CPS Project

SAVING ELECTRICITY

Some students in the Brunei Environment Action Club (BEAC) from University Brunei Darussalam had done a research project on saving electricity in the University. The project was done after an observation had been done around the University, where all of the lights and airconditioners in the main building, lecture rooms and tutorial rooms were switch on for 24 hours. The purposes of this project were to make the community (students and staffs) realized the important of saving electricity not only for today but also for the future use and to save the energy (electricity) which are generate from a fuel (non-renewable resources) whilst can save more money for other important purpose. For example; saving from one airconditioners chiller about 500 KW per 12 hours, that is, 6000 KWH or 180 000 KWH for 30 days and a saving of $ 18 000 can be made per month.

The action that had been done was creating posters and stickers on “conservation of electricity”. The posters and stickers had been sticks around the UBD building, lecture rooms and tutorial rooms.

The stickers were placed near the switches of lamps and airconditioners hence easy to be seen by the students and lecturers as well. Some other possible solutions in order to save electricity at University were change the aircondition regulators since most of it is not functioning properly.

For a big room that need big airconditioners suggest being switch on from 6am until 6pm daily only. As there are many AHU to switch on and off everyday, these should be done on Building Automation System (BUS) or manual timers. However, the problem is, most BAS (about 80%) are not working and are expensive to replace. Hence, it is suggested that new manual timers be installed for each switch to replace the BAS. This is a cheaper option.

What students and lecturers can do to save electricity? For every room that have airconditioners, the windows and doors must be closed at all times if the airconditioners are on and the temperature must be set to 22 ^oC not 18 ^oC or lower. This project had a full support from the Vice Chancellor of UBD, Dato Paduka Dr Awang Haji Ismail bin Haji Duraman.