Energy efficiency practices for Malaysian green office building occupants

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chukwuka Christian Ohueri ◽  
Wallace Imoudu Enegbuma ◽  
Russell Kenley

Purpose Green building construction was adopted as a strategy to reduce energy consumption and the overall impact of the built environment on our natural environment. However, in Malaysia, previous studies have reaffirmed that green office buildings consume a substantial amount of energy, compared to their counterparts in Singapore. Moreover, there is still a significant performance gap between predicted energy measurements and actual operational energy consumption of green office buildings in Malaysia, due to occupants’ behavioural discrepancies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop energy efficiency practices for occupants of green office buildings in Malaysia. The developed practices integrate technology, organisation policy, and occupants’ behavioural strategies, in order to reduce the energy consumption of green office buildings in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach To achieve the research goal, a mixed (quantitative and qualitative) research method was used to collect data from the research population. In total, 53 respondents working in a green office building complex in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia were surveyed using a questionnaire. Additionally, three top management staff of the green office building and two Malaysian construction professionals were interviewed. The study adopted convenience sampling technique in selecting the research respondents. The data from the questionnaire were analysed using SPSS software (version 22) while the interview data were analysed via thematic content analysis. Findings The findings suggest that the integration of technological strategy (use of BIM tools, sustainable building materials, etc.); organisational strategy (develop, implement and evaluate action plans, use of monitor/control systems, etc.); and occupants behavioural strategy (training, incentives, occupants energy efficiency guide, etc.) will critically reduce energy consumption of green office buildings in Malaysia. Originality/value Based on the findings, energy efficiency practices are developed to guide occupants in reducing the energy consumption of green office buildings in Malaysia. This strategy will contribute to reducing the performance gap that exists between predicted energy and actual energy use of green office buildings in Malaysia. However, the developed energy efficiency practices need to be validated to ascertain its workability in the green office building context.

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 978-998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco De Luca ◽  
Hendrik Voll ◽  
Martin Thalfeldt

PurposeExterior shading devices and dynamic shading systems constitute an efficient way to improve energy efficiency and occupants’ comfort in buildings through the reduction of direct solar heat gains and disturbing glare. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the performance of different types of shading systems, fixed and dynamic, and their influence on the energy consumption and cooling loads for an office building located in Tallinn, Estonia. The scope is to determine the most performative configuration for energy consumption and cooling load reduction for office buildings and to provide designers and developers with the necessary knowledge to increase the performance of their buildings.Design/methodology/approachThere are many types of fixed shading devices, most of which use rectangular planar elements, the orientation and layout of which depends on the building location and façade orientation. The dynamic shading systems vary on the base of the building occupancy schedules and occupants’ preferences. The paper presents a method to determine the most efficient type and size of fixed shading devices in relation to different windows’ size and orientation, and the quantity of windows panes. At the same time the dynamic shading system using a control algorithm developed by the authors is compared.FindingsThe results show that solar shading is an efficient way to control the energy consumption of office buildings, though with different efficacy by the static systems depending on orientation, window and shading type. Evidence shows that dynamic blind systems have more uniform performance and usually outperform static shading.Originality/valueThe paper compares the performances of different static and dynamic shading devices and systems for the location in Tallinn. The dynamic shading system tested uses a control algorithm developed by the authors. The indications for the energy reduction and cooling loads are a valuable resource for designers and developers to increase the energy efficiency of their buildings.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jalil Shaeri ◽  
Mahmood Yaghoubi ◽  
Amin Habibi ◽  
Ata Chokhachian

Extensive cost in the building industry comes from cooling and heating to create thermal comfort. Hence, it is necessary to utilize passive solutions, in addition to suitable design, in order to reduce energy consumption. This research attempts to investigate the impact of archetype patterns in office buildings on annual energy consumption for cooling, heating and daylight loads. For this purpose, the DesignBuilder software was used to compare the forms. In this study, four conventional construction forms were considered, including the single and dense form, central courtyard buildings, U form and linear form, and each was considered with two, four and six-stories. Forms were simulated in the three cities of Bushehr, Shiraz and Tabriz, with hot-humid, hot-dry and cold climates, respectively. The results revealed that the office building with a linear form in Bushehr had the lowest energy consumption in the two and four-story forms, and also in the six-story form, the central courtyard form had the lowest energy consumption. Additionally, the central courtyard forms in Tabriz and Shiraz had the lowest energy consumption in all cases. Finally, the linear form possessed the most natural daylight through all of the studied cases for the three cities in terms of natural light gain.


