Investigating barriers to efficient electricity management practices in government-owned tertiary institutions : a case of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife

Energy efficiency is a cost-effective way to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions; however, certain barriers have hindered its adoption in public universities. Hence, it is essential to identify and analyze the underlying barriers to the deployment of cost-effective energy efficiency initiatives. This study investigates the barriers to cost-effective energy efficiency in one of the premier Nigerian public universities. Using a structured questionnaire survey, data were obtained from four groups of stakeholders, totaling 361 respondents in the public university used as a case study. The collected data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (Version 21) to identify the most important barriers. The mean scores were used to investigate the comparative importance among potential barriers for each group. An independent sample t test was used to determine whether or not there was a significant difference between any two groups of stakeholders. The Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used to investigate any association between the groups in terms of their ranking of barriers. The top three important barriers identified in this study are related to institutional and economic barriers. The results consolidate the outcome of previous research that energy efficiency sits against a backdrop of competing institutional and economic barriers. Also, while the results reveal significant variation across the different groups of stakeholders, a significant correlation was found between the perceptions of academic staff and postgraduate students. The authors recommend that the involvement of all stakeholders, the formulation of university-related policies, and the creation of incentives for stakeholders will alleviate the identified barriers as well as significantly improve electricity saving in public universities.