Energy audit in Malaysian public university: assessing the energy efficiency of UiTM in Tapah campus / Muhammad Hilmi Dzulkefli

The increase of energy consumption in Malaysian universities has raised national concerns because it increases government fiscal budget and at the same time influence the energy performance in the universities. Energy audit has become one of the essential elements in managing the energy consumption of universities. Through the energy audit, the energy performance of the buildings and its related facilities can be monitored and areas that have the potential for energy savings can be identified. At the moment, most of the research is focusing on universities in Malaysia that have total control over the energy audit processes through the conventional maintenance department. Little is known on the actual nature of the energy audit performance over Malaysian PFI universities. Under the 9th Malaysia Plan, the government had officiated the implementation of PFI projects in order to encourage better connection of the private sector in performing public services, which includes maintaining facilities in universities. Consequently, many PFI universities need energy audit to facilitate the energy performance and the standards of these implementations need to be justified. The purpose of this research is to focus on the energy audit processes conducted and to identify the factors that may contribute towards energy efficiency in the Malaysian PFI universities. In this research, a related information on energy audit such as specifications from electrical and mechanical systems and the relationship of these factors with the use of energy have been explored. It has been found that the significant processes in an energy audit can help to save energy consumption by comparing the energy implementation process through the investigation of energy consumption behaviour and the number of electrical systems, machinery and buildings activities that have an impact on energy consumption which allow energy-efficiency in a building. The Building Energy Index (BEI) has been used as an indicator and Energy Conservation Measures (ECM) has been used to obtain a solution and possible improvement of energy consumption during energy audit implementation. An energy data analysis approach has been obtained in order to identify the energy consumption trends in the university with the aid of selected energy audit documentation. It has been found that the selected PFI university in this research has achieved 135 kWh/m2/year of BEI after eight (8) improvement strategies in ECMs have been implemented that may consider significant towards energy performance efficiency. These eight (8) strategies involved four (4) No-Cost Measures, two (2) Medium-Cost Measures and two (2) High-Cost Measures. The methodology is limited to implementation of energy improvement on-site based on the energy reading collected using energy tools and the result has been achieved by looking through the best practice of energy audit of the case study in UiTM of Tapah Campus. UiTM of Tapah Campus is selected since this university is the first university in Malaysia that has implemented a PFI procurement with higher energy users. The result of this research can be used as a guideline for other PFI universities that consume high energy in order to help improving the energy consumption through a feasible energy audit process.