Retro-Commissioning – Effective Energy Conservation Initiatives in Existing Buildings

Abstract

Hong Kong is a densely populated metropolitan city crowded with more than 7 million people. of the 42,000 buildings in Hong Kong, more than half (55%) of Hong Kong’s total annual energy end-use is in the form of electricity consumption and buildings take up about 90% of our total electricity consumption. Thus, energy saving in buildings is a key factor of addressing climate change and associated environmental issues of Hong Kong. In January 2017, the Environment Bureau of Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government (HKSARG) published “Hong Kong’s Climate Action Plan 2030+” which set target to reduce our carbon intensity by 65-70% by 2030 compared with the 2005 level. With this ambitious vision, the whole community have to further endeavour to achieve energy conservation with concrete supporting measures. Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) of HKSARG is actively pursuing the cost-effective program of “Retro-commissioning (RCx)”, new energy saving initiative, to further encourage energy conservation works in existing buildings. RCx is a cost-effective and systematic process to periodically check the energy efficiency performance of existing building. EMSD has carried out numbers of pilot projects on both government and private buildings with Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC); launched the “Technical Guidelines on Retro-commissioning [TG(RCx)]”; led and co-organized with different stakeholders on showcasing the government-industry collaboration and promoting effort of RCx training for the industry. The paper will introduce the framework and technical approach of TG(RCx), share the latest development and implementation programme of RCx in Hong Kong.