An analysis of energy performance of a commercial building using energy modeling

Building energy performance analysis is a study to improve the energy efficiency of a building by determining the highest contributing factors towards energy consumption and proposing the energy conservation measures. This study is conducted to analyze the energy performance of a commercial building in the north Peninsular Malaysia. Low performance design of a building during the early stages could cause the inefficient usage of energy and decrease the thermal comfort. This research aims to analyze the highest energy consumption factor of a medium rise commercial building and identify the energy conservation measures that could contribute to energy saving without affecting the thermal comfort. Energy modeling using simulation tools is used to predict the energy consumption in the building and simulates some designs as strategies of energy saving. Thermal analysis also been done to obtain best practices of energy conservation measures. The study is able to come with designs that contribute towards significant of energy savings up to 52.82% and 36.44% in terms of Building Energy Index or Energy Usage Intensity and Annual Cooling Energy respectively.