What Changed in Malaysia’s Energy Audit Rules?

Malaysia’s Energy Commission issued the first revision of seven guidelines under the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act 2024 (EECA), dated August 6, 2026 and posted on its EECA page on August 12. The revised energy audit report guideline now requires the systems examined in an audit to represent at least 80% of the facility’s connected-load inventory, with priority given to the systems that use the most energy, according to a summary by OPTIMISE, a registered energy services company, which also reports the Commission’s clarification on how the rule works.

EECA has applied since January 1, 2025 in Peninsular Malaysia and Labuan. It covers energy consumers above 21,600 gigajoules a year, who must appoint a registered energy manager, run an energy management system, report annually and undergo audits by a registered energy auditor, and buildings listed in the Act’s Third Schedule, currently office buildings with gross floor area of 8,000 square metres or more, per the Commission’s November 2025 country report to the ASEAN-Japan energy efficiency workshop.

How the 80% Rule Works

The Commission clarified that the 80% is counted in systems, not in kilowatts. A facility first lists its energy-consuming systems; the audit must then cover at least 80% of them, starting with the most significant. In the Commission’s own example of a facility with six systems, the auditor must cover five, and cannot meet the count by skipping the largest consumer in favour of a minor one. Within each system, representative sampling is allowed, so not every chiller or split unit needs individual measurement.

For an office tower, the most significant system is almost always air-conditioning. The practical effect of the revision is that a cooling audit can no longer be thin or optional for a covered building.

What the Inventory Leaves Out

The connected-load inventory, as the Commission defines it, lists energy-consuming equipment and systems connected to the energy supply. A façade, a roof or a glazing system consumes nothing. It is not on the inventory, so it does not count toward the 80%.

Yet the envelope sets the load the cooling system has to remove. Heat through west-facing glass, failed sealant and uninsulated roof slabs shows up on the bill as chiller or compressor run time. An audit can now examine the cooling plant thoroughly, satisfy the coverage rule, and still never measure why the plant works as hard as it does. The rule improves audit breadth across equipment; it does not reach the building fabric.

The Other Changes Worth Checking

Two further revisions can move a facility across the 21,600-gigajoule line. The conversion factor for natural gas rose from 0.02898 to 0.047233 gigajoules per cubic metre, so the same gas consumption now converts to roughly 63% more energy on paper. And a new integrated-facility provision, illustrated with data centres, counts the total energy an operator receives where it controls the infrastructure its tenants use, rather than netting out energy passed on to them.

What a Building Owner Should Ask For

A covered building owner commissioning its next audit should ask the auditor to show the connected-load inventory and the ranking used to choose the 80%, so the significant systems are visibly first. It should then decide separately whether to add an envelope survey, such as a thermal scan of the façade and roof, to the scope. That survey is outside what the guideline requires, which is exactly why it is cheap to skip and expensive to miss: the improvement plan that follows an audit can only address what the audit measured. Gas-using facilities near the threshold should recalculate their annual total with the new factor before assuming their status is unchanged.

Key takeaways

  • The Energy Commission’s revised EECA guidelines, dated August 6, 2026, require audits to cover at least 80% of a facility’s energy-consuming systems, prioritising the largest users.
  • The 80% is counted in systems, with representative sampling allowed within each system; for office buildings, air-conditioning will almost always be in scope.
  • The connected-load inventory lists equipment that consumes energy, so the building envelope that drives cooling demand is not counted and can go unexamined in a compliant audit.
  • A higher natural-gas conversion factor and a new integrated-facility rule can push facilities over the 21,600-gigajoule threshold without any change in actual consumption.