Engineered Systems - February 2008 - (Page 25) One One One Many m nterface of Accountability ty FREE INFO: 119 ESM02084Lum.indd 1 Lighting control solutions designed to eliminate integration uncertainty. Like to know more, visit Lumisys on the web: www.AnyBAS.com 1/16/08 1:52:35 PM AHR presentations in New York developed by Ken Sinclair, the GridWise Architecture Council, and for the B2G (Building to Grid) Summit (www.bg-summit.com) underscored the importance of energy as will Connectivity Week this May. So how do building owners make it happen? The answer is different for retrofits, new construction projects, etc. Either way, the owner should seek out teams, not just consultants, because any project can benefit from a blend of D-B solutions that include up-front analysis and involve contractors with pragmatic experience operating buildings and design professionals. The real EES opportunity is to provide building owners with a completely new way of participating in energy markets. Traditionally, building energy technology targeted ways to optimize building operation/efficiency such as scheduling, optimization, and demand limiting. More recently, energy programs are often limited to internally funded measures, typically requiring an ROI of 30% or better. The other popular approach has been used by energy service companies (ESCOs) that use a financial sale to create an operational revenue stream to implement capital energy improvements. Importantly, most states capped this funding vehicle at 10 years, so the measures were limited. Unless customers were willing to consider life-cycle costs, broad-based EES projects requiring major investment were rare. EES IN MOTION A more common example might include systems like a large-scale EES higher education project partially funded by the DOE and currently under construction. The campus already has an extensive BACnet™based automation system, plus smart meters to measure electricity, natural gas, and hot/chilled water and steam to clearly quantify energy consumption. The campus also has 8 MW of combined heat and power distributed generation (DG). This may not be unusual, but EES becomes more interesting here with the systems technology that is being developed. Demand response (DR) is being enabled through a Web portal so that the utility can drill down through the Web into the energy profile of this 20 MW customer to allow changes using DG, DR, etc. For example, the first fully EES-enabled building on campus has integrated solar thermal with thermal storage and an absorption chiller, and it can be taken off the grid entirely for cooling. The next phase of activity on this project is to develop algorithms that will make it possible to change a building sequence of operation based upon energy needs, economic value, and potential reliability issues on the grid. Projects like this glimpse the full potential for EES and will transcend many of the traditional boundaries in the construction business, enabling creative forward looking companies to win. ES Mc Gowan is president/CEO of Energy Control Inc., an energy service company and system integrator, and chairman of the DOE GridWise Architecture Council. He has published five books including Direct Digital Control on Fairmont Press and is a contributing editor for www. automatedbuildings.com. In 2004, the Association of Energy Engineers accepted him into the International Energy Managers Hall of Fame and in 1997 he was named “International Energy Professional of the Year.” w w w. esmag a zin e. c o m 25 http://www.AnyBAS.com http://www.bg-summit.com http://www.automatedbuildings.com http://www.automatedbuildings.com http://www.esmagazine.com
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