Comparative Campus Energy Usage Study for a South African University

摘要

The analysis of energy usage for buildings of academic institutions have quickly become a significant area of research due to the considerable energy usage and possible energy and cost saving opportunities. This study presents an analysis of the energy usage of campus buildings at the University of Johannesburg during the 2017 calendar year. These buildings are clustered into the following categories: student residences, student centers and main campus buildings (which include libraries, laboratories, offices and lecture rooms). The paper presents the energy consumption of the different categories based on the total energy usage and contribution of each category towards the campus total energy usage. These contributions are also benchmarked with results of similar institutions found and indicated in the literature study The results of this study showed an energy usage contribution of 3% for student centres, 33% for residences 64% for main campus buildings. The results also showed that for main campus buildings and residences, an increase in energy usage coincided with colder seasons than warmer seasons, suggesting a strong correlation of energy usage to ambient temperature for main campus buildings and residence and a poor correlation to student centres. Finally, the evaluation of the average weekday, Saturday and Sunday profiles revealed relatively high baseload energy usage for residences during early morning hours and late night hours, which could be attributed to energy waste.