Sustainable Facility - November 2008 - (Page 44)

LEED EB: O&M LEED for Existing Buildings OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE - ENERGY AUDITS >> BY MICHAEL J. BERNING, P.E., LEED AP, HEAPY ENGINEERING LLC W hat can building owners do to their existing facilities to make them more energy efﬁcient, yet also gain the peace of mind that they have taken the most cost-effective approach? First, start with a brief walk-thru of your facility to spot the obvious “low-hanging fruit” such as: energy-efﬁcient lighting, correct setpoints, properly calibrated HVAC system devices, leaks in the building envelope, etc. This type of energy audit is termed by ASHRAE as a Level I Walk-Thru Analysis and is what the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance Rating System requires in the Energy and Atmosphere Category under Prerequisite 1. A relatively easy method to identify potential energy inefﬁciency in your building is to seek out areas where poor comfort conditions are reported by building occupants. These are typically very good indicators that at least one, if not more, element(s) of the building’s energy systems is/are not working properly (i.e., inefﬁciently). Bringing in a commissioning authority to perform retro-commissioning on the building’s HVAC systems can help determine solutions to these comfort-control problems. A study by Lawrence Berkley National Laboratories of 244 commissioned buildings shows that retro-commissioning produced a median payback in less than nine months on the investment for the Commissioning Services. [View the study online at: http://eetd.lbl.gov/emills/PUBS/ PDF/Cx-Costs-Beneﬁts.pdf.] EXAMINING AND IMPLEMENTING The next step is to examine the maintenance logs for the various pieces of HVAC system equipment serving the building. If you observe that regular and required service has not been performed, it is highly likely the equipment is no longer operating at peak efﬁciency. ASHRAE publishes a free online list of the median service life (and maintenance costs) for various pieces of HVAC system equipment and building types. This database, available online at www.ashrae.org/database, provides information for more than 300 building types and 38,000 pieces of equipment. Using this data, you can establish a relative idea of whether your equipment may possibly be more in need of replacement than refurbishing before investing resources on improving equipment that is past its expected normal service life. On an older existing building, typically the ﬁrst energy conservation measure to implement is a lighting upgrade. Older T12 technology ﬂuorescent lamps can readily be replaced with T8, or, in many applications, T5 lamps, which, when paired with today’s electronic ballasts, produce considerable energy savings. With myriad energyefﬁcient replacement lamps available — from compact ﬂuorescents to LEDs — incandescent lighting should simply be phased out of most applications. Lighting retroﬁts typically produce paybacks in less than ﬁve years, with some in as little as two years, depending mostly on time of use. Contributing to the energy savings is the reduction in cooling energy required due to the lower heat output of the energy-efﬁcient lamps. Lighting in ofﬁce buildings can contribute up to 30 percent of the total cooling load, thus a substantial reduction in lighting power usage produces a relative drop in energy consumption related to cooling. Both factors further contribute to effectively low44 S U S TA I N A B L E F A C I L I T Y NOVE M B E R 2008 ■ The mechanical-electrical systems for the Community Behavioral Health Center (Ohio) have been designed by Heapy Engineering to help achieve all 10 of the LEED Energy Optimization Credit points. >> Photo courtesy of Voorhis Sloan Welsh Crossland. ering the overall peak kW demand of the building, which, for most areas of the country, results in substantial cost savings. Finally, once you have identiﬁed the low-hanging fruit, a comprehensive (Level II and III) ASHRAE Energy Audit should be performed. This includes conducting a complete life-cycle ﬁnancial analysis of the various Energy Conservation and Operations and Maintenance recommendations for your building, which will help ensure that you will indeed take the most efﬁcient approach to becoming a fully sustainable building operation. SF Michael Berning is the director of Sustainable Design for Heapy Engineering. Berning is a member of Sustainable Facility’s Technical Advisory Board. He can be reached at mjberning@heapy. com. In coming issues of Sustainable Facility, Berning will address speciﬁc topics regarding the LEED-EB: O&M documentation and certiﬁcation process. http://eetd.lbl.gov/emills/PUBS/PDF/Cx-Costs-Benefits.pdf http://eetd.lbl.gov/emills/PUBS/PDF/Cx-Costs-Benefits.pdf http://www.ashrae.org/database

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Facility - November 2008

Sustainable Facility - November 2008 Contents Editorial Industry Watch Web TOC New and Notable The Case for Daytime Cleaning Commitment to Energy Effi ciency and Sustainability Finding the Green Solar for the Commercial and Industrial Sector: What’s Hot Now? Connecting Sustainability and Green Cleaning Recycling Rechargeable Batteries Sharing Best Practices The Consultant Conundrum Sharing the Facilities Management Burden The Building Owner’s and Operator’s Sustainability Solution: Energy Audits Greenbuild: Green Product Buzz Guide Product Focus Marketplace and Classifieds Advertiser’s Index Initiatives

Sustainable Facility - November 2008

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