Thursday, 7th January 2010
The Institut of Teknologi Brunei (ITB) and the Energy Division at the Prime Minister’s Office are in the final stages of completing its basic guide to energy auditing of buildings.

The basic guide was used in the Energy Management Course at ITB, participated by representatives of the 11 ministries, as a source for guidelines with regards to energy auditing.

Energy auditing is an exercise to analyse how much energy facility is using, said Haji Ady Syarmin bin Haji Md. Taib, one of the course instructors, adding that energy audit is vital in saving energy.

This is important in the government sector because it uses energy hungry equipment such as air conditioning.

“We’re not talking about small window units here, this is scale machinery in buildings where people spend some eight hours in a day. Small inefficiencies add up to large amount of energy wastage and huge costs that could otherwise be saves,” he said.

Energy auditing was covered yesterday during the second day of the Energy Management Course, which also covered technologies in energy efficiency and conservation.

Energy auditing will be one of the first stages in the “greening” of Brunei, the first being the introduction of energy management groups in the various ministries.

Head of Energy Efficiency and Conservation at the Energy Division, Ahmad Mohamad explained that initially the Energy Division seeks to cut government energy usage by first identifying the area where savings can be made, by doing an energy audit.

The second stage involves changing equipment to more energy efficient ones, and looking into the usage of renewable energy. Ahmad added that it will be up to the various ministries to form their own energy management groups after the course.

“Our intention is to build up the capabilities of the participant to become energy managers or energy officers, so they can later implement what they have learnt,” he said, adding that the energy management course, the first of its kind in Brunei, was a “milestone”.

“We also intend to host another seminar later on, and if possible groom the same people so they can advance their skills and knowledge,” he added.

Zareena Amiruddin
Courtesy of The Brunei Times