challenge in all over the world. Among the other factors availability of electricity is the main bottleneck to the economic growth and industrial revolution. Considering this fact, it becomes necessary for academicians, government agencies and electricity companies to construct more efficient methodologies and procedures to predict long-term electricity demand. The objective of this article represents the initiative towards understanding and analyzing the importance of demand-side management (DSM) in forecasting electricity demand by using a system dynamics approach. This study examines the long term impact of demand-side management variables including HER (Home energy report), MEPS (Minimum Energy Performance Standards) and NEEAP (National Energy Efficiency Action Plan). The future installation capacity of Malaysia’s power generation is evaluated considering the factors of population, per capita electricity consumption, efficiency, capacity margin and DSM. The forecasting horizon of the simulation model is 15 years from 2016 to 2030.Keywords: Energy forecasting, System Dynamics, Energy efficiency, Energy Demand Side ManagementJEL Classifications: O18, Q21DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.9716</p

Building energy index: A case study of three government office buildings in Malaysia

This paper presents the findings of a study to investigate energy consumption for three selected government office buildings in Malaysia and to determine the Building Energy Index (BEI) for each building.The main purpose of this study is to review how much the buildings utilized energy and then to identify factors affecting energy usage. To obtain basic information and data, the analysis was performed based on the data gathered, on-site survey and qualitative assessment on the building and its systems.Building Energy Index (BEI) is used for comparing energy consumption in buildings for one year and measured in kilowatts hours divided by the gross floor area of the building in square meters.Based on BEI MS 1525:2007 Standard of 136 kWh/m2/year, there is only one of selected building has achieved BEI below than requirement standard for energy efficient building in Malaysia.In the end, factors that affecting inefficient energy consumption will provide researcher to propose appropriate energy saving approaches in future study.At the meanwhile for a long term solutions and consistent energy savings, it can be achieve by implementing energy efficient design with sustainable technologies in the early stage of construction to maintain the best environment of workplace while minimizing the energy cost

Building Energy Index (BEI): A study of government office building in Malaysian Public University

Energy consumption in developing countries such as Malaysia is certainly growing in line with current economic growth and development of commercial as well as residential areas. Thus, various initiatives can be seen, in particular by the role of the government in ensuring the optimum and efficiency usage of energy in the building. Therefore, MS1525 standard is a standard that takes into account the energy efficiency of a building as a reference to determines to what extent the building meets the current standard. Then, this paper presents the Building Energy Index (BEI) for the Chancellery building in Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). The aim is to study BEI for the buildings whether this building achieved the standard requirement. The objective of the study was achieved by collecting data of monthly energy usage, gross floor area of the buildings and calculating BEI to get actual results. Preliminary audit which involves a brief review of utility and building operation, observation and a walkthrough in the buildings are used. In order to get a better understanding of major energy consumption in the selected buildings, general audit have been conducted to collect more detailed information about building operation. Based on MS 1525:2007 any building which implements energy efficient measures can achieved the BEI of 136 kWh/ m2/ year