Energy Management Strategies for a Governmental Building in Oman

This work describes the outcome of a study that has been performed to reduce the energy consumption of a library building in a hot climate of Oman. The project follows a systematic approach of collecting data from the project and maintenance department, conducting an energy audit and generating a building simulation model. The building has three floors with a total floor area of 2756 m2 and its average yearly consumption of 1397 MWh. The average energy-use-intensity (EUI) for this building is 507kWh/m2/year. Energy audit has identified many energy-retrofitting strategies including replacing the current florescent lights with LED, switching the air conditioning systems outside the occupancy hours, increase the thermostat setpoint, and reduce the air infiltration. Based on the field measurements and observations, building energy model was generated using DesignBuilder and was subsequently calibrated. Using the calibrated model, several energy management opportunities (EMOs) were evaluated. Only four top most energy management opportunities were top listed because they were technically and economically feasible. The EMOs include adjusting the thermostat setpoint, change the air conditioning operation schedules, replace the fluorescent lights with LED and increase the airtightness. The results show that the energy consumption can be reduced as much as 38.5%.