ABSTRACT
Apparently, Nigeria is struggling with the developmental issues of the incessant power outage and lack of energy services. The primary sources of energy for office building are from national grid and gasoline generators. However, the former is not reliable and the latter is unsustainable; hence, the need to explore energy efficiency strategies to cut down the energy demand for cooling office building in Nigeria is unavoidable. This dissertation aimed to assess the energy efficiency or performance index of the Nigerian Universities' senate buildings in the north-eastern region (dry sub-humid climate). The research employed a case study approach, construction of baseline model with the Revit architecture software and applied Autodesk's Ecotect building analysis software to evaluate the energy performance of the senate building as built. Three local case studies and one foreign case study were selected such as university administrative building of Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola (MAUTECH), senate building of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi (ATBU), university administrative building of Gombe State University, Gombe (GSU) and the Chancellery office building of University Kebangsaan (UKM), Malaysia. Although, operating appliances release heat to interior spaces of the building but the scope of the study deals with the performance of the building envelope as a whole. In terms of adherence to the checklist, MAUTECH senate and ATBU some scored 65%, GSU got 78% while UKM got 94%. The simulation results show that in MAUTECH, as high as 141.4kwh/m2 of heating/cooling required per annum; ATBU senate got 127.3kwh/m2; GSU senate had 97.4kwh/m2; UKM had 20.5kwh/m2 Annual Energy. These results have indicated that more efforts should gear towards exploring energy efficiency strategies in office building designs vi because the results are far away from the British standards of 15kwh/m2 for energy efficient office buildings. Then, the proposed senate building incorporated sustainable design features such as deciduous trees, double glazing, void, screen walls, horizontal and vertical shading devices, water surfaces, etc.; after the simulation, it was found out that 22.67kwh/m2 Annual energy which is very closer to the stipulated British standard of 15wh/m2 and 68.92% reduction was achieved. Therefore, research implication is that it is essential for the architects and engineers to incorporate more proactive energy efficiency strategies in the design of office buildings in Nigeria.