The Building Advisor

The Building Advisor is not the only one to have noticed that Americans seem to be slow on the uptake when it comes to energy efficiency. Wired Magazine’s Epicenter blog picked up greentechmedia’s (see our ‘green with envy’ post) “5 Reasons Why Green Tech Has Such a Tough Time in America” post this week, and there is some serious food for thought that goes beyond that now old standby explanation of unsexiness.

The post details how long we’ve had some of the technologies now considered “cutting edge,” such as the first wind turbine in 1888, the first photovoltaic cell in 1954, and even the invention of the first compact fluorescent lightbulb in 1976 – which wasn’t mass produced by GE at the time because it would have cost them $25 million to build the manufacturing facilities. Instead, the design was leaked and others copied it before GE had a licensing program.

“So why do we suck so much at green commercialization, while excelling at transforming science projects like search engines, microprocessors and microbes into Google, Intel and Genentech?” asks author Michael Kanellos.

Greentech does not equal hippie.

Oooh. Good question. But then he answers it five ways, so you don’t have to think that hard. And the answers go as deeply into our national need for excess as they do into mainstream mistrust of The Climate Crowd. As a sign of the times, Kanellos links to a story about the first Earth Day in 1970 and what its initiator, George Fallon, had to do with starting the EPA. It’s a bit serpentine, but a reminder that mainstream and political support – not just the “dirty, smelly, strident hippies,” as Kanellos calls them – can create real change.

Images courtesy Confessions of a She-Fan and Life of an Architect.

While you’re catching up on your email from the holiday weekend, here’s a grab-bag of pertinent and interesting articles from the past few days:

The Case for PACE: Clean-Energy Financing for Commercial Buildings Holds Promise – Costar Group

Greenprint Foundation Announces Leitner as Chief Executive Officer – Building Energy Performance News

Government Gives Out $76 Million for Green Buildings – EarthTechling

Lab at St. Elizabeths is local team’s entry in green-building research center competition – The Washington Post

Joulex strives to keep network power management simple – GreenTech Pastures on ZDnet

You might remember GreenPastures writer Heather Clancy from our little poll on attractive greentech writers. More importantly, she’s joined Melissa Hincha-Ownby in covering this energy management company of late. The IT-focused energy management company is getting quite a bit of attention of late. To reference “When Harry Met Sally,” (you know the scene? After Meg Ryan’s “performance” in Katz’ Delicatessen, when the lady talks to her waiter…?)

We’ll have what Joulex is having.

"I’ll have what she's having."

Joulex, “agentless” power management for enterprise systems (“if it’s on the network the Joulex Energy Manager software can turn it off. That includes everything — IP phones, servers, routers, hubs and such,” says Clancy’s post). CEO Tom Noonan says these policies can help save between 40 percent and 60 percent of the IP device power consumption in an organization, with an estimated ROI in six months.

And lastly, how could The Building Advisor skip this gem:

Beekeeper in Dusseldorf Biomonitoring

Honeybees Deployed to Test Air Quality at German Airports – New York Times

The idea being to sell the honey made from airport-based bees, to prove to the general public that the air cannot be polluted if the honey tastes that good.

When in Dusseldorf…bring The Building Advisor back some Dusseldorf Natural.

Images courtesy The New York Times, djueat, and From the Front

“Ask your doctor about ____________.”

From the propecia.com web site

Do you remember the time before TV ads for prescription drugs? If so, you’ll remember the bit of shock you might have felt the first time you saw one: is that drug manufacturer talking straight to me? Why, yes it is. Do I need baldness/depression/etc. medication? Gee, maybe I do….

For better or for worse, consumers were given permission to take initiative in a field previously reserved for professional opinion.

In commercial building energy efficiency, “consumer permission” is definitely for the better. (See Building Advisor post “Yes, And…”) If contractors aren’t offering energy management systems (EMS) as part of their service agreements, their clients should ask for them.

EMSes are the new ESCOs.

The difference between the two is explained in a great article from Elisa Wood in the CleanTech blog post this week, “Energy Efficiency Service Companies Missed The Memo.” In it, Wood points out that EMS companies missed the memo on the recession – managing to improve revenues industry-wide while the economy fell due to municipal and government market stimuli.

But she brings up another interesting point: are building contractors missing the memo on seeing themselves as energy managers? Do mechanical contractors know they’re in the business of energy management as soon as they see themselves that way?

No one’s better positioned to offer energy management services than the building’s existing mechanical contractor or HVAC professional.

The current EMS market was called a “gold rush” by a recent study from Pike Research reported at SustainableBusiness.com, “Commercial Energy Management Systems Market to Surpass $6B by 2014.”

How’s this: “If your building contractor isn’t coming to you with energy management services, ask your mechanical contractor about BuildingAdvice.”

Too much?

