CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Background

Energy is one of the basic input factors of production, along with labor, capital, and material.
After the oil embargoes of 1973 and 1979, both political and the scientific communities began to
pay increased attention to the opportunities for improving the efficiency of energy use, [1].
Energy is the capacity or capability for doing work. All material possesses energy because they
can all be utilized in some form of energy conversion process, [2]. For example, most substances
will burn or vaporize, and the consequent heat energy can be harnessed within mechanical
energy systems that create motion against some form of mechanical resistance.
One of the important energies in human daily life is electricity. People have started to
think about consume electricity wisely and efficiently. Therefore, energy management is very
important in order to produce goods and provide services with the least cost and least
environmental effect. The term energy management means many things to many people. One
definition of energy management is, The judicious and effective use of energy to maximize
profits (minimize costs) and enhance competitive positions, [3]. When people started concern
about electricity energy management, the important key words need to highlighted are use
electricity efficiently and wisely. This will accomplishes the two objectives of saving money and
conserving main energy. Among the many features that might be addressed with regard to
efficient utilization like monitoring and control of an environment will eliminate the input of
excess energy and reduce the need for emergency intervention either in domestic or commercial
sectors.
In commercial and domestic sectors, the usage pattern of electrical appliances has been
increased rapidly as long as the economic growth. It is because, a dramatic increase in the
number of electrical appliances and equipments used which will be higher in the future and
shows significant impact on the electricity consumption in Malaysia, [4,5,8,10]. Therefore, some
strategies or plans need to be drafted in order for people to consume generated electricity from
natural sources wisely and in efficient way.

1.2 Problem Statement

The consumption of electricity nowadays especially on commercial building is getting higher
meanwhile the cost of electricity is becoming more expensive according to the shortage of
natural sources. That is why we need a to manage electricity properly
Most of commercial building such as office, workshop and restaurant in our country is
equipped with high energy consumption in place. Most of them does not know the amount of
power consumption of each equipment and finally this has brought electricity wasting
There many Demand Side Management (DSM) options available to reduce energy
consumption but user do not know how to properly manage their consumption. Hence we need a
simple system that can make user do what is the best solution to reduce their electricity
consumption and can reduce their electricity bill

Figure 1 Electricity Consumption in Malaysia (1971-2010) [11]

Consumption of energy increases every year in Malaysia. In 2008, the total energy demand in
Malaysia was 522,199 GWh. The residential and commercial sector was the third largest user of
energy in Malaysia. The consumption of electricity in Malaysia rises rapidly every year, with an
average of 2,533 GWh per year. The electricity consumption, for instance, in 1971 was 3,464
GWh and 94,278 GWh in 2008. By 2020, Malaysias electricity consumption is expected to
increase by about 30% from its present value to 124,677 GWh [11].

1.3 Objectives of Study

In this study, there are several objectives that are needed to achieve
i.
To identify and understand the concept of electricity consumption management.
ii.
To investigate the available technique in reducing electrical bills for small/medium
iii.

commercial building.
To develop software system that will help users to manage electricity consumption

1.4 Scope of Study

This research will be focus on a few aspects. Firstly this project focus on electricity
consumption management on small/medium commercial building only. Other than that the
developed software will suggest users the best Demand Side Management (DSM) approach
and its efficiency in reducing bills. Reduction of power usage in Kilowatt per Hour (KWH)
in terms of total bills paid also on our focus. Lastly, the list of DSM method that will
provided by the software are Peak clipping, Valley filling, Load shifting, Strategic
conservation, Retrofitting
1.5 Gantt Chart
The Gantt chart for FYP 1 and FYP 2 are shown in the Table 1.1 and Table 1.2 respectively.

Table 1.1: Gantt chart for FYP 1

Table 1.2: Gantt chart for FYP 2

1.6 Thesis outline
This report contains three chapters. Chapter 1 describe about the research background, problem
statement, objective, scope of research, expected results and Gantt chart for FYP 1 and FYP 2.
In chapter two, literature review about the demand side management and its features will be
discussed briefly. Besides that, energy audits, load profile models and electricity tariff in
commercial sector in Malaysia also will be explained in details in this section.
Next, chapter 3 will cover the methodology and preliminary result. This chapter will explain
about the brief concept of purpose developed software used

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
4

2.1 Introduction
This chapter provides literature review and related research about the electricity consumption
management on commercial bulding.
2.2 Energy audit
Energy audit is usually conducted to study ways to reduce the amount of energy input without
disrupting the system output. Energy audit is important thing about energy flows in a building
Energy [4] . A feasibility study will be required to determine the viability of each option. For
example
i)

Lighting systems

ii)

Office equipment

iii)

Fans

iv)

Chiller

v)

Air-conditioning systems

2.3 Common energy conservation measure

Building factor is one of the important things that will affect energy use. For some buildings, the
envelope such as walls, roofs, floors, windows and doors can have important impact on the
energy used to condition the facility[7]

2.4 Demand side management (DSM)

The actions carried out by the utility on the customers premises that help manage the customers
electrical usage. Load management can be implemented by customers without any interaction by
the utility. DSM also refer to technologies products and programs that involve reducing buyer
demand for electricity. For example air conditioners that use less electricity to perform their
functions are one step of DSM[8]

