Investigation of energy management practice and achievement in UTeM

• Main Author: Arifin, Khairil Anwar
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/25952/1/Investigation%20of%20energy%20management%20practice%20and%20achievement%20in%20UTeM.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/25952/2/Investigation%20of%20energy%20management%20practice%20and%20achievement%20in%20UTeM.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/25952/; https://plh.utem.edu.my/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=120254

Energy management strategy and practice in the building have attracted lots of attention in recent years, It is crucial, especially in a higher learning institution such as UTeM, which is classified as a large building and consumes more than 10 million kWh per year due to various functions, occupancy, and appliances. The holistic energy management strategy and practice not only the discovery of baseline energy use, benchmarking, and then only to provide reasonable return-on-investment solution. Hence, the research aims to investigate the energy management practice and achievement in UTeM by reviewing the energy management strategy and practice implemented and the benefits in terms of energy and cost-saving and carbon emissions reduction. The analysis of factors that influence energy consumption was also included. An appropriate model adapted from 7 elements in Energy Management Gold Standard (EMGS) certification, and survey approach by previous research had been designed to investigate the energy management practice and achievement in UTeM. The benefits of the implementation strategy were justified in terms of energy and cost-saving and carbon emissions reduction. Case studies were performed to demonstrate the factors hat influence the energy consumption in UTeM. From the evaluation of measurement tools for energy management key practice, the progress and ‘achievement in the planning and implementation phase were outstanding. However, the monitoring and evaluating phase was average. With achievement in EMGS 2-Star rating in 2019, it proved that the energy management practice had been put in place with the ‘minimum 5% annual energy reduction from the baseline was achieved. The target for assessment on EMGS 3-Star rating is this year. Consequently, the monitoring and evaluating phase evaluation is expected to be improved where they continuously improve and sustain the energy reduction and integrating energy management with other standards. The energy and cost-saving achieved is 20,202,850 kWh or RM 7,374,040.62, equivalent 10 14,021 tonnes of CO2 emission reduction in the past five years. A method and regression equation for predicting the energy consumption from the independent variable. working and class days, was proposed. The regression equation was applied to the year 2020 to verify the energy consumption prediction accuracy. The total predicted energy consumption for 2020 is 12,901,643 kWh, with a variance of about -744,448 kWh compared to metered energy consumption. The negative variance represents the effect of ESMs implemented in the year 2020, which equals 605,830 kWh. The remaining energy consumption, 138,618 kWh, is probably because of the limitation of occupancy during RMCO, where only 70% maximum at one time of staff is allowed at the workplace by MKN. The findings of this study could be used as a guideline for commercial buildings especially higher learning institutions in Malaysia that consume a lot of energy to implement sustainable energy management strategies and practices.