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ENERGY AUDIT OF OLD BUILDINGS IN MALAYSIA: AN INDICATIVE SURVEY ON

ELECTRICITY SERVICES PERFORMANCE

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Syahrul Nizam Kamaruzzaman Raha Sulaiman

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 ENERGY AUDIT OF OLD BUILDINGS IN MALAYSIA: AN
INDICATIVE SURVEY ON ELECTRICITY SERVICES
PERFORMANCE

S. N. Kamaruzzaman1& Raha Sulaiman1

Department of Building Surveying, Faculty of Built Environment,

University of Malaya, Lembah Pantai, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Tel: 006-03 7967 6833
Email: syahrulnizam@um.edu.my

ABSTRACT:

Malaysian researchers reported that there will be a rapid growth on the electricity supplies
with 4 percent growth per year and it is estimated that the maximum demand may achieved
up to 23,099 MW in 2020. In its ninth Malaysian Plan, one of the important thrust is to
improve sufficient and sustainable energy supply. On the other hand, energy consumed in
Malaysia was 90% in the form of electricity. However, the new energy policy National Green
Technology is believed only take place to new developments, new buildings and new
systems. This awareness is so far has yet to take into consideration on the ideas and issues on
old buildings. Most of the buildings in Malaysia are already old and therefore occasionally
need a little "face-lifting" in the form of modernization in order to meet the needs demand.
Nevertheless, most of these buildings were treated unfittingly especially in terms of energy
efficiency. Most of the buildings energy consumption uses electricity for the running and
operating such as running the plants, lighting, lifts and escalators and other equipment in the
building. This paper investigates the energy use in four reused old buildings in Malaysia
focusing on the electricity services. Electricity bills were gathered and analyzed. The analysis
was performed on annual data, allowing comparison with published benchmark to give an
indication of efficiency. It is anticipated that this study gives a good indication of the
electricity consumption characteristics of reused old buildings in Malaysia.

Keywords- Adaptive reuse, Benchmark, Electricity usage, Old Buildings, Malaysia

1. INTRODUCTION

Electricity was once thought of as a plentiful and relatively inexpensive power supply.
Unfortunately, times have changed for the worse when it comes to power. The demand on the
electricity supplies will keep increasing by 4 percent per year with the estimated maximum
demand at 23,099 MW in 2020 (Oh et al, 2010). By 2010, electricity will be the second
largest energy demand in Malaysia at 19% (Zain-Ahmad, 2008). In a broader aspect, with the
positive growth of development in Asia, the peak demand for electricity is also predicted to
keep increasing in the future years (UK Trade & Industry, 2003; Ishiguro, & Akiyama, 1995).
The increased of population growth as well as the improved life style will also influence the
electricity consumption in all sectors including industrial, agricultural, commercial and
housing. This is supported by Energy Commission (2011) which reported that energy
consumption per capita is about 3,388 kwh per person.

Installed generation Maximum demand

capacity

Figure1: Maximum demand and installed generation capacity in Peninsular Malaysia

(Energy Commission, 2010)

New capacities have to be planted up and even more before 2020 and Figure 1 shows
current preparation in order to meet the predicted growth in electricity demand where the
supplied capacity is already higher than the maximum demand. In most countries, electricity
consumption typically ranges from 15 to 40% of total electricity consumption. This energy is
used by a variety of appliances providing water heating, food and space cooling, lighting and
other end-uses. The Department of Electricity and Gas Supply had tabulated the electricity
consumption in Malaysia by sectors (Figure 2) and this is reported in Aun (2004). Those data
represent the electricity consumption from 1980 to 2001 and clearly shows the rapid growth
especially in residential, commercial and industrial.

