Identifying where energy is wasted across An-Najah’s campuses — and acting on it

An-Najah National University (ANNU) undertakes recurring, university-wide energy reviews to identify the buildings, systems and operating periods where energy wastage is highest, and to direct corrective action where it will achieve the greatest savings. The reviews are carried out under the University’s Energy Review and Audit Framework, which combines building-level monitoring, load profiling, thermal surveys, HVAC and appliance assessment, and comparison of energy use between facilities.

These reviews are a cornerstone of ANNU’s energy-efficiency and climate-action strategy. Their findings inform the Energy Efficiency Plan, the Sustainable Energy Policy and the Climate Action Plan 2024–2028 (updated 2025), aligning campus operations with national energy goals and the UN Sustainable Development Goal on affordable and clean energy.

At a glance
Reviewing body	Energy, Environment and Climate Change Research Unit, with the Engineering and Construction Department, Faculty of Engineering and IT, facilities staff and the Sustainability Office
Review cycle	Annual university-wide review, supported by continuous metering and scheduled building-level assessments throughout the year
Scope	Old Campus and New Campus (Nablus), Kadoorie Campus (Tulkarem), Hisham Hijjawi College and An-Najah National University Hospital
Highest-wastage areas	Lighting (33%), space heating (19%), cooling (17%), appliances and standby loads (16%)
Latest review cycle	January–December 2025, published as the Energy Review and Audit Follow-up 2025
Result	Electricity use down 10.9% from 2024 to 2025, and about 80.8% below the 2019 baseline

1. Responsibility and Governance

Energy reviews are an institutional responsibility of the University. The Energy, Environment and Climate Change Research Unit of the Energy, Water and Food Security Research Center provides technical leadership, working with the Engineering and Construction Department, the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, facilities staff, the Sustainability Office and relevant academic specialists. ANNU’s Sustainable Energy Policy assigns university teams responsibility for monitoring consumption across campus facilities and proposing improvements to energy performance.

The review process links four stages — measurement, technical assessment, corrective action and follow-up — and draws on two complementary levels of evidence: building-level assessments, which show where avoidable consumption occurs, and annual university-wide reporting, which tracks overall progress.

2. Objectives of the Energy Review

Identify critical energy-loss points: examine buildings and utilities to locate energy-intensive systems, operational inefficiencies and loads that continue when facilities are unoccupied.
Establish performance benchmarks: compare energy use between facilities, taking account of floor area, function, occupancy and operating hours, using assessment methods informed by ASHRAE guidance and ISO 50001 energy-management principles.
Support the Net-Zero 2028 target: prioritise efficiency measures that deliver continued reductions in Scope 1 and 2 emissions under the University’s Net-Zero Carbon Target 2028.
Promote community benefit: consider the University’s renewable-energy and community initiatives alongside efficiency work, with energy generated, energy consumed and electricity supplied elsewhere measured separately.

3. Methodology and Review Process

The framework combines quantitative measurement with on-site technical assessment to identify where energy waste is highest:

Method	Review purpose
Smart-meter and electricity-data analysis	Identify buildings with high consumption, unusual peaks or persistent base loads, using building-level meters and the Najah²Twin smart-campus platform where connected.
Thermal imaging and building inspection	Locate heat-loss zones and insulation deficiencies in major facilities using infrared thermography.
Appliance and HVAC assessment	Examine equipment draw, operating schedules, maintenance needs and standby consumption in laboratories, offices and classrooms.
Hourly load profiling	Detect avoidable night-time, weekend or idle-hour electricity use.
Benchmarking by building function	Compare energy intensity (kWh/m² and kWh/person) among facilities with comparable uses — science, medicine, engineering, agriculture and others — to prioritise retrofit actions.
Follow-up readings	Confirm that completed changes have reduced consumption, after accounting for changes in occupancy, weather or operating hours.

Reviews account for the different requirements of teaching rooms, laboratories, clinics, libraries and sports facilities: each building’s consumption is read alongside its size, function, occupancy and operating hours before it is ranked for action.

For every corrective measure, the Energy Unit records the building and equipment identification, measurement period, baseline reading, action date, responsible team and follow-up reading. These records distinguish measured savings from projected savings and provide the evidence base for the next review cycle.

4. Buildings and Facilities Within Review Scope

The University’s building inventory includes teaching, research, clinical, administrative and shared facilities. Their different uses are considered when setting review priorities.

