By Meletus EZE
A fellow of the Nigeria Institute of Building (NIOB), Mr Samson Opaluwah, has urged the Federal Government to ensure a secure and efficient supply of energy in buildings.
Opaluwah, who is also the Vice Chairman, Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria (CORBON) made the call on Thursday in Abuja at the FCT NIOB 2019 Builders Conference and Annual General Meeting.
He said that by setting energy efficiency targets for buildings, governments could share the burden and cost of ensuring the security of energy supply with end users.
In a paper entitled “Energy Efficiency in Facility Management Practice’’, Opaluwah said that the need to increase electricity generation capacity in developing countries was unavoidable.
However, he said that governments could solve peak demand constraints by finding a balance between reducing demands and increasing supply.
“To increase generation, government has to allocate funds to subsidise new generation capacity or subsidise the cost of petroleum-based generation,” he said.
He said that reducing demand could be achieved by setting up a low interest easy payment energy efficiency revolving fund to incentivise consumers to implement energy efficiency measures.
He said that in many developing countries, there was little margin between existing power supply and electricity demand.
He added that with increasing electricity use from existing consumers and new connections, new generation needed to be brought on line to meet increased demand.
“Due to changing climatic patterns and the increasing risk of drought, countries that are highly dependent on electricity from hydro as their main source of electricity are losing much of their generation capacity resulting in intensity power rationing.
“Although renewable sources of electricity such as hydro, geothermal or wind provide electricity at a much lower cost than electricity generation from petroleum, their capital outlay is large, they are complex and take much longer to implement.
“Petroleum-based generation is usually brought in the short term to meet this demand, which results in increased cost of electricity, over dependence on petroleum and subsequently vulnerability to oil price fluctuations,” he said.
He said that investments in energy efficiency in building could be compared with the cost of capital investments necessary on the supply side of energy system to produce similar amount of peak capacity or annual production.
According to him, more than 90 per cent of our time is spent in buildings, either in the office or at home.
He added that energy used in buildings, in both residentials and commercials, accounts for a significant percentage of a country’s total energy consumption.
He said that this percentage depended greatly on the degree of electrification, the level of urbanisation, the amount of building area per capital and the prevailing climate, as well as national and local policies to promote efficiency.
He said that in many countries, buildings consumed more energy than transport and industry.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) statistics estimated that globally, the building sector was responsible for more electricity consumption than any other sector.
Prof. Kabir Bala, CORBON Chairman, said that sustainable energy in buildings referred to efforts to reduce or eliminate the need to burn fossil fuels for space heating and cooling.
He said that the Green Building Council (GBC) and the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) played vital roles in directing current sustainable energy building practice.
Bala explained that the sustainable energy efficient design of buildings could reduce the operating costs, enhance building and organisational marketability and functionality of buildings.
The CORBON Chairman said that many buildings could be designed to generate their own energy to supplement or meet everyday’s energy consumption.
He listed best electricity generation practices to include onsite renewable energy production options such as the use of photovoltaic solar panels and wind.==NAN