Figure 2: Electricity consumption in Malaysia by sectors (Aun, 2004)

In its ninth Malaysian Plan, one of the important thrust is to improve sufficient and
sustainable energy supply. It was reported in Zain-Ahmed (2008) that the energy consumed
in Malaysia was 90% in the form of electricity. Further she reported that in 2002, 44% of
electricity consumption was from the residential sector and 75% of the energy consumption
in commercial sectors was the electricity which mostly due to the usages of indoor lighting
and air-conditioning (Ramatha, 1994). Therefore, one of the missions in ninth Malaysian Plan
was to measure intensively the energy efficiency especially in commercial, industry and
government buildings (EPU, 2005).
Incline with the developed awareness on energy efficiencies in Malaysia, the government
is committed to improve their energy policies by introducing the National Green Technology
in 2009 (Oh, 2010; Chua and Oh, 2010). However, it is believed that the application of these
actions will only take place to new developments, new buildings and new systems. This
awareness is so far has yet to take into consideration on the ideas and issues on old buildings
(Chwieduk, 2003) which till to date, they are accumulated approximately 30,000 buildings in
Malaysia (Iidi, 1996).
The primary objective of this study is thus; to investigate the characteristics of electricity
consumption in reuse old buildings. By comparing electricity performance to established
energy benchmarks, this paper aims to provide a first indication on how well the buildings are
performing and will also identify any wastage of energy usage and what scope there is for
improvement.

1.1 Old Buildings in Malaysia

Old buildings are also known as heritage buildings or historic buildings. With
reference to Malaysian practice, Salleh and Ahmad (2009) categorized that buildings with the
age of 50-year or more could be called as old and historic buildings. Old buildings are
important assets of a nation’s cultural resources. In hot and humid countries, the all year
round regime of heavy rains and hot temperatures contributes to the inconsistent fluctuations
of indoor climate and it does eventually create changes on the systems used on old buildings
– from passive design approach to refurbished active building design.
The classifications of old buildings are; 1) buildings which were built 80 - 100 years
ago, 2) with unique and beauty value from the architecture, scientific, culture and art
perspective and 3) the materials used and the details of the buildings elements will reflect the
cultural history of Malaysia to the modern world (Laws of Malaysia, 1976 and Majid, 2003).
Even though with the rapid economic growth, it is unfair if we just concentrated on the
demand for more new buildings where in the near future, it is believed that there will be a
new paradigm for profession on maintenance and refurbishment of old buildings (Sulaiman
et al, 2010). As to demolish old buildings are not very good decisions therefore, often the
case they will be refurbished, restored, adaptive re-used, conserved and preserved into other
type of buildings (Sulaiman et al, 2011) to cater the need of the nation especially in large
cities such as Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru, and Penang.
However, most of these buildings were treated unfittingly. CIBSE (2002) stated that
in old buildings, balancing the needs of the building fabric, the occupants, the contents,
desired environmental criteria can be difficult. All these elements direct or indirectly will be
the factors of contributing to the energy demand and energy consumption in old buildings.
Based on these issues, Figure 3 below shows the formulation of the research problems
tackled in this paper.
 OLD BUILDINGS

Treated unfittingly

Lack of technical knowledge Improper renovation &

refurbishment technique
Only on Escalating
functionality costs and bills
The designer Poorly refurbished building The owner
Not on energy Successive
efficiencies refurbishment
Building elements Building services works

= unaware link between energy efficiency and running costs of buildings

Figure 3: Schematic of the research problem

According to DOE (1995), when a building is refurbished, energy costs often rise
dramatically due to better cooling levels, higher ventilation rates and more attractive lighting.
The above research problems flows indicates that there are often unaware of the link between
energy efficiency which supposed to be planned earlier by the designer with the running costs
of buildings which shall be upon the owner.

1.2 Energy Performance Indicators & Benchmark

Based on CIBSE (2004), the overall performance of an efficient energy in a building

is expressed as an energy performance indicator, usually in kWh/m2 for fossil fuel and
electricity (CIBSE, 2004). The indicators for this energy performance are generally rated
based on the buildings’ floor area, volume and the amount of trade. Correction on floor area,
weather condition and hours of use need to be done and finally, a ‘Normalised Performance
Indicator’ can be estimated. This ‘normalisation’ is aimed to develop a comparison between
buildings in different climatic regions or with different occupancy patterns (CIBSE, 2004).
The indication of efficient energy consumption will be based on the analysis of annual data
and the benchmarking with published guidelines (Action Energy, 1994). CIBSE Guide F
Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2004) will be referred as the main energy benchmark that
contains all the known UK energy and components benchmark.

