Lift Energy Efficiency in Singapore: What Actually Moves the Number

How much of a building’s electricity do lifts and escalators use?

BCA’s technology roadmap for lifts and escalators puts their share at around a tenth of an office building’s electricity. The proportion varies with the building: a high-rise office with heavy peak traffic sits at the upper end, a low-rise residential block well below it. The figure matters because it is large enough to appear in a building’s energy accounts and small enough to be overlooked when a modernisation scope is being settled.

That roadmap figure dates from 2018 and should be treated as an order of magnitude rather than a measurement of any particular building. The only number that describes a specific installation is the one its own sub-meter produces.

What makes one lift installation more efficient than another?

Three things account for most of the difference between two otherwise similar lifts: the drive technology, what the lift does when nobody is using it, and whether it recovers energy from the car’s own movement. A modern variable-frequency drive uses markedly less than the older drive technologies it replaces, standby and sleep behaviour cuts the load when the lift is idle, and a regenerative drive returns energy to the building instead of dissipating it as heat.

• Drive. The controller and drive together govern how power is drawn during acceleration, which is where most of a journey’s consumption occurs.
• Standby behaviour. Car lighting, fans, displays and the controller itself draw power between journeys. In a lightly used building the idle hours outnumber the travelling hours considerably.
• Energy recovery. A regenerative drive turns the machine into a generator under the conditions described below.
• Group control. Where several lifts serve the same lobby, the dispatching logic decides how many cars run during quiet periods.

How much energy does a regenerative drive save?

BCA’s guidance to lift owners states that a regenerative drive saves up to 30 per cent energy compared with a lift without the device. The drive generates when the traction machine is driven by the load rather than driving it, which happens when the car travels down heavily loaded or up lightly loaded, and a converter feeds that energy back into the building’s electrical network for other systems to use.

The saving realised in a particular building depends on how the lift is actually used. A lift that spends its day moving full cars down and empty cars up regenerates often; one with balanced two-way traffic regenerates less. The figure is an upper bound published as guidance, not a yield to be assumed in a business case.

Does a modernisation reduce the energy a lift uses?

A modernisation that replaces the controller and drive almost always reduces consumption, because the equipment being removed predates the drive technologies now standard. The size of the reduction depends on what is being replaced rather than on the amount spent, so a partial modernisation reaching the drive can deliver most of the energy benefit of a full replacement.

The carbon position runs the other way from the capital one. Replacing equipment that is still sound incurs the embodied carbon of manufacturing and shipping its replacement, on top of the cost. Where a condition assessment establishes that guide rails, structure or other major components remain serviceable, retaining them avoids both. BCA’s modernisation guidance recognises this directly, noting that structural elements may be kept where qualified professionals assess them as being in satisfactory condition.

This is why the energy question cannot be answered ahead of the condition question. What a modernisation should replace is settled by the state of the installation, and the energy outcome follows from that scope. Our guide to repair, overhaul or replacement covers how that assessment is made.

How does Green Mark affect a lift decision?

Green Mark is BCA’s certification scheme for the environmental performance of buildings, and its energy criteria reach the vertical transportation system. The features assessed are the ones that govern consumption in practice: the drive technology, standby and sleep behaviour, and the presence of a regenerative drive, with the applicable requirement depending on the building type and its height.

The specific thresholds change between editions of the criteria, and they differ between residential and non-residential buildings. Any project pursuing or maintaining a rating should take the requirement from the technical guide current at the time of application rather than from a summary, because applying a superseded threshold is a common and expensive way to miss a target.

A lift modernisation is one of the few occasions on which a building can move its vertical transportation criteria at all, since the equipment is replaced only once in two decades. A building that intends to pursue a rating is better served by settling that intention before the specification is written than by discovering the requirement after tender.

What changes under Green Mark Version 7, and when?

Green Mark Version 7 was launched at the International Built Environment Week on 2 September 2026. No new Green Mark 2021 applications will be accepted from 1 April 2027, and all ongoing Green Mark 2021 projects must be completed by the end of 2027. Version 7 introduces a BCA Energy Rating pathway based on energy performance alone for existing buildings, portfolio certification for similar buildings under a single application, and a new Super Low Energy tier.

The Super Low Energy tiers are set by measured energy savings: SLE60 requires a minimum of 60 per cent, and the new SLE70 tier at least 70 per cent. Buildings sustaining their energy performance can have certification validity extended to as much as five years, against three previously.

For a building weighing a lift modernisation against the transition dates, the practical point is the sequence. The condition assessment that determines the scope takes time, the specification and tender stages take longer, and a project intending to apply under one set of criteria rather than the other needs that programme mapped against the dates above.

How should a council weigh energy against cost in a lift modernisation?

Energy saving is one input to a modernisation decision rather than the basis for it. The installation’s condition determines what must be replaced, the replacement scope determines the capital cost, and the energy outcome follows from the scope chosen. A council that begins from the energy case risks specifying equipment the building does not yet need, and one that ignores it entirely locks in twenty years of avoidable consumption.

The figures that make the case concrete are specific to the building: its measured consumption, its traffic pattern, the age and type of the equipment being replaced, and the tariff. Vertical Acumen carries out independent condition assessment and advises building owners and MCSTs on modernisation scope and specification, which is where the energy decision is actually made.