Abstract

This study investigates the key issues and challenges in monitoring and controlling energy consumption in Uganda’s public institutions. It also explores the potential of improving energy efficiency in these institutions through adoption of state-of-the-art ICT technologies to monitor and control energy use at individual unit or department level. This includes views and perceptions on the potential benefits and costs involved. The research study is a cross-sectional study that is based on both descriptive and quantitative data. The descriptive approaches were used for obtaining narrative information and descriptive statistics that were used to illustrate and back up inferences on relationships between the study variables based on the quantitative data. The quantitative approaches were used to deduce the existence and significance of relationships between the variables being investigated. A general finding is that apart from some managers, most energy users at the public institutions are not aware of how much energy they use and what it costs. Though the high cost of energy was felt at the higher management levels, most of the users did not seem concerned about the cost and energy inefficiencies. There is also a glaring lack of awareness on smart ICT technologies that can be used to closely monitor and control energy use at individual unit or department level or lower levels. The public institutions take on aggregate energy use bills without requiring accountability of the various units/departments within these institutions.