Building Energy Resilience

You might have noticed that data analytics (i.e., “Big Data”) have been getting a lot of attention lately in the media. “Big Data” is now a common topic of discussion in media outlets covering business and technology ventures. “Big Data” generally refers to the work of corporations like Google and IBM that use large digital data sets of consumer or civil activities to reveal meaningful patterns and relationships that may be exploited. The recent growth of data analytics as a business venture is an outgrowth of increasing amounts and types of digital data, such as Internet search data, cell phone location data, and utility “smart meter” power consumption data. Smart meters now provide the unprecedented capability to collect and analyze real-time electric power consumption data across much of the electric grid. Right now there is considerable interest around using smart meters and data analytics to gain insight into energy efficiency opportunities in residential and commercial buildings.

I’ve been working in the energy efficiency arena since I started designing buildings under California’s brand new energy code in the early 1980s. I’ve worked in most sectors of the industry from projects to programs, implementation to evaluation and policy. During my tenure financing has been a rising cry as a means to move the market. While I agree that financing is a critical tool in the belt of energy service providers, it is not a panacea and in fact, too much focus on financing as a solution without a clear understanding of the systemic barriers to energy efficiency may result in broken programs that don’t meet goals.

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Energy Star program for commercial buildings provides a system for benchmarking buildings across the country, and across different building use types. Buildings can be entered into the system by using the Energy Star’s Portfolio Manager, an online tool that can be used to track and measure energy and water consumption, in addition to associated greenhouse gas emissions.

In one of Cx Associates’ latest blog posts, Energy Metering Devices: What’s New, Katie Mason describes data loggers (aka energy metering devices) used in the industry to diagnose building system issues and calculate energy consumption. This data collection technology has come of age in that the loggers themselves are not outrageously expensive and modeling software has developed into a strong analysis tool. For a building owner, this means data loggers can clearly diagnose where equipment is operating poorly, triggering increased energy and maintenance costs. Data loggers are also instrumental to managers of local, state or regional energy efficiency programs in order to accurately calculate energy savings attributable to efficiency improvements. Let's look in more detail at these two applications of the new energy metering technologies.

Energy metering devices (also known as data logging meters) are improving rapidly. Data logging meters, such as power and light intensity loggers, are important tools for diagnosing building system issues and/or calculating how much energy certain equipment is using. They also allow you to see how individual equipment is performing over time, which is key for measurement and verification (M&V).

Introduction

In my last post I cited three examples of incomplete or incorrect control programming that all would have had negative effects on building operations or equipment life expectancy. In this post, I want to focus on one piece of equipment, a rooftop ERU (energy recovery unit) and, more specifically, on the graphic page for that ERU. This is another prime example of the controls not being done even though the contractor had said they were complete.

Most people familiar with commissioning recognize the quality assurance benefits of the commissioning process. Building design and construction projects are inherently complex and there are numerous opportunities for errors and omissions. Commissioning brings the benefit of an expert review to the design documents and installed systems. By identifying design and construction issues for the owner and project team, a commissioning agent helps to improve the overall quality of a building project.

I have blogged before about the energy use of my home and the barriers to addressing it. I’ve begun the journey towards a home that largely reflects my core values of sustainability. After much consideration, site review by multiple builders, excavators and our architect, and standing water in the basement for over a month, we have decided to remove our existing home and build a new house with a goal of net zero energy use.

The toolbox of equipment we use for our building commissioning work changes as building science and standards evolve. As prices for technology continually fall, there often comes a time when equipment you didn’t think you really needed becomes affordable enough that you decide it’s time to take the plunge and invest in it. Having a digital camera 15 years ago was still quite expensive, but now you can get a decent camera for under $200, and most of us have them built right into our cellphones. It’s hard to imagine working as a Commissioning Authority now without such an essential tool as a digital camera. But building commissioning has been around longer than reasonably priced digital cameras, so it must have been possible to provide high quality Cx services without that capacity!

We often write about retrocommissioning of existing buildings in this blog and the benefits to the building owners. To put this in context, I thought I would highlight a recent success story. The following project was the retrocommissioning of an existing four-story 100-year-old building. The building houses retail space on the bottom floor and office space on the upper floors. The measures were driven by comfort issues, control issues and an astute building owner who acted on the utility’s audit of opportunities. After two months of monitoring, this HVAC system’s consumption is showing savings of 80% and payback of the project is approximately 2.5 years. Here are the key elements of this retrocommissioning project.