Energy Audit at University of Gävle: Reduction of electricity consumption in the Buildings 99, 21 and 22

Abstract: Evidence that humans are triggering global warming is conclusive, but the question of what can be done about it continues to create controversy. Economics, sociology and politics are important factors to consider when planning for the future. Even if we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, the Earth's temperature would still rise by a little more than half a degree centigrade. Even so, what is done from now on makes a big difference. Depending on the options we take, scientists predict that the Earth's temperature could eventually increase by only about 1.5 or even as much as 5. There are many potential sectors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including improvements in energy efficiency and fuel economy (so that less energy is to be produced), and increases in solar and wind energy, in the hydrogen produced by renewable sources, biofuels (obtained from crops), natural gas and nuclear energy. There is also the possibility of collecting the carbon dioxide emitted by fossil fuels and storing it underground. This project will analyse the electrical efficiency of three buildings of the University of Gävle (Sweden), in this way is expected to help reduce the use of electricity in this university, reducing in turn the use of fossil fuels to create this electricity, and therefore also reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. The buildings of the university are the following:  Building 21, it is a building for the administration of the university, consisting of 4 floors and numerous offices on each floor, it also has kitchens and common areas.  Building 22, this one only has 2 floors, the first one destined to the cafeteria of the university, the second one formed by offices.  Building 99, this is the biggest building to be analysed. It has 6 floors, alternating areas of offices and common areas, and areas composed of laboratories and corridors. To carry out this project, the data provided by the university were analysed firstly, this data consisted of the annual electrical demand of each building divided into 3 points of view, monthly, daily and hourly. The annual electricity demand was the following for each building: 242,059 MWh / year for building 21, 197,024 MWh / year for building 22 and 343,701 MWh / year for building 99. Measures of electrical efficiency were proposed in order to reduce the electrical use in each building, paying special attention to the power, as well as the hours of operation of all the devices that use electricity in the university. The electrical savings entailed by these measures of electrical efficiency have been calculated as well obtaining the following electricity savings: 70766,57 kWh / year for the building 21, 41698,23 kWh / year for the building 22 and 99893,8 kWh/year for the building 99. After applying these energy measures and obtaining these results, it can be observed and affirmed that it is easy to reduce energy use only with a good behaviour with the devices that work with electricity. Therefore the measures suggested in this project are not only useful for these 3 buildings, since these can also be applied in other buildings, including in homes.