Increasing energy efficiency by considering building's life cycle

Greenhouse gas and carbon emission have a considerable impact on the people behavior on constructing new buildings. One of the attempt to combat environmental issues is by implementing renewable energy such as photovoltaics (PV) into the buildings. However, a high cost from sustainability concept makes building owners or investors hesitate to use the device. The research aims to evaluate the solar energy implementation by taking university library building as the case study. Due to space and cost aspects, the analysis only considers lighting system. The life cycle cost is used to generate the best alternatives to the building. The results show three potential options; alternative one use public electricity from state-owned enterprises in the energy sector with a fluorescent lamp, alternative two use PV with a fluorescent lamp and alternative three use PV with LED lamp. Alternative three recommends as the most potential implementation on the building as it generates lower initial cost, moderate cost of operation and maintenance as well as fair salvage value.