Archive for March, 2010

Reheat, a classic building opportunity

March 31st, 2010 by Lucas Klesch

One of the most frequent buildings situations we see for energy savings opportunities is the classic reheat operation.  It can be found in many office and medical office buildings as the standard operational sequence in the range of 50-150k square foot sized buildings. This type of savings opportunity can be quite substantial in the amount of cash available for savings depending on the hours of operation of the specific heating sources.  We clearly know from an efficiency perspective that electric resistance as a heat source is the most inefficient possible and depending on the utility location and rate structure can be very costly to utilize.

The typical operations for this type of reheat has to do with a morning warm up routine for a fuel heating system that usually only runs for an hour or two and then the VAV electric reheat kicks in for the rest of the day.  In many of the buildings we have seen like this, the heating load for the building is higher than the couple of hours of warm up allotted from the fuel system.  This can lead to a really inefficient use of the VAV reheat capabilities and much higher electricity costs.  The electricity costs are usually somewhat flat throughout the year and this coupled to lower than expected fuel usage are the tell-tale signs of poor use of reheat as a primary heating strategy.

The simple fix is to change the sequence of operation so that the fuel heating system runs longer post morning warm up so we effectively use the most efficient heating system to provide the best comfort possible.  This in turn limits the amount of hours that the VAV reheat system operates.  This is a very effective energy savings opportunity when the over all costs are high associated with the large number of hours we are reducing the VAV reheat’s operation, even in light of usually higher fuel costs.  Fuel is just that much more BTU heating capacity versus the electrical strip heat from an efficiency standpoint.

Next time we can talk about another classical reheat issue that comes from over cooling!

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BuildingAdvisor Hearts Ricketts

March 29th, 2010 by Kevin Skurski

BuildingAdvisor offers a Monday shoutout to blogger/twitterer Camille Ricketts, lead writer for GreenBeat (a division of VentureBeat). A former Googler who had a previous life as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London, Ricketts rocks Twitter via @camillericketts, mixing news tidbits and opinion with a sprinkling of her saucy personality. Though GreenBeat’s focus is wider than existing commercial building energy efficiency, Ricketts’ work for Greenbeat is responsive, savvy and knowlegeable. Check out her coverage of the EPA yanking EnergyStar branding from refrigerators that no longer deserved it.

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Movin On Up: Portland Rises on EPA’s Top 25 List for Cities with Most Energy Star Buildings

March 25th, 2010 by Kevin Skurski
This week, the EPA released its top 25 list ranking US cities’ green quotient by number of EnergyStar buildings. Portland jumped from the number 18 position in 2008 to a hale and hearty 12 by the 2009 tally.
With 80 EnergyStar buildings in our city limits, we saved $1.1 million in energy consumption costs. Los Angeles topped the list, but Portland came out ahead of Seattle by 11 buildings, which dropped from 10 last year to 14 this year.
For AirAdvice, this information dovetails compellingly with the Cleantech Group’s release of “As Energy Efficiency Booms, Buildings Get a Brain,” an analysis of energy efficiency innovations in commercial office buildings.
This staggering stat tops the press release: “Commercial office buildings consume 40% of the electricity produced in the U.S. and 18% of total U.S. energy.”
Just imagine: Implementing recommendations from the BuildingAdvice energy services platform averages a 20% reduction in energy consumption in commercial buildings. If even 5% of buildings across the U.S. decreased their consumption by 20%, we’d be talking about an enormous reduction in total energy consumption in the U.S.
For the record, Cleantech predicts that energy efficiency is poised to overtake solar as a top investment category in 2010, due to state and local government incentivizing and in some cases requiring energy efficiency and benchmarking services. Like New York’s Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, passed last December.  The legislation obligates most facilities to undergo energy audits every 10 years, among other efficiency requirements. A list of state and local governments leveraging EnergyStar tools for efficiency counts the states of New Mexico, New Jersey, Ohio, and many others.
Tax rebates and low interest loans from programs like the proposed “Building Star” legislation will take this phenomenon federal.

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EPA Class in EnergyStar for Commercial Buildings: Who’s In?

March 23rd, 2010 by Kevin Skurski
Energy efficient lights in GS classroom

Energy efficient lights in GS classroom

Recently the EPA announced it would host a class designed to teach companies how to make their buildings more energy efficient, KETV-TV reported. Though it’s not up on the EPA Web site, KETV reported that the class – the first of its kind in the nation – is called “Energy Star for Commercial Buildings” and is being taught at Omaha, Nebraska’s Metropolitan Community College March 11 through May 20 – meaning class is now in session.

The college has partnered with Omaha Public Power District to offer the course, which is open to local businesses who want to learn how to measure energy use in their buildings and identify places to save on utilities, lowering operating costs and reducing energy consumption.

Here at AirAdvice, we eat, breathe and sleep this stuff.  We work with mechanical contractors nationwide who can and should help their clients to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings.  Using our BuildingAdvice product, service providers quickly provide energy benchmarks that are integrated with the EPA’s ENERGY STAR system.  After establishing a “score” for the building, the service provider and building owner can move on to the next step of identifying specific opportunities to reduce energy consumption.

One question this class represents for us is, who is asking for energy efficiency upgrades? Is it building owners? Business owners? Or is it the facilities managers and building engineers?  Has the need for energy efficiency services reached a “top-down” awareness?