Facilities ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (11/12) ◽  
pp. 622-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzaini M. Zaid ◽  
Amir Kiani Rad ◽  
Nurshuhada Zainon

Purpose Global warming and climate change is one of the biggest issues facing humanity in this century; its effects are felt on the highest peaks of Mount Everest to the low-lying islands in the India Ocean. This century marked the highest amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted, breaking records of the past 650,000 years, and we have pushed the climate to “a point of no return”. Much of the climate contribution has been linked to humanity’s thirst for higher living standards and lifestyle, which has led to higher consumerism, depletion of earth’s resources, production of massive waste and carbon emissions. Fast forward from the sustainability agenda of Brundtland set in 1987 and the increasing demand for energy consumption to cater for the current global inhabitants, many “green” efforts have been taken by the building industry to reduce the overall environmental impact. This purpose of this study is to compare energy performance of a conventional office building with a green certified building. Design/methodology/approach This paper tries to bridge the performance gap by comparing measured operational energy consumption and carbon emission of Green Building Index (GBI)-certified office buildings in Kuala Lumpur, to determine whether “green buildings” are performing as intended in reducing their environmental impact. Findings This paper highlighted and compared operational energy consumption and carbon emissions of a GBI-certified office with a conventional office building in Malaysia. The paper also discusses the performance gap issue and its common causes, and aims to compare predicted energy and operational energy performance of buildings. Originality/value Initiatives such as “green” or “sustainable” design have been at the forefront of architecture, while green assessment tools have been used to predict the energy performance of a building during its operational phase. There is still a significant performance gap between predicted or simulated energy measurements to actual operational energy consumption. The need to measure actual performance of these so-called “green buildings” is important to investigate if there is a performance gap and whether these buildings can perform better than conventional buildings. Understanding why the performance gap occurs is a step in reducing actual and predicted energy performance in buildings.


2013 ◽  
Vol 700 ◽  
pp. 89-92
Author(s):  
Juan Li ◽  
Ying Pan

Early in the 20th century 70's, the concept of energy-saving building was officially proposed. The core of energy-saving buildings is to reduce energy consumption and enhance energy efficiency in buildings. However, with the continued rapid growth of China's economic and urbanization high-rise buildings have become the mainstream of the building industry. So, the research on energy-saving design in high-rise buildings in advanced structure becomes the hot issue of general interest. Many advanced structures and building materials have constantly developed, and have been used in high-rise buildings energy efficiency design. This paper summarizes and prospects the current situation of energy-saving design in chinas high-rise building, and also provides a reference for hoping the energy-saving design can be geared to international standards better.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 206-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu Junyang ◽  
Hu Zhigang ◽  
Han Yuanyuan

Current consumption of cloud computing has attracted more and more attention of scholars. The research on Hadoop as a cloud platform and its energy consumption has also received considerable attention from scholars. This paper presents a method to measure the energy consumption of jobs that run on Hadoop, and this method is used to measure the effectiveness of the implementation of periodic tasks on the platform of Hadoop. Combining with the current mainstream of energy estimate formula to conduct further analysis, this paper has reached a conclusion as how to reduce energy consumption of Hadoop by adjusting the split size or using appropriate size of workers (servers). Finally, experiments show the effectiveness of these methods as being energy-saving strategies and verify the feasibility of the methods for the measurement of periodic tasks at the same time.


Author(s):  
Livio de Santoli

Building sustainability, in term of energy efficiency, low-impact building materials, renewable energy, has experienced significant growth during the past years. In response to the growing dependence on fossil fuels and importations, due in part to the increase of energy consumption in the residential sector (in 2009 46,9 Mtep, 3% more than 2008) and the recent European directives (i.e. EU 2009/28/CE) requiring CO2 emissions cut of up to 13% in 2020, there is interest in promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, which are suitable for residential applications. In this paper we present an overview on actions related to minimization of buildings energy consumption in Italy. Prevalent line of action is to improve the energy performances of building envelope (Dlgs 192/05) using insulated frames, walls and roofs and replacing heat generators with condensing boilers. In addition to national directives, ONRE Report 2011 (National Observatory on building regulations) shows that 831 Municipalities (10% more than 2010) establish mandatory targets for insulation, photovoltaic solar panels, solar water heaters, heat pumps use, correct buildings orientation, saving of water resource and local materials use. In addiction an efficient energy rating of the buildings could promote the spread of energy efficiency measurement and consequently facilitate their implementation. The new energy rating system should meet international standards, regarding environment and energy aspects, and respect territorial needs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 85
Author(s):  
Marsul Siregar ◽  
Firma Purbantoro ◽  
Tajuddin Nur

