ABSTRACT
The world faces the problem of energy crisis. Nigeria, not being an exception faces the same problem as its generating capacity is below 5000 megawatts. Studies have also shown that only 48% of Nigerians have access to electricity, ranking Nigeria among the lowest in the world.Generally, buildings uses approximately 40% of the total energy consumed globally and represent 33% of the annual carbon dioxide emission that causes global warming. Hotel buildings use 60% out of the 40% of the energy consumed by buildings. Considering that hotel buildings represent a large proportion of a county?s energy consumption.This suggests the need for urgent and concerted action by all stakeholders in the construction industry to minimise ecological degradation on a massive scale. The research approach is quantitative in nature and adopts both primary and secondary sources of data collection. The research instruments utilized during the course of the study include; Self- administered questionnaire and Non-participant observation.Literature review utilizes the review of works done on the subject drawn from published books, articles, journals, papers and official documents of professional bodies and an energy audit was used to study the energy use patterns, principles of passive cooling and the architectural requirement of three selected hotel buildings within the composite of hot-humid/hot-dry climate of Nigeria.The research has disaggregated energy demand in hotel buildings into cooling, lighting and other appliances with cooling accounting for 57% followed by appliances with 30% and lighting 13%. The research has also established that energy consumption in hotel buildings within a composite of hot-humid/hot-dry climate of Nigeria is 157kWh/m�. Computer simulation has further revealed that the average normalized cooling load for conventional material/construction is 126kWh/m� while that of optimized material/construction is 88kWh/m�. Finally, the research recommends that cooling end-use in hotel designbe targeted by integrating principles of passive cooling as this will provide a substantial savings in energy consumption of up to 45%.