High Performing Buildings - Winter 2009 - (Page 19)

commentary documenting Performance B y a d a m W . H i n g e , P. e . , m e m B e r a S H r a e ; a n d d o n a l d J . W i n S t o n , P. e . , m e m B e r a S H r a e I n the Winter 2008 issue of HPB, we wrote an article entitled “The Proof is Performance,” where we reviewed the measured energy consumption of one of the first well-known green buildings in the United States — the Condé Nast Building at 4 Times Square in New York City. In that guest commentary, we reviewed some of the challenges in measuring and reporting building energy performance, but given the experience of the first year of HPB we felt compelled to weigh in with some additional thoughts on the topic of energy consumption reporting for buildings. Conceptually, the statement “getting energy performance data should be easy” is true. Virtually every building has electric, gas and other fuel revenue meters coming into the building, and summing whole building energy use for a year should not be rocket science. Why is it so hard for HPB (and other building trade publications) to get this information for the buildings being profiled? Calculating any building’s energy use intensity (high performance or not) is a fairly simple task: Sum all energy use, and divide by the floor area to obtain the building’s energy Conceptually, the statement “getting energy performance data should be easy” is true. Virtually every building has electric, gas and other fuel revenue meters coming into the building, and summing whole building energy use for a year should not be rocket science. Why is it so hard for HPB (and other building trade publications) to get this information for the buildings being profiled? Opposite: The Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park is designed to be one of the most sustainable office buildings in the world. use intensity (EUI, usually expressed in Btu/ft2/yr). This can be used to easily compare to what EUI was projected at the time of design. Nearly all of the buildings highlighted in HPB (and most other green building trade magazines) have had energy models developed during design that can provide the design estimate of expected EUI. Too often the model doesn’t necessarily simulate how the building actually will be operated or account for all of the equipment loads within the building. Modeling seems to be improving, but at present, there is no real incentive to accurately model the building as it will actually operWinter 2009 ate (and perhaps there’s a penalty for such accuracy if one is trying to stretch to get that next LEED® energy performance credit). The New Buildings Institute recently did a well-researched study on the energy performance of LEED buildings,1 the most authoritative review to date. When the data were first released, some important caveats to the findings were discussed. Most importantly, they were able to obtain actual energy data for only 121 buildings out of 585 requested, and it’s unclear whether that sample is representative. Unfortunately, these caveats, along with the fact that a large portion of Performing Buildings 19 HigH

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of High Performing Buildings - Winter 2009

High Performing Buildings - Winter 2009
Contents
Commentary
OHSU Center for Health & Healing
Documenting Performance
Cook+Fox Architects Office
5 Houston Center
Skanska's Atlanta Office
Advertisers Index

High Performing Buildings - Winter 2009