Nigeria’s first Building Energy Efficiency Code (BEEC) was officially launched in Abuja on August 29 by the Federal Minister for Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN).The BEECis a set of minimum standards for energy efficient building in Nigeria.
Chilufya Lombe, Director at Solid Green Consulting, says, “With the energy scarcity that is common in Africa, energy efficiency becomes very important in allowing and maintaining development. In Nigeria, we have found that energy efficiency can have a bigger impact than renewables. It is easier to build a building to consume 30 to 40% less energy than to pay to add renewable technology onto an inefficient building. In other words, we are talking about buildings that perform well from a first principles point of view.”
Solid Green served as technical consultants on the BEEC and was commissioned to carry out work in four parts, namely:
· to investigate existing building practices and establish a typical baseline for residential and office buildings;
· to research building labels and incentive schemes that could encourage people to make use of the BEEC;
· to provide guidance on enforcement and control, including identifying training requirements for building code enforcement personnel, building industry professionals, developers and financiers;
· and to investigate energy modelling tools and their suitability for use in the Nigerian market.
Research for the BEEC was conducted primarily in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) but the new minimum energy efficiency requirements can be adopted by any state in Nigeria. The scope of these minimum requirements cover two building categories – residential and office buildings.
Lombe explains, “We used modelling and simulations to determine the expected energy performance of a Business as Usual building (BAU model). We then reviewed simulated variations of the BAU model as well as international references to identify the minimum efficient requirements. The simulations take into account the various climatic conditions found in Nigeria.”
Numerous stakeholder engagements were conducted in the FCT state, including workshops with design engineers, architects, financiers, technical advisors, officials from the Ministry and the State Department of Development Control. This ensured that any minimum interventions proposed were reasonable for the region and would be possible to implement; and that a balance was achieved between interventions that led to savings and ones that made sense for the first iteration of the building code.
Nigeria’s first Building Energy Efficiency Code (BEEC) was officially launched in Abuja on August 29 by the Federal Minister for Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN).The BEECis a set of minimum standards for energy efficient building in Nigeria.
Chilufya Lombe, Director at Solid Green Consulting, says, “With the energy scarcity that is common in Africa, energy efficiency becomes very important in allowing and maintaining development. In Nigeria, we have found that energy efficiency can have a bigger impact than renewables. It is easier to build a building to consume 30 to 40% less energy than to pay to add renewable technology onto an inefficient building. In other words, we are talking about buildings that perform well from a first principles point of view.”
Solid Green served as technical consultants on the BEEC and was commissioned to carry out work in four parts, namely:
· to investigate existing building practices and establish a typical baseline for residential and office buildings;
· to research building labels and incentive schemes that could encourage people to make use of the BEEC;
· to provide guidance on enforcement and control, including identifying training requirements for building code enforcement personnel, building industry professionals, developers and financiers;
· and to investigate energy modelling tools and their suitability for use in the Nigerian market.
Research for the BEEC was conducted primarily in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) but the new minimum energy efficiency requirements can be adopted by any state in Nigeria. The scope of these minimum requirements cover two building categories – residential and office buildings.
Lombe explains, “We used modelling and simulations to determine the expected energy performance of a Business as Usual building (BAU model). We then reviewed simulated variations of the BAU model as well as international references to identify the minimum efficient requirements. The simulations take into account the various climatic conditions found in Nigeria.”
Numerous stakeholder engagements were conducted in the FCT state, including workshops with design engineers, architects, financiers, technical advisors, officials from the Ministry and the State Department of Development Control. This ensured that any minimum interventions proposed were reasonable for the region and would be possible to implement; and that a balance was achieved between interventions that led to savings and ones that made sense for the first iteration of the building code.