Barriers to efficient use of energy in public higher education buildings – a case study

Panel: Panel 6. Dynamics of consumption

Authors:
A. Gomes Martins, INESC Coimbra, Universidade de Coimbra
Simão Paredes, Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra

Abstract

A pilot-study has been carried out in a sample of higher education public buildings in Portugal, aiming at the identification of several organisational and behavioural barriers to the efficient use of energy. The chosen approach embraced several aspects:

Concerns of building owners and designers on efficiency, factors influencing designers motivations and decisions, building design performance evaluation;
Institutional budget definition, legibility of energy items within the budget, accountancy management models, their influence on the stimuli provided to managers and staff regarding efficient use of energy;
Existence, organisation and procedures used in maintenance of buildings and equipment;
Behavioural patterns of several categories of building occupants – managers, administrative and technical staff, professors and students – as regards to efficiency of building and equipment use, to externalities of energy consumption, to the use of financial resources devoted to energy consumption.

The pilot-study involved four institutions and required the collection of documentation on buildings design, equipment characteristics, energy consumption, buildings population, types of occupancy and activities, organisational structure and decision instances, funding mechanisms and sources, budget figures. Fieldwork involved a set of personal interviews to some categories of occupants and launching custom questionnaires to the remaining categories. Questionnaire design has been simultaneous with the development of data processing tools, for the sake of usefulness and readability of results.

A wide set of barriers has been identified and classified, as documented in the paper, revealing a complex set of interdependencies, which ultimately require a continued effort for adequately influencing (yet not so complex) political decisions.