Campus or location	Facilities
Old Campus, Nablus	Faculty of Educational Sciences and Teachers Training; Faculty of Humanities; An-Najah Innovation Park; An-Najah University Dental Clinics
New Campus, Nablus	Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology; Faculty of Law; Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences; Faculty of Pharmacy; Sports Complex Building; Scientific Centers; Faculty of Sciences; Libraries; New Faculty of Medicine building; Al-Najah Medical Clinics Building; Palestinian Child Institute; Faculty of Dentistry
Kadoorie Campus, Tulkarem	Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine
Hijjawi	Hisham Hijjawi College of Technology
Hospital	An-Najah National University Hospital

5. The 2025 Energy Review Cycle

During 2025 the Energy Unit reviewed electricity-use patterns building by building across all campuses, concluding with a university-wide summary of priorities:

Date	Facilities reviewed	Review focus
15 Jan 2025	Faculty of Educational Sciences and Teachers Training; Faculty of Humanities (Old Campus)	With the Engineering and Maintenance team: lighting and equipment operation during teaching hours and after buildings close.
12 Feb 2025	Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (New Campus)	Electricity demand outside scheduled teaching and laboratory hours, identifying loads requiring follow-up inspection.
18 Mar 2025	Faculty of Law; New Campus Libraries	With facilities staff: operating schedules, lighting, ventilation and after-hours consumption.
16 Apr 2025	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences; New Faculty of Medicine building	Lighting, cooling and equipment schedules; areas recorded for further technical assessment.
21 May 2025	Faculty of Pharmacy; Faculty of Sciences (New Campus)	With building representatives: laboratory equipment, ventilation and loads outside scheduled use.
17 Jun 2025	Sports Complex Building	With maintenance staff: lighting, ventilation and other energy-intensive facilities, to reduce avoidable consumption.
23 Jul 2025	Scientific Centers; An-Najah Innovation Park	Equipment operating hours and electricity demand in research and innovation spaces.
20 Aug 2025	Hisham Hijjawi College of Technology; Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine (Kadoorie Campus, Tulkarem)	Facilities and operating periods requiring closer assessment.
22 Oct 2025	Al-Najah Medical Clinics Building; Faculty of Dentistry; An-Najah University Dental Clinics; Palestinian Child Institute	Electricity use in clinical, teaching and community-service spaces, reflecting their different operating requirements.
10 Dec 2025	University-wide summary	Observations from teaching buildings, laboratories, libraries, clinics and shared facilities compiled into building review priorities: buildings and systems needing detailed measurement, corrective action and follow-up readings under the Energy Efficiency Plan.

The results of the cycle are published in the Energy Review and Audit Follow-up 2025.

6. Where Energy Wastage Is Highest: Audit Findings

ANNU’s Building Energy Audit Report (August 2023) examined historical data, energy flows and building characteristics, and proposed efficiency measures with cost considerations. It identified lighting, heating, cooling and appliances as the largest end uses and therefore the priority areas for reducing waste. Its end-use breakdown allocated 33% to lighting, 19% to space heating, 17% to cooling, 16% to appliances, 8% to ventilation, 5% to pumps and 2% to domestic hot water.

The audit also pinpointed specific sources of avoidable use: office equipment and standby consumption outside useful operating hours, inefficient lighting, operating controls and maintenance needs. It found that individual smart metering needed to be extended — six buildings were individually metered at the time and twelve more were identified for meters.

The Energy Review and Audit Follow-up 2025 follows up these priorities and combines them with the University’s 2025 performance data from the Carbon Footprint Report 2025.

Priority Areas and Corrective Measures

Lighting: replace older fixtures with suitable LED lighting, reduce unnecessary operating hours, add controls and make better use of daylight.
Heating and cooling: review schedules, set-points, maintenance and building-envelope losses, starting with facilities that have high annual use or persistent loads outside occupied hours.
Appliances and standby loads: apply end-of-day shut-off procedures to computers, printers and other suitable equipment, and check that the overnight baseline falls.
Ventilation and pumps: align run times with occupancy and service requirements without compromising essential operations, health or safety.
Metering: extend individual meters to unmetered buildings according to audit priority, and keep clear records of meter identity, reading periods and any estimated or missing data.
Renewable systems: record generation separately from campus consumption, electricity purchases and exports.

