Sustainable energy management practices and its effect on EEI: a case on university buildings

Abstract

Energy consumption in commercial buildings contributes greatly towards high energy demand, especially in developed countries. For this reason, energy efficiency in buildings is given increasing attention and included in the energy policy at all levels. However, the complexities of building's energy system make it difficult to gather information on building energy consumption. Many methods have been proposed to measure the energy consumption accurately. The major issues are how to regularly monitor the performance of energy management programs and how to reduce energy usage in a building. This paper focuses on the Energy-Efficiency Index (EEI) as an indicator to track the performance of energy consumption in buildings. A study is conducted at the Engineering Faculties of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) using a combination of standard measurements of energy consumption and air-conditioned area from building's databases. Various energy saving management programs were conducted in these faculties since 2010. The results from these programs showed a reduction in EEI and provide opportunities for continuous energy saving practices.