2. BUILDING ENERGY SURVEY

The investigations on Malaysian old buildings’ energy characteristics were done and
focusing on electricity. The surveys consisted of quantitative and qualitative approach as to
gain the buildings’ background and information as much as possible. Electricity bills were
collected and content analyses were carried out to identify the electricity consumption on
each and every electrical fitting in the buildings. Qualitative surveys were done based on
semi-structured interviews with the maintenance officers/staff, local authorities, building
owners, architects, engineers, and building management personnel. It was expected that a
comprehensive data on buildings’ information mostly on their design, might be possible to
collect. These might be due to uncertainties issues such as not enough resources, improper
archival management and insufficient reference documents. Therefore, some of the data were
establish by generalising the data with published standards and guidelines.
 Four Malaysian old buildings were selected and comprised of two offices, one hotel and
one church. They were located in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur and Penang with two
buildings represented for each location. The buildings were coded anonymously as Historic
Office 1, Historic Office 2, Historic Church and Historic Hotel. Each building was selected
based on their floor area and type of ventilation. BRESCU (2000) outlined that the floor area
of the buildings have to be in a reasonable floor area in order to achieve the energy
efficiency. These are outlined as air-conditioned standard (2000m2 - 8000m2), naturally
ventilated open plan (500m2-4000m2), mix mode cellular (100m2-3000m2) and air-
conditioned prestige (4000m2-20 000m2) respectively.
Based on the interviews and observation, it was clearly identified that these buildings had
been actively renovated as well as refurbished through times. Owner of the buildings are
either public or private sectors. Some of the buildings were already equipped and upgraded
with new services system including retrofit air-conditioning system.
The number of storeys varies from one to four with a total gross floor ranging from
4625m2 to 745m2. The buildings were built between years 1900 to year 1926, during the era
of British colonization. The buildings portrayed a mixture of architectural style which is the
Moghul style, Tudor, Neo-Classical and Neo-Gothic. Based on site visit and archival
analysis, it was observed that the floor to ceiling heights were in ranges of 3.3m to 7.4m. The
windows heights were in between 1.8m to 2.9m.

3. ELECTRICITY DATA GATHERING

The electricity consumption for each building was analysed through the collection of
monthly electricity bills. The durations of the collected bills were within one whole year from
January to December. To collect all the electricity bills, appointments with the building
owners were some of the vital stage. It was found that only some of them were having good
practice of keeping complete billing records and providing other requested information.
Incomplete records of electricity bills were then need to be followed up by thorough
observations and estimations but with proper argumentation and judgements. As predicted,
the majority of the electricity consumption was from the air-conditioning, ventilation and
electric lighting. As for electric lightings, the buildings mainly used fluorescent tubes, track
lights, tungsten halogen lamps and energy saving light bulbs. There were varieties of electric
density load and those were all depending largely on functional and aesthetic requirements
and the operating hours. There were also other minor electrical appliances, such as the
audio/visual and the office equipment.

4. ELECTRICITY USAGE

The twelve months electricity consumptions were analyzed and the profile of their
electricity use will then can be plotted. Figure 4 below shows the monthly electricity use
profiles for the four historic buildings.
 70,000

60,000

50,000

40,000

30,000

20,000

10,000

0
jan feb mac apr may june july aug sept oct nov dec
Historic Office 1 Historic Office 2 Historic Church Historic Hotel

Figure 4: Profile of monthly electricity consumption

From the Figure 4 above, electricity consumption varied among all of the four old
buildings. These were resulted due to the different type and building characteristic mainly on
ventilation system used, floor area and types of activities/building use and operations.
However, almost a constant profile of electricity usage over the year can be observed for each
of them and this probably due to Malaysian tropical climate with plenty of sunshine
throughout the year. Historic hotel shows the highest consumption of electricity and this was
largely believed due to the functional and aesthetic requirements on cooling demand and
electric lighting. Problems with the installation of cooling system appear prevalent in most of
hot and humid countries not only in terms of energy efficient, but also in other issues as well.
As a hotel which operated 24 hours a day throughout the year, other factors may also
contribute to high electricity consumption such as occasional overtime work period, holiday
seasons, gathering ceremonies and others. On the other hand, church has a very low
consumption of electricity as the building was passively design with no provision of air
conditioning system. The total building electricity consumptions were 262.4, 11.9, 35.3, and
652.7 MW h respectively.

