Building Energy Modelling for Energy-Efficient Retrofitting as Catalyst for Low Carbon Building

Abstract Greenhouse gases is a major contributor to escalating global climate change. Even with the rapid progress of technology, outdated systems and methods continue to exist. This research focuses on employing Building Energy Modelling (BEM), particularly the BEopt software, to enhance energy efficiency via building retrofitting, thereby addressing the pressing problem of greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately achieving low carbon building in Malaysia. The research aims to optimize residential building energy consumption by identifying effective retrofitting strategies and cost-efficient scenarios. In the initial stage, research was conducted on BEM to understand its capabilities in retrofitting residential buildings for energy efficiency. Extensive research on residential buildings in Malaysia helped identify essential parameters for inclusion. Moving on, this research is based on a real existing terrace house in Malaysia. Therefore, collecting accurate data from the house owner was crucial as it may directly affect the simulated results later. After entering the data, the BEopt software generates a baseline electricity output result, which are then compared to the actual electricity bill from the homeowner, showing a difference of just 4.33%. Moving on, 8 different parameters were selected for optimization as they were more feasible in Malaysia compared to others. After the simulations, all eight cases’ results indicated reduction in annual kWh consumption.