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Energy modeling the extreme weather in Alaska

March 22nd, 2010 by Lucas Klesch

The top 4 inputs for an accurate energy model are weather, utility bills, schedule and equipment efficiencies.   These inputs have the most impact overall for setting the end use distribution on an existing building.  We are working on an improvement in our tuning algorithm for the Alaska market just as we did for Florida because of the top 4 inputs, the weather plays the biggest role in an accurate set of energy end uses.

The issue in Alaska is that for 6 months out of the year the outside temperature averages below 10 degrees Fahrenheit.   A typical range of outside temperatures we usually run into are between 20-80 for the mean monthly temperature.  The amount of energy consumption at the low or high temperature months sets the precedent of the amount of cooling or heating load a building is expected to use.  This coupled to the size of the building, the equipment efficiencies and the air distribution system all determine what the actual load and cost associated with the load in our energy model.  So you can see, if the extreme weather like they find in Alaska is outside the norm, we have to take into account the point at which heating only begins.  The focus of our solution to the automated tuning is going to begin with the assumed balance point of this building and we will work from there.

The real trick on this specific application is that the building is the only Energy Star rated facility in Alaska, so I have the additional issue of dealing with very low overall watts per square foot.

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High payback, low risk?

March 19th, 2010 by Kevin Skurski

This week in Baltimore, Building Operating Management held its annual NFMT conference for facilities managers.  Justin Smith with MyFacilitiesNet did a great job live blogging from the event, and one of his posts caught my eye yesterday.  He blogged about a session on High Payback, Low Risk Energy Conservation (blog post says “consumption” not “conservation” but judging by the context, this was a typo.)  And it sounds like the presentation focused on projects like a changeover to gas-powered refrigeration for a 3-8 year payback from lower electrical demand charges.  While that might be a worthwhile type of project, it’s not exactly what I think of when I hear “high payback, low risk.”

I hope there was at least one presentation at this conference that focused on the wealth of savings potential in buildings available simply through low & no cost energy conservation measures.  BOMA, through it’s BEEP program, has published a list of such measures, and AirAdvice has published an HVAC-specific version of this list.  THESE are more what I think of when I hear “low risk.”  Are they likely to save as much money as a large retrofit project?  Probably not, but they are certainly lower risk and they are absolutely the starting place for energy savings in buildings.

So, yes, do consider retrofit upgrades to improve energy efficiency and reduce costs.  Absolutely.  And when you do, be sure to follow the advice from Richard Lubinski in his session on Creating Credibility for Energy Upgrade Investments to present to the priorities of the CFO.  But, do not overlook the low and no cost savings opportunities that may be right under your nose.  And this advice applies to mechanical contractors and other building service providers, too.  You can be helping your clients by identifying these savings measures and implementing them.

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‘Building Star’ Success Demands Efficiency Diagnostics

March 16th, 2010 by Kevin Skurski

Before Building Star’s proposed legislation gets commercial building owners an enticing $3 billion in saved utilities, energy efficient solutions must be identified.

With proposed legislation originally put forth by by Sens. Jeff Merkley and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) on the table to create tax rebates and low-interest loans toward energy efficient improvements in commercial buildings, building owners and their service providers need to be ready to scale their efforts in evaluating energy consumption and recommending improvements.  Using technology that automates and standardizes the process, like AirAdvice’s BuildingAdvice program, would enable just this sort of scale.

Being able to quickly and easily generate EnergyStar benchmark reports and other assessment reports will be key in an economic environment which incentivizes efficiency upgrades. By proposing to leverage two to three dollars in private investment for every federal dollar spent, Building Star has gained supporters from the USGBC to PIMA to NEMA.  Because of this, demand for upgrades will increase, and HVAC contractors’ access to diagnostic services such as BuildingAdvice will be the first step toward those upgrades

And you can’t improve what you don’t measure.  Greater automation of evaluation and reporting means that building engineers can quickly identify energy savings opportunities (usually averaging approximately 20%) from upgrades, retrofits and improvements for which the rebates and loans could be used.

Hopefully the Building Star legislation will move forward quickly and help to overcome the financing hurdle in making energy efficient improvements.  But, even if the legislation doesn’t pass or if it takes a long time, there is no reason to wait.  Most buildings can expect to see 5-30% in savings on energy costs simply be implementing various low- and no-cost energy conservation measures.  With savings like these possible with little upfront cost, why wait?

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CBRE Reaches 50 Building Milestone with LEED

March 13th, 2010 by Kevin Skurski

CBRE continues to show leadership in the commercial real estate market in sustainability efforts .  WIth 50 projects in its U.S. management portfolio having obtained the LEED for Existing Buildings (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification through the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), CBRE is the largest third-party manager in the USGBC’s LEED program.  In addition, CBRE currently has engaged an additional 59 projects, representing 100 buildings and 40 million sq. ft., in the certification process, which are expected to be completed by the end of 2010.

LEED certification is just one of the ways that CBRE is helping clients to manage their commercial assets to reduce costs and improve asset performance.  Energy efficiency, in particular, is a large part of the effort.

Through a repeatable process of energy benchmarking, assessment, and improvement, commercial building owners can be assured that the performance of their buildings is being constantly improved and the operating costs lowered.  LEED may or may not be part of the overall effort.  If it is, even better.  But, any and every building should at the very least have its energy consumption measured and evaluated.

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