Building Energy Resilience

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.

I received an email with this tag line and it struck me as profound. A business cannot operate efficiently and effectively without a clear vision of its future and a road map of the steps to obtaining that vision. A business owner must constantly ask: what aspects of the business are going to change, how are they going to change, and what is going to stay the same? Am I riding on top of the wave that is my business paradigm, or am I getting toppled over by the wave and left behind?

Lighting control systems have become more ubiquitous in recent years. Whereas five years ago, sophisticated lighting control schemes were the realm of a few performance venues, nowadays your neighborhood grocery store uses wireless lighting controls that can be complex to calibrate and require attention to detail from design through to occupancy. Commissioning is vital to ensuring that installed equipment operates as designed and provides adequate light levels and indoor environmental quality, and user controls function as intended.

I recently returned from a fascinating trip to Israel. My trip covered a large portion of the country, which is a little larger than New Jersey. Being able to drive to different areas gave me the opportunity to take in all the amazing features in both rural and urban settings. Although traveling for pleasure, this trip turned into a captivating educational experience. In addition to the history lesson, I learned about Israel’s approach to remaining sustainably sound, even in a desert climate. There are many technologies and processes used in other countries that originated in Israel. This blog post will discuss several of the sustainability challenges Israel faces and how the country has conquered these challenges, including some of the technologies that came out of these adversities.

I have repeatedly blogged about my concerns with the current and future energy codes because the codes are not keeping up with technology for lighting efficiency (see my previous blog posts titled “Why are Lighting Energy Standards Decreasing” and “More Issues with the Energy Code – Lighting is Running Rampant”).  The graphs below, developed by our friends at Optimal Energy, show some comparisons of Department of Energy (DOE) predicted efficacies for lighting technologies and the efficacy needed to meet code for some common space types.

It can often be an afterthought as to how much outdoor air (OA) is actually being drawn into a hospital through air handling equipment, but maintaining proper outdoor air volume is a vital part of achieving effective infection control, as well as meeting space pressurization requirements.  Proper OA volumes are also a metric that can be reviewed for non-compliance during Joint Commission audits.  The amount of outside air that a hospital’s air handling equipment should introduce into the building is defined by the ASHRAE Standard 170, which was discussed in one of our previous blog posts, Optimizing Air Handling Units for Healthcare. As we pointed out in this prior post, an airflow station, when properly selected and installed,  is an effective piece of hardware which can be used to monitor this outside air quantity (typically in cubic feet per minute), and the data provided by this meter can be very useful in a healthcare setting.

The Better Buildings by Design conference took place a couple of weeks ago here in Vermont. The two-day conference brings together contractors, utility representatives, architects, engineers, and other energy professionals to discuss energy efficiency, durability, and operations and maintenance for residential and commercial buildings. It included sessions across multiple subject tracks, workshops, and a trade floor with many exhibitors, and offered a great opportunity for learning about new developments in the field and networking with fellow energy nerds. Cx Associates had a strong attendance at the conference, with several of us presenting in multiple sessions. 

If you're the owner or manager of an older commercial building, you may wonder if retrocommissioning is right for your building retrofit. You are not alone.

I attended six talks, a few open panel discussions, an ASHRAE GPC36 Committee meeting, and topped the days off by making new friends and “nerding out” over HVAC. I chose to attend panels and presentations that had to do with controls, integration, and grid management because that’s where I believe we can easily continue to chip away at excessive energy consumption due to poorly controlled building HVAC systems.

Forty years ago, the practice of commissioning systems to ensure buildings deliver functionality and comfort for owners and users originated in Canada. Twelve years later, ASHRAE debuted Guideline 1 for the commissioning (Cx) process. For twenty years, the U.S. Green Building Council has included commissioning in LEED documentation, and in 2014, LEED v4 was released, requiring fundamental Cx, including design review, for all new construction projects seeking certification.

I recently had the privilege to travel to Colombia with Engineers Without Borders to assess the needs and resources for an irrigation project for family farms.  Colombia is very well suited for coffee and sugar cane, but the dry season is too harsh for more sensitive plants like basil, lettuce, spinach, and peppers.  For this, farmers need drip irrigation, water catchment, water reservoir, and water diversion.  Our group’s goal is to develop an affordable, sustainable, and replicable design as a pilot project for ten farmers in central Colombia.  We are working with Food 4 Farmers, an international non-governmental organization (NGO), Nueva Realidad, a Bogota based NGO, and Nuevo Futuro, the local coffee cooperative.  We knew what our goal was before we started, but we had no idea what to expect from the trip.  Here are our impressions of the country with which our team returned.