5. NORMALISED PERFORMANCE INDICATOR

The total annual energy use of a building can be used to calculate a measure of energy
performance known as the ‘Normalised Performance Indicators’ (NPI) (CIBSE, 1991). NPI is
basically the energy use per unit floor area and also known as the energy use index
(BRECSU, 2000). The NPI for the 4 historic building is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Annual electricity use per unit gross floor area (NPI)
Annual Electricity Use Hours of use/year with Floor Area NPI
kWh correction factor* (m2 (kWh/ m2 )

Historic Office 1 262400 1.16 2574 118

Historic Office 2 35300 1.16 671 61

Historic Church 11900 1.03 526 23

Historic Hotel 652700 - 3931 166

 *
Standard hours of use/actual annual hours of use (CIBSE, 1991)

The results show that the total range of annual electricity use per unit gross floor area
(i.e. total floor area) were from the lowest at 22kW h/m2 to the highest at 141 kW h/m2.
Similar to Figure 3, the lowest result was from the Historic Church and the largest NPI of was
found to be the Historic Hotel. These results were mainly due to the lesser operation hours
in church building and less building services system. Normally, activities in church will only
take place when there were churchgoers attending the services once in a week. However,
churches are not restricted to have other activities such as musical events, exhibitions, dinners
and so forth and therefore, it is expected that this result might be changed in future as to meet
the increased demand from the church users. As hotels usually operate 24 hours throughout
the years, accommodate with retrofit air-conditioning and other aesthetic active fitting, it was
not a surprised when the Historic Church had the largest NPI.

6. COMPARISON WITH BENCHMARK

In order to identify the current energy performance, the NPIs were compared with the
good practice benchmark (Table 2). As shown in Figure 4, it is found that energy
performance for Historic Office 1 and Historic Office 2 are 17% and 57% lower than the
good practice benchmark, which is 128 kWh/m2. This is probably because of the low
computers and peripheral devices installations as well as small provision of air-conditioning
in these buildings. Even though the energy performance is lower than the benchmark, there
will still often be scope for further effective savings (BRECSU, 2000). Nevertheless, the
energy performance for Historic Hotel which is 166 kWh/m2, is 52% greater than good
practice benchmark and 16% above typical benchmark. In this case, a further investigation on
reducing energy consumption is merely vital.

Table 2. Energy benchmark and their comparison with selected building

Electricity benchmark
(kWh/m2 treated floor area) per year
Building type Application on research
Good Typical Energy consumption
practice in buildings’ NPI
Offices
Historic Office 1 128 226 118
· air conditioned, standard
Historic Office 2 128 226 61
Hotels
Historic Hotel 80 140 166
· holiday
Public Buildings
Historic Church 10 20 23
· church

(Source: CIBSE, 1998, 2004)

7. CONCLUSIONS

A study on electricity consumption in four old buildings that consisted of offices,

church as well as hotel in Malaysia was conducted. The monthly energy bills were gathered
with supporting building information to construct the electricity use profiles. It is observed
that electricity consumption varied slightly for each type of building and almost a constant
usage of electricity over the year. The total annual electricity use per unit gross floor area
ranged from 22–141 kW h/m2, with an average of 81 kW h/m2.
By looking at the energy performance, it is concluded that the selected old buildings are
performing really well. From the observation made on sites, the historic office buildings were
equipped with the most basic office equipment. Furthermore, the energy benchmarks
compared were taken from the UK publication whereby the data were obtained from a more
advanced office equipment buildings. As for the historic church and historic hotel, the energy
performance for both buildings was fairly above typical level and necessitates further
investigation due to its high consumption of electricity.
Investigation at a more detailed level is pertinent especially based on local standard and
guideline in identifying where the design needs further attention and helps pinpoint problem
areas within a building. For this reason, an attempt to breakdown the electricity uses is highly
recommended. The development of energy benchmark in Malaysia is also crucially in need
for more accurate and precise indication of building energy performance. It can be concluded
that appropriate measures in terms of saving energy should be seriously looked at. Using
electricity wisely and being more energy efficient can make a valuable contribution to
reducing the energy gap. Above all, this study has been able to identify and to provide a good
indication of the electricity consumption characteristics of reuse old buildings in Malaysia.

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