We in the energy conservation sector would like to take a moment to thank mechanical design engineers for giving us such an vast opportunity to save energy in existing buildings. By simply reducing the amount of outside air that is brought into a building for conditioning, energy services providers can nearly guarantee a sizeable drop in operating costs for commercial buildings. No disrespect, engineers – we know you have a strong directive to meet ASHRAE requirements and code basics. But because nearly every mandate ends up getting oversized, energy service providers, contractors and consultants have a lot of opportunity.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen a commercial space that actually needed to add more ventilation to the space. I am sure there are more existing facilities that are underventilated , but in the majority of situations in my experience, this is not the case.

In nearly every building I have seen (ballparked at 300+), the carbon dioxide pattern follows one of two patterns. One shows rising and falling carbon dioxide levels which correspond with increased occupancy, as shown in the graph below. But even here, the high points of CO2 are still below the levels at which ventilation should be recommended. The other common pattern is a flat line all the way across, reflecting no change in carbon dioxide levels regardless of occupied or unoccupied time.

The key to looking at overventilation as a conservation opportunity in commercial buildings leads to a discussion of the building’s economizer. An economizer is a system that allows a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system to supply up to 100 percent outside air to satisfy cooling demands, even if additional mechanical cooling might be required.
The first question to ask is, if the building has an economizer, is it functioning properly? We know that many of the control sensors and algorithms for economizers have a program bias which causes them to kick on too early. Once this is understood, then you can take a look at whether the dampers, which are supposed to control the flow of outdoor air into the building, are stuck open. Another contributing factor to consider is if the building is porous to the outside environment either due to cracks or a “leaky” building envelope. 

The simple fix is to reduce the overall ventilation rate one of two ways. One is through direct damper positioning and increased control. The other is by using demand control ventilation, which optimizes the amount of ventilation based on actual carbon dioxide levels rather than assumed ones. Modulation of the fan through variable frequency drives can help in this opportunity, as can reducing the fan size.

In either case, you’ll see some energy reduction from downsizing your fan’s power draw. Couple that the major savings resulting from downsizing your building’s demand to condition outside air, and you’ve got low hanging fruit for energy service providers.

Lucas Klesch is a Product and Building Expert at AirAdvice,developer of innovative technologies to assess and improve building energy performance. Read more at The Building Advisor blog.

Which comes first – energy savings or tenant comfort? This is a question we often hear when discussing control strategies. While energy savings and tenant comfort are both important considerations, the good news is that they often are not mutually exclusive. There are many control strategies capable of improving tenant comfort while achieving significatn energy savings. Moreover, the following strategies are relatively easy to understand and can be implemented with almost any type of HVAC system:

1. Close OA during night cycle and morning warm up
2. Turn fans off at night (unless heating called for)
3. Hot/Chilled water temp. reset with respect to OA temp.
4. Lock out exhaust fans locked at night
5. Reset SA temperature with respect to zone needing most heating/ cooling
6. Time clock control of equipment (e.g. boiler, pneumatic air, fans, etc.)
7. Economizer cycle
8. Optimum start/stop
9. Demand Limiting
10. Duty Cycle

Lighting controls, like any control system has the power to realize a significant amount of savings because you can control specific times when the lights can and cannot be used.  Lighting systems in buildings are typically designed to provide to much light for today’s needs, they usually do not take into account the use of natural daylight, and they are left on when no one is using them.  Lighting controls can address all of these wasteful issues and with reliable paybacks of less than 2 years in many cases.

The top 5 use of lighting controls are:

1. Scheduling automatically turns lights off or to dimmed levels based on the time of day.
2. Occupancy sensors turn the lights off when a room or space is vacant.
3. Daylight harvesting dims or shuts off lights when enough daylight is present to satisfy light levels.
4. Demand response/load shedding reduces light loads at peak electricity price times.
5. Personal light controls allows users to dim lights their preferred levels.

I recently came back across an article from Buildings Magazine about energy benchmarking in buildings.   We are talking with a lot of people about benchmarking these days, so this is very top of mind.

The article raises a good question:  “is it ever possible to do an apples-to-apples comparison with another building, given that each one is unique? “  And goes on to answer that yes, it is, “as long as we’re comfortable with a degree of ambiguity around the edges of the data. It’s no different than miles per gallon, used to define a car’s performance. We all know that different drivers, different fuels, and different roads will change this [number] by as much as 20 percent or more…”
This is an important statement about the reasons for and limitations of benchmarking.  It is to get a general idea where you stand and if you should be investing in energy efficiency.

But, benchmarking is not an audit or assessment.   This point is made in section 6 on what to do with the data once you have it:  “Benchmarking can only tell you your ‘score’; it can’t tell you how to improve. It hints at potential for improvement, but you still need to figure out where to go.” You need an understanding of how your facility is used and the features of systems within your building.
Once you have your benchmarking data in hand, conduct an energy-efficiency audit. An assessment like this will help you pinpoint why/where you’re losing energy.  That’s where the building service provider, with the assistance of certain technologies, really comes into play.  Mechanical contractors, energy engineers, energy consultants, and others who know building systems and how they function are the ideal people to make the connection between where a building is now and where it needs to be.