Building Energy Resilience

If you’ve worked in the Building Automation Systems (BAS) industry, you’ve probably heard of LonWorks, BACnet, and Modbus.  These three open system networking technologies have been the foundation of most building automation systems over the last decade.  They allow devices from different manufacturers to communicate data without issue (most of the time) so that a building’s chiller, boiler, and pumps may all work together as one system to give a building owner an integrated system that enables a high level of functionality. 

I love simple concepts formulated using basic math.  And even though I love all mathematics, I’ll be the first to admit that my math skills could always be stronger, so I am always trying to learn. I guess that’s why the basic formulas for really complicated concepts really resonate with my inner nerd.  The Drake equation as a model for explaining the Fermi paradox is a wonderful example of these.  Recently Bill Gates released a short speculation on YouTube regarding energy and CO₂.  This too really resonated with me as it’s an area where I see our industry really affecting change.

We are in the process of wrapping up an energy efficiency and building automation system upgrade project at an office building. The project involved converting an older boiler/tower heat pump loop system with constant speed pumping to variable flow, and the installation of a modern building automation system (BAS) with new energy efficient control sequences. The project has been a big success however, the project team experienced some challenges in really “dialing in” the controls. The main obstacle is that remote access to the BAS had not yet been established. Having remote access to building controls during the later stages of construction provides many benefits—including being able to monitor system performance remotely, review alarm logs and historical trends to identify problems, and even make adjustments on-the-fly to tune system parameters correctly. Without remote access we would have had to drive to the building, request access to a network closet from the property manager, plug into the server in a closet, and then spend time in a tight space trying to accomplish our goals before unplugging and heading back to the office. Needless to say it is not convenient to do frequently, and is expensive.

Are meetings a waste of time? Deriding them as such is common.  But with some upfront effort, meetings can deliver outcomes that would otherwise take much longer to achieve. 

On a recent project at a large hospital Cx Associates examined the feasibility of consolidating two air handlers into one single air handler.  One of the air handlers is nearing the end of its useful life, and is the reason this project was brought to Cx Associates.  While making an in-kind replacement was looked at, the replacement of this air handler presented an opportunity to replace another that was also aging, and located in a position that would be difficult to replace in the future.  By combining the two air handlers into a single air handler there was an opportunity to essentially upgrade two air handlers at once at a lower cost than replacing them individually at different times.  Maintenance advantages can also be realized by reducing the number of air handlers to maintain in the facility by one.

In a recent blog post, I shared my experience as an Owners’ Project Manager for a mechanical system upgrade in an office building for a large organization in Burlington, Vermont. This role has provided me with several new related projects in a healthcare facility, each varying in type and having a very different effect on the overall environment of the organization. In the healthcare environment, I have become familiar with its unique construction challenges. This post will discuss a couple of these challenges and approaches for preventing these challenges from adversely affecting the overall success of the project.

Vermont is a small, hilly state in the northeast corner of the US, and is often claimed to be the “second cloudiest” state in the nation (a subjective statistic). Although our state has been adopting solar in leaps and bounds, there is a debate over whether solar is an applicable technology in our state and, nationally, if solar should be subsidized now that the production costs have decreased dramatically. I decided to research the history of subsidies and production costs of various fuels to determine if solar deserves to be an incentivized fuel source for electric generation.

Image via Wikipedia.

My whole life I’ve been a computer geek.  Ever since I got my first TI-99/4 I started realizing that computers were a blank canvas of technology that I couldn’t resist drawing on.  This passion carried me into Information Systems for my degree in college.  In college I received an internship at a local Building Automation Systems (BAS) contractor programming HVAC systems.  Through that internship I learned the value of using networked computer systems to generate actionable information, and how to automate a decision process from that information. 

In 2020 federal standards will go into effect that will render lighting energy efficiency measures for screw-in lamps (standard A-lamp light bulbs) extinct.  This will have a big impact on residential energy efficiency programs, but what about the programs and savings for the commercial market?  Most of the commercial and industrial built environment is illuminated by linear fluorescent lamps.  While the baseline efficiency mandated for these lamps does continue to improve, the advent of LED lighting presents a major opportunity to re-light commercial and industrial spaces, potentially increasing lighting savings in this market just when savings are disappearing in the residential market.

In commercial buildings all air handlers, whether they are mass produced roof top units or custom built indoor units, are built and installed with an outside air intake and damper.  This outside air intake and damper has a large effect on both the energy use of a building and the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) of a building.  When performing retro-commissioning, Cx Associates often finds these outside air dampers are not adjusted properly (or are broken entirely) leading to either high energy use or poor IEQ. By optimizing air handling units, energy savings or improved comfort (or both) can sometimes be achieved.