Energy Consumption of Electricity End Uses in Malaysian Historic Buildings

Malaysia has inherited hundreds of heritage buildings from the past including those from the Indian, Chinese and Colonial eras apart from the indigenous traditional buildings. These buildings have the most unique ecstatic value from the viewpoint of architecture, culture, art, etc. Malaysian economy boom in 1980s spurred the need for more buildings especially in large cities. As a result, most of the historic buildings have been converted and transformed into commercial use. As reported by METP [1], Malaysian buildings energy uses are reflected by the energy consumption in the industrial and commercial sectors. Most of the buildings' energy consumption is electricity, used for running and operating the plants, lighting, lifts and escalators and other equipment in the buildings. These are amongst the factors that have resulted in the high demand for electricity in Malaysia. As outlined in the eighth Malaysia Plan, Malaysia is taking steps in conserving energy and reducing energy consumption on electricity consumption in building. This paper aims to present the breakdown of the major electricity end uses characteristics of historic buildings in Malaysia. The analysis was performed on annual data, allowing comparison with published benchmarks to give an indication of efficiency. Based on data collected a ‘normalisation’ calculated electricity consumption was established with the intention of improving the comparison between buildings in different climatic regions or with different occupancy patterns. This is useful for identifying where the design needed further attention and helped pinpoint problem areas within a building. It is anticipated that this study would give a good indication on the electricity consumption characteristics of historic buildings in Malaysia.