Energy Management Concept as part of Green Building Concept is focused to Improve Energy Efficiency Index (EEI) and Water Consumption Index (WCI). The Implementation Energy Management Concept in an office buildings of this study based on the management system model of continual improvement ISO 50001:2011. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which the implementation of green building principles in Office Buildings. This study took the case study in an office building in Jakarta Indonesia that has two towers, each tower has 32 floors and 3 basement floors. The method used is descriptive with respect to GREENSHIP Rating Tools for existing building which consists of six categories; Appropriate Site Development (ASD), Energy Efficiency & Conservation (EEC), Water Conservation (WAC), Material Resources & Cycle (MRC), Indoor Air Health & Comfort (IHC) and Building & Environments Management (BEM). The results show that implementation the Energy Management Concept could also made energy performance more efficient, after Implementing through Retrofitting of the Chiller System, Recycle Waste Water, Replacement of Conventional lamp to Energy Saving LED and also Training and Education to all employees and tenants. From comparing data research before implementation of Energy Management Concept in 2014 and after Implementation and retrofitting in 2016, 2017 & 2018, it is found that Energy Efficiency Index (EEI) from 238.8 kwh/m2/Years to 134,04kwh/m2/Year and Water Consumption Index (WCI)From 50 liter/person/Day to 27.18 Liter/person/Day. And the saving cost from electricity bill payments is IDR. 466,803,325.67 / month (18%) and roughly will Break Event Point (BEP) for 3.86 Years


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-245
Author(s):  
Sofiane Rahmouni ◽  
Rachid Smail

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to achieve the national strategic agenda’s criteria that aim for accomplishing sustainable buildings by estimating the effects of energy efficiency measures in order to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emission. Design/methodology/approach A design approach has been developed based on simulation software and a modeled building. Therefore, a typical office building is considered for testing five efficiency measures in three climatic conditions in Algeria. This approach is conducted in two phases: first, the analysis of each measure’s effect is independently carried out in terms of cooling energy and heating energy intensities. Then, a combination of optimal measures for each climate zone is measured in terms of three sustainable indicators: final energy consumption, energy cost saving and CO2 emission. Findings The results reveal that a combination of optimal measures has a substantial impact on building energy saving and CO2 emission. This saving can rise to 41 and 31 percent in a hot and cold climate, respectively. Furthermore, it is concluded that obtaining higher building performance, different design alternatives should be adapted to the climate proprieties and the local construction materials must be applied. Originality/value This study is considered as an opportunity for achieving the national strategy, as it may contribute in improving office building performance and demonstrating a suitable tool to assist stakeholders in the decision making of most important parameters in the design stage for new or retrofit buildings.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 6305
Author(s):  
Haibo Guo ◽  
Lu Huang ◽  
Wenjie Song ◽  
Xinyue Wang ◽  
Hongnan Wang ◽  
...  

As the climate changed in recent years, an increase in summer indoor temperatures in severe cold and cold regions of China has started to affect thermal comfort. However, the local design standard for energy efficiency does not recognize this phenomenon. This paper reports the potential overheating phenomenon in residential buildings and examines the rationale for the current thermal designs adopted in severe cold and cold regions of China. In this study, the two most commonly used building materials, reinforced concrete (RC) and cross laminated timber (CLT), are used separately in the design of an 18-story residential building envelope located in six different cities in the severe cold and cold regions. The energy consumption and indoor operative temperatures during the operation of these buildings are simulated using Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment (IES VE). The results demonstrate that both the RC and the CLT buildings experience varying degrees of overheating in any climate subregion. The CLT buildings have longer overheating hours compared to the RC buildings, especially in the cold regions. The results also indicate that for apartments on higher stories, the cooling energy consumption and indoor temperature also increase gradually. The research results suggest that the local design standard for energy efficiency needs to be adjusted by adding thermal design methods for summer to reduce the periods of overheating.


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