Last year, Cx Associates committed to offsetting the environmental impact of our business operations. After thorough research, we selected Carbonfund.org’s Carbonfree® Small Business Partnership Program. Through this initiative, we’ve neutralized nearly 80,000 pounds of carbon emissions from our estimated annual business operations for 2019 and will continue to do so on an annual basis.
1 min read
Cx Associates Becomes Carbonfree® Small Business
By Lauren Hagen on Jul 1, 2020 10:00:00 AM
Topics: Climate Change #decarbonization Carbon Neutral Energy Planning
3 min read
Challenges with Rooftop Units and Factory Controls
By Jamie Hand on Jan 15, 2020 10:00:00 AM
After an early morning departure and a snowy drive, my colleague and I arrived onsite to test, among other equipment, a packaged rooftop air handling unit with factory controls. At first, the unit appeared to check all our boxes, but as we dug into the details, it became clear that this would be a very expensive heating system to operate. This blog entry is about factory controls and the importance of getting into the weeds to identify issues like the one we found with this rooftop air handling unit.
Topics: Building Performance & Technology commissioning HVAC Factory Controls Energy Management New Construction Existing Building Energy Planning
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A New Metric for 21st Century Buildings: The Carbon Emissions Intensity (CEI)
By Jennifer Chiodo on Sep 25, 2019 10:00:00 AM
As you know, Cx Associates’ work focuses on making buildings perform better for occupants, operators, owners, and for the planet. A common metric we use to assess building performance is the energy use intensity (EUI) which Katie has discussed in her recent blog posts. While attending the recent IEPEC Conference in Denver, I had a discussion with someone familiar with Xcel Energy’s work to be a net zero carbon utility in the relatively near future. We realized that EUI is an insufficient metric for guiding energy program investments at their customer sites. Ultimately, to drive carbon emissions down to a sustainable level that will halt and begin to reverse the climate crisis we are currently in, we need to track energy intensity while also focusing on carbon emissions intensity (CEI) at a building level. Cities and states that have adopted carbon reduction goals will do well to focus on reducing the CEI of their building stock through energy efficiency, fuel switching, and renewable energy generation.
Topics: Sustainability Green Building Energy Efficiency Building Performance & Technology renewable Energy Management Existing Building portfolio benchmarking Program Consulting Energy Planning energy monitoring & solutions Energy Audit energy efficiency program M&V
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Benchmarking and Beyond
By Katie Mason on Aug 23, 2019 10:00:00 AM
In a previous blog post, I discussed the energy benchmarking service we currently perform for a healthcare network using the Energy Star Portfolio Manager (ESPM) tool. This tool is used to monitor the energy usage of a building over time. It allows a user to set energy goals, compare the overall energy use intensity (EUI) to a baseline year, and compare the building in question to other buildings with similar use-types and characteristics. In addition to continuing this specific service for the healthcare network, Cx Associates uses the benefits of benchmarking in other areas of our work too. This blog post will discuss what other areas of our work utilize benchmarking and then provide a brief update on changes ESPM has made to their scoring metrics over the past year.
Topics: Standards and Metrics Energy Efficiency Building Performance & Technology retrocommissioning Energy Management Existing Building portfolio benchmarking Energy Planning energy monitoring & solutions Energy Audit Building M&V
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Forgoing Band-Aids: Approaching and Fixing Building Issues Holistically
By Daniel Tuhus-Dubrow on Feb 27, 2019 12:00:00 PM
When people ask me what I do for work, I generally tell them I’m a building systems engineer, with a big focus on making facilities more energy efficient and comfortable for occupants. One common part of my job entails going to a building to perform an energy audit or assessment. During these visits, we follow the same straightforward outline:
- Walk through the site
- Inventory all energy-related equipment including lighting, mechanical systems, building envelope, etc.
- Speak with the building operator about how they run the building
- Ask the building owner, occupants, and operator about and any issues or concerns they have regarding maintenance, equipment that is not working properly, or comfort problems.
Topics: Energy Efficiency Building Performance & Technology retrocommissioning Energy Management Existing Building problem solving Energy Planning energy monitoring & solutions Energy Audit
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OPR: The Underappreciated Path to Success
By Jennifer Chiodo on Oct 10, 2018 12:00:00 PM
I looked back through our blog history and realized I have never written about the importance of a lovely little document called the Owner’s Project Requirements, or OPR for short. An OPR is created through collaboration with many involved parties; it synergizes everyone’s ideas into one goal-focused document. At Cx Associates we are such believers in defining the goals and criteria for project success that we often develop OPRs even for internal business improvements to help focus and guide the process.
Topics: Building Cx & Design Review commissioning New Construction design review Energy Planning OPR Development
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Using Energy Metering to Verify Your Building's Performance
By Katie Mason on Jun 20, 2018 5:37:50 PM
Today there are a multitude of energy metering devices (e.g. data loggers) available to enable the analysis of building systems functionality. There are many different types of data loggers, each with a different purpose. To get the most from your building using energy metering, you need to narrow your options with your overall goals in mind. Before we install meters on a system, whether it’s an electrical system, HVAC system, or domestic hot water system, we must first determine what type of data we need and what the data will be used for. With this information, we put together a metering plan that will produce the data necessary for the analysis. I am going to provide two specific examples of systems/equipment we metered, including why we were performing the metering, how we did it (what types of meters), and what the findings were. Both of these examples showed the equipment being metered was not working as intended.