Lockdown impact on energy consumption in university building

Abstract

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the global demand and consumption of energy. In particular, the effect of the lockdown measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen directly in the reduced energy consumption in educational buildings. Therefore, the objective of this study is to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the electricity use in university buildings. The Research Complex Building of the National University of Malaysia was selected as a case study. An energy audit analysis was conducted based on the data collection via walk-through field audits and data loggers during the normal year (2019) to establish a baseline of data. The comparison of the electricity pattern during the normal year with the lockdown period of 2020 shows that the Building Energy Index (BEI) during a pandemic decreased by approximately 11% from the BEI in the normal year. In this regard, the energy audit verified that the main factors of electricity consumption are occupant presence and energy use in buildings. Hence, on the basis of the energy audit results, three appropriate energy conservation measures (ECMs) were detected and subsequently proposed to minimise the waste of energy. Results show that the implementation of ECMs can improve the energy consumption of buildings and reduce energy consumption by 21.81% or approximately 19% from the normal year. Hence, efficient energy use in buildings in the post-pandemic period can be achieved by the implementation of all the ECMs proposed.

Electricity Consumption in Higher Education Buildings in Thailand during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The temporary closure and restrictions of oncampus activities led to significant changes in electricity consumption. It is important to note that, a substantial reduction, for the semi-COVID-19 academic year at 20.92% and the COVID-19 academic year at 35.50%, was found in this study when compared to the National University of Malaysia [36], University of Almeria [32], Griffith University [33], and Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya [37], as 11%, 15%, 16%, and 19%, respectively. This can be attributed to specific contextual factors such as lockdown restriction levels, building characteristics, facility management, HVAC systems, and climate conditions, which need to be interpreted cautiously.…”

“…Similar to previous studies [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40], to analyze changes under the temporary closure, a comparative analysis was done by the process of comparing data from three academic years, and distinguishing the similarities and differences in electricity usage patterns. In this study, data from three academic years were displayed and analyzed including:…”

“…López-Sosa et al [35] evaluated electricity consumption of 13 public state universities in the state of Michoacan in Mexico and reported savings in consumption between 10-90% as well as carbon footprint reduction potentials. Nasir et al [36] measured the electricity consumption in the research complex building at a university in Malaysia during the lockdown in 2020. The results were 11% lower than the normal year in 2019.…”

Impact of the COVID-19 on electricity consumption of open university campus buildings – The case of Twente University in the Netherlands

“…For example, Paula Brumer Franceschini evaluated the existing research methods of campus building performance, and looked forward to the future research topics based on the impact of the new crown epidemic on campus personnel living behavior models [38] . Sharifah Nurain Syed Nasir et al compared the building electricity consumption of a research complex at the National University of Malaysia in 2019-2020 and found that the building's energy consumption decreased by 11% during the covid-19 period [39] . In contrast, Reza Mokhtari et al used a simulation optimization algorithm to evaluate the effects of the presence of people, air exchange rate, class time and work time on HVAC system energy consumption and the number of people infected with New Crown Pneumonia in a building at Tehran University during the New Crown Pneumonia epidemic, concluding that increasing the ventilation rate of the building during the New Crown Pneumonia epidemic was effective in reducing the number of infections, but the corresponding building energy consumption would also increase [40] .…”

Lighting Audit for Energy Conservation and Safety and Health in the Academic Office Building

“…As part of the energy audit analysis, lighting audit findings also have been discussed in [12] where lighting contributes 10% of the overall energy saving. Other energy audit work in the academic building was fulfilled by [13] where they analyzed the impact of the pandemic on energy consumption and realized more energy conservation measures could be implemented during the endemic period.…”