Page 50 - MASHRAE 35th Anniversary

energy landscape and specifically, how the energy transition will embrace a new architecture including sound policy and technologies to ensure access to affordable energy, energy security and energy sustainability. Thus, all decisions or energy policy measures will need to be weighed against potentially higher energy costs, affordability, and energy security risks for post COVID-19.
Given the high share of fossil fuel (about 80% share of oil, coal, and natural gas as reported in Malaysia’s National Energy Balance 2017) in the current ASEAN’s energy mix, the clean use of fossil fuel through clean technologies deployment is indispensable in decarbonising ASEAN’s emission. Further, natural gas should be promoted as transitional fuel use in ASEAN. Renewables, energy efficiency, and renewable hydrogen should be accelerated along with the adoption of clean technologies in the medium- to long-term in the ASEAN’s future energy system.
Energy efficiency is also known as the hidden fuel – a fuel that can be translated to be an energy resource to a nation as it will become energy available for economic activities and supply to the greater population. Savings in electricity consumption is even more significant as every electricity unit of kWh saved would result in greater saving in fuel consumption for power generation such as coal and gas. Energy efficiency can offer relatively cheaper and quicker solutions to help ASEAN embark on the road to economic recovery through the provision of available and sustainable energy for economic activities. ASEAN will need to act swiftly to prepare energy policy changes to embrace energy efficiency, renewables and clean energy technologies into the national energy development plan to bring sustainability and security in the energy system. The investment in the energy efficiency will help avoid building more power plants, as well as saving the investment money for the economy. Towards the fast-growing energy demand in ASEAN for the post COVID-19, appropriate energy efficiency policies and regulations will be needed in ASEAN countries to guide the developments and investments for energy sustainability and security.
Optimizing energy efficiency in a building is cost effective as energy-efficient buildings can be up to 70% more efficient than conventional commercial
buildings and will offer building owners a quicker pathway to reduce energy consumption, and hence, building operating costs. Due to the hot and high humidity climate conditions in Southeast Asia, the most significant energy user in a building tends to be the air-conditioning and mechanical ventilation (ACMV) system. Although, ACMV systems in most non-medical buildings such as office buildings, hotels and retail malls play only a small role in the current COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, building owners and operators now also have to contend with ensuring buildings are properly managed and operated based upon regimented guidance for building operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. ASHRAE has issued safety guidance for building operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building operators would know that increasing outdoor air ventilation will increase energy consumption because the increase in outdoor air intake will increase the cooling load demand. However, there are other energy efficiency (EE) measures that could be explored to reduce building operating costs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As part of the economy stimulus planning, governments can plan energy efficiency projects to create local jobs quickly as well as helping business recovery from the current crisis.
Besides that, the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing many countries to resort to implementing movement controls. Governments are hard-pressed to find the right balance between measures to revive the economy and saving lives by imposing lockdowns. Malaysian government recently imposed conditional movement control (CMCO). One of the CMCO requirements is that the majority of white-collar workforce is required to work from home besides closing down schools. This means that the population is forced to spend more time indoors and energy consumption in the residential sector is expected to increase substantially. If the trend of working from home continues, the role of traditional homes will change, i.e. part of the home area will be used as office. As a result, the focus on energy efficiency should be urgently shifted to efficient use of energy in the residential sector. In other words, the focus of promoting energy efficiency should be shifted to household energy consumption. On the other hand, if we continue business-as-usual (BAU), an increased proportion