Techno-economic evaluation of energy efficiency measures in high rise residential buildings in Malaysia

In this paper, a survey was conducted on a residential condominium to estimate energy use by different household appliances along the lighting energy estimation in public areas. It has been found that about 2.17 GWh of energy is used in the condominium annually by different types of household appliances and lightings in public areas. As there is significant potential to reduce the energy used, different energy savings measures have been applied and energy savings, bill savings, life cycle cost analysis have been estimated and presented in this paper. It has been found that a cumulative amount of 2.4 GWh of energy can be saved for about 10 years with the implementation of different energy savings strategies proposed for appliances and lighting in public areas. However, good maintenance practices and good energy management practices should be employed continuously to maintain high energy efficiency and high performance of the equipment used and the entire building. It has been found that some of the measures like reducing air conditioning load and reducing heat gain through window tinting are economically very viable as payback period is very short. More advantageously, some of the measures can be implemented without investing significant cost. Ultimately, a key driver in the success of energy efficiency is the education and attitude of the stakeholders in the building industry, and end users who are committed to practice energy saving measures.