Building Energy Resilience

On January 25, 2016, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) ruled on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) v. Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA). The ruling, which was 6-2 in FERC’s favor, is great news for the bright future of a practice which can help grid operators better match electrical grid power supply and demand in real-time, known as Demand Response.

What is Demand Response?

There are two ways to operate a building: passively or actively. Operating passively means the building performs its intended function – the lights are on and the building is temperate – but no one is monitoring and analyzing the operating costs or planning for equipment issues.  Actively operating a building involves close monitoring of the building operating costs, thoughtful maintenance of building systems and their operating schedules, and capital planning for future equipment replacements. There is a new (relatively inexpensive) tool emerging on the market that can help both of these types of building managers move toward simple, effective, and knowledgeable operating oversight.

A friend of mine recently sent me an article from the Automatedbuildings.com online magazine entitled “Death of the Controls Industry” written by Therese Sullivan (Principal of Building Context Ltd).   The article contains summary of a presentation given by Darren Wright, Director at Arup.   Darren Wright makes the case that we have a major problem in the building energy market, and it’s directly attributable to the controls business model still not being open source. 

When you’re asked to review someone else’s building automation system (BAS) programming, it’s a bit of a daunting task.  This is because those of us who program building systems (or really any computer-driven system) for a living figure out that there are a million different ways to capture the same process in any given programming language. Usually no two people will do it the same way.

For many building operators and facility managers, it is generally accepted that there is too much to do, and not enough time or money to do what needs to be done. Facility management staff often fall into a routine of “putting out fires,” which takes time and resources away from preventative maintenance activities. The symptoms of this routine are a high percentage of expenditures for equipment failures and a large backlog of deferred maintenance. When I see the scramble of “putting out fires,” I often wonder what could be done differently to help stop the pattern of equipment failures and deferred maintenance.

Building commissioning has become more common on commercial construction projects over the last few years due to the many benefits the commissioning process offers, and in some cases due to new building codes.  During this time owners, architects, engineers, contractors, and construction managers have become more familiar with what commissioning is, and how it affects them.  However, it seems that it’s still often unclear to project teams exactly how to integrate the commissioning authority (CxA) and commissioning process into the construction process.  I believe the first part of the integration begins with communication between the CxA and the rest of the project team. The importance of communication in the commissioning process cannot be overstated.

Recently I researched the “Roof Top Unit Challenge” which was created by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). What is the Roof Top Unit challenge? Launched in January 2011, the DOE released a design specification or commercial RTUs (Roof Top Units) with capacities ranging between 10 and 20 tons. RTUs built to match this specification are expected to have reduced energy usage by as much as 50% compared to a code compliant RTU. There is a large dependency on the building type and location of the RTU in relation to amount of energy savings. Since January 2011, top performing RTU manufacturers are working to design units that meet this specification. In this post, I will discuss what it takes for a unit to be part of the RTU Challenge and which manufacturers have models that are designed to meet this performance specification. 

During recent functional testing of HVAC systems at a healthcare facility, part of our testing scope was to verify room static pressure relationships between adjacent sterile and contaminated spaces. In healthcare settings (and other settings where contamination control is critical) spaces can be designed to have more or less space pressurization with respect to one another—the result is that any air movement between spaces is in the direction from clean to dirty, and not the reverse.

I remember someone telling me once that the compact fluorescent (CFL) twisty bulb was “sexy.”  They were convinced the product would have market appeal.  I have yet to meet someone who actually likes the light that comes from CFL bulbs.  Now, LEDs are another thing entirely.  They do have market appeal and we can see that manufacturers are working hard to develop products that capture consumer interest at prices that make us buy. 

Recently there has been a lot of talk resurfacing about what defines an "open system."  It is a concept that has been debated and sold for well over a decade in the HVAC automation industry.  There still seems to be some ambiguity about what this really means.