energy management
Energy efficiency and maintenance Nowadays, owners of commercial real estate are increasingly active in trying to find possible cost savings for their buildings. Maintenance costs are often placed low on the priority list, but saving on maintenance has a negative effect on energy management. Less maintenance = higher energy consumption.
When the entire life span of a building is taken into consideration, the costs for design and construction amount to between 5 and 10 percent of the total cost. The cost for acquisition, renovation and disposal are responsible for about 5 to 35 percent of the total life cycle cost, whereas the cost for use and maintenance amount to between 60 and 85 percent. Personnel costs amount to 88 percent of the total life cycle cost of the building, use and maintenance cost 11 percent of that and design and construction are responsible for 1 percent. Thus, the costs for use and maintenance are a significant part of the total life cycle cost of a commercially used building.
Consumption Six years ago, it was calculated that in the United States, commercial buildings were responsible
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C u r a ç a o b u s i ne s s
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for 71 percent of the total electricity consumption and for 38 percent of the exhaust of carbon dioxide (USGBC 2007). Seventy-five percent of the total energy consumption of commercial real estate is for lighting, heating and cooling. The remaining 25 percent is used for ventilation, cooking, cooling and office equipment (including elevators and telephones). It is therefore evident that commercial real estate has a major impact on the economy as well as on the environment. That is why it is important to know the details of a building’s performance with regard to energy management. Especially in the current economic situation, it is a huge challenge for building owners and managers to not only be advised of these data, but also to be able to proactively manage the consumption and therefore the costs of the use of the building