7. Energy Performance, 2019–2025

Indicator	2019 baseline	2024	2025
Reported electricity consumption	7,304,843 kWh	1,572,222 kWh	1,400,278 kWh
Reported renewable-energy production	173,443 kWh	3,320,168 kWh	4,580,168 kWh
Diesel consumption	183,250 L	85,123 L	80,000 L
Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse-gas emissions	~5,485 tCO₂e	~254 tCO₂e	239.07 tCO₂e

Reported electricity consumption fell by 171,944 kWh (10.9%) between 2024 and 2025 and by approximately 80.8% against the 2019 baseline. The 2025 total is approximately 5,041 GJ. Renewable production is reported separately as energy supply and is not counted as energy saved; building-level follow-up readings are used to attribute savings to specific measures.

8. Energy-Efficiency Measures Across Campus

Review findings guide the University’s investment in efficient lighting, HVAC equipment, controls and renewable systems. Examples include:

9. Metering, Monitoring and Renewable Energy

Continuous monitoring provides the data that energy reviews rely on. Smart electricity meters and real-time monitoring systems track consumption in campus facilities, and the Najah²Twin smart-campus digital twin supports monitoring of energy consumption and optimisation of efficiency.

10. Awareness Campaigns

Review findings on after-hours and standby consumption are translated into campus awareness campaigns that ask staff and students to monitor building consumption, detect heat loss, and switch off lighting, air-conditioning and equipment after working hours.

11. News, Research and Technical Highlights

HVAC load assessment — December 2024. The director of ANNU’s Energy Research Unit presented an AI-based model for estimating heating and cooling loads at a regional sustainable-development workshop, research directly relevant to assessing building energy demand. Read the news.
Staff sustainability training — March 2025. University training for academic and administrative staff addressed resource management, carbon reduction and sustainable practices. Read the activity summary.
Electricity-conservation awareness — April 2025. A student workshop introduced ways of reducing electricity consumption and the role of clean energy. Read the activity summary.
TECGREMED training agreement — August 2025. Hisham Hijjawi College of Technology signed an agreement on 25 August 2025 to deliver specialised green-engineering training for technical students and graduates through the Erasmus+ TECGREMED project. Read ANNU’s news article.
CERES energy-monitoring collaboration — November 2025. ANNU joined the CERES project, whose work includes a digital platform for remotely monitoring and managing energy systems. Read the launch news.
Solar PV practical training — August 2026. Through TECGREMED, Hisham Hijjawi College completed a specialised course on designing and installing solar photovoltaic systems. Read the College news.
Investment Grade Energy Audits of public buildings — September 2026. ANNU’s Energy Research Unit is carrying out detailed Investment Grade Energy Audits (IGEA) of government buildings and facilities across the governorates of the West Bank, including hospitals, ministry buildings, water wells and a wastewater treatment plant. The project was contracted by the Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority to a consortium of local and international experts and is funded by the World Bank. Using specialised measurements and technical analysis, the audits assess each facility’s energy performance, identify the highest-priority and most feasible efficiency and renewable-energy measures, and produce the designs, studies and financial analyses needed to move to implementation and financing. Dr. Mohammad Al-Sayed, coordinator of the Energy Research Unit, supervises the work locally, and three ANNU energy-engineering graduates have joined the audit team. Read the news.

These activities strengthen the technical expertise, training and monitoring capacity that support the University’s energy reviews. The same audit methods the Energy Research Unit applies on campus — on-site measurement, load analysis and prioritisation of corrective measures — are now used at national scale to identify energy waste in public buildings.

12. Future Directions, 2025–2028

ISO 50001 alignment: develop the documentation and controls for an institution-wide energy-management system, working towards ISO 50001 certification across all campuses.
Predictive analysis: introduce AI-based anomaly detection and forecasting through the Najah²Twin smart-campus platform as data coverage grows.
Expanded metering: extend individual metering to facilities without dedicated meters, including student accommodation and the University Hospital.
Further building retrofits: use audit findings to select lighting, HVAC, control and building-envelope measures, in line with the Climate Action Plan objective of a 30% improvement in building energy efficiency, reported against measured baselines.
Documented follow-up: publish dated building-level review summaries showing the highest-wastage systems, responsible teams, actions taken and follow-up readings.

Key Reports, Policies and Plans

Conclusion

Through systematic, recurring energy reviews, An-Najah National University identifies where energy wastage is highest — by building, system and operating period — and acts on those findings. The building energy audit established the priority areas of lighting, heating, cooling and standby loads; the 2025 review cycle followed them up across every campus; and the Energy Efficiency Plan turns the results into corrective measures with follow-up readings. The outcome is measurable: reported electricity consumption fell by 10.9% in 2025 and is about 80.8% below the 2019 baseline, supporting the University’s path to net zero by 2028.

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Energy Review and Audit Framework