Figure 2: Desired results of DSM actions[18]

2.4.1 Peak Clipping

The maximum demand by electricity appliances is reduce. The ridding of high-amplitude parts of
speech waves by way of electronics, resulting in some loss of quality but minimal, if any, loss of
intellect.[10]

2.4.2 Conservation

Conservation is the amount of consumer load reduction at the time of system peak due to utility
programs that reduce consumer load during many hours of the year. Examples of conservation
are utility rebate and shared savings activities for the installation of energy efficient appliances,
lighting and electrical machinery, and weatherization materials[19]. In addition, this category
includes all other Demand-Side Management activities, such as thermal storage, time-of-use
rates, fuel substitution, measurement and evaluation, and any other utility-administered DemandSide

Management

activity

designed

to

reduce

demand

and/or

electricity

use.

2.4.3 Valley Filling

The process of making an energy production and delivery system more efficient by encouraging
additional energy use during periods of lowest system demand. Valley filling programs are
usually accompanied by load shifting programs, often with the aim of shifting peak demand
usage to low demand periods, but the term can refer to any program or strategy aimed at filling
the valley. An essential component of nearly all demand-side management programs.

2.4.4 Load shifting

Strategy make use of electricity tariff for medium voltage commercial customers in Malaysia,
where they are charged on two tariffs i.e. electricity consumption in kWh and maximum demand
in kW. The consumer can consume the same amount of electricity but pay lower electricity bill if
they know how to exploit their maximum demand.

2.5 Load Profile Models

In this load profile models, the area model includes all those customers that are not metered on
time interval basis within the geographic region covered by a network.
In this model, the non-metered customers constitute the residual profile, which is an adjusted
loadprofile for the node under consideration.

On the other hand, the category model grouped customers with a similar load
pattern into categories. Each individual customer is then associated with a
predetermined representative load profile. This model is rather a popular practice,
however the precondition is always that sufficient load measurement have been made earlier.
Pattern of customer load profiles depends on several factors which is type of customer, time
factor and climate factor such as temperature variation from day to day and the natural seasonal
cycle of day length. Figure 3 shows annual load profile of commercial consumer

Figure 3: Annual Load Profile of Commercial Consumer

2.6 Electricity tariff for commercial sector in Malaysia

The utilities and in particular, TNB, was under tremendous pressure to manage the increasing
cost of supplying electricity. The global escalation in fuel cost especially oil and coal and the
prices of metal-based product coupled with the high generation reserve margin situation and the
high capacity payments to the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) contributed to the
deteriorating financial position of TNB. Price of electricity tariff in Malaysia for commercial
buildings are divided into three: [6]
B1 Low Voltage Commercial Tariff
C1 Medium Voltage General Commercial Tariff
8

C2 Medium Voltage Peak/ off-Peak Commercial Tariff

Figure 4: Electricity tariff for commercial sector in Malaysia[6]

CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
9

3.1 Introduction
This chapter presented project flow, brief concept of purpose developed software and visual
basic
3.2 Project Flow
There are several steps of a process that must be undergone to obtain the final result. The entire
step in this research was summarized as shown in Figure 3.1.

Start

Method and

Problem Statement

Hypothesis

Approach to Solve

Writing the report

and Presentation

Figure 5 Project Flow

3.3 Brief concept of purpose developed software

10

LOAD
PROFILE

Determine
Objectives

the Problem

Result

Literature Review

DSM METHOD
DEVELOPED
SOFTWARE

ACTIVITY

1)
2)
3)
4)

Peak clipping
Valley filling
Load shifting
Strategic conservation
5) Retrofitting

INPUT FROM
USER

SUGGEST THE BEST

APPROACH AND
HOW TO DO IT

This is brief concept of purpose developed software. Software that will be use in this project is
Visual Basic because it easy to handle and systematic interphase. First of all, user have to key in
by manually the load profile and activity of the building in this software. This part includes the
number of electrical appliances use and the period of electrical appliances usage. After the
simple simulation, the software will list out the best DSM method and suggest to user the best
DSM approach and how to do it.

3.4 Visual basic

Visual Basic (VB) is a programming environment from Microsoft in which a programmer uses a
graphical user interface (GUI) to choose and modify preselected sections of code written in
the BASIC programming language. That is why Visual Basic one of the best software to
represent this project
CHAPTER 4
PRELIMINARY RESULT
11

4.1 Preliminary result of the project

In order to design Demand Side Management (DSM) in a small/medium commercial building.
The load profile of the commercial buildings are obtained. Fig. 1 shows power consumption
profile for electrical appliances and equipment for workshop commercial sector. It shows the
peak hour for using this workshop operated is between 10.00 am to 6.00 pm. At this time, the
electricity consumption is more than 10 kWh a day. If this amount is considered daily average
consumption, a year is about 3,640 kWh. Workshop usually uses heavy and critical load, such as
drill, air compressor and arc welding. These types of loads will consume huge of electricity.
Therefore by the usage of high efficient of equipment, the consumption amount can be reduced
drastically [5]

In order to reduce peak power consumption at 1:00PM to 3:00PM, the electrical appliances that
are used on this hours is identified to perform load shifting [5]

12

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