This Technical Support Document describes the process and methodology for the development of the Advanced Energy Design Guide for Large Hospitals: Achieving 50% Energy Savings Toward a Net Zero Energy Building (AEDG-LH) ASHRAE et al. (2011b). The AEDG-LH is intended to provide recommendations for achieving 50% whole-building energy savings in large hospitals over levels achieved by following Standard 90.1-2004. The AEDG-LH was created for a “standard” mid- to large-size hospital, typically at least 100,000 ft², but the strategies apply to all sizes and classifications of new construction hospital buildings. Its primary focus is new construction, but recommendations may be applicable to facilities undergoing total renovation, and in part to many other hospital renovation, addition, remodeling, and modernization projects (including changes to one or more systems in existing buildings).
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This Fact Sheet provides an overview of the Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines project. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) are working with industry stakeholders to develop voluntary national guidelines that will improve the quality and consistency of commercial building workforce training and certification programs for five key energy-related jobs.
The lack of empirical data on the energy performance of buildings is a key barrier to accelerating the energy efficiency retrofit market. The DOE’s Buildings Performance Database (BPD) helps address this gap by allowing users to perform exploratory analyses on an anonymous dataset of hundreds of thousands of commercial and residential buildings. These analyses enable market actors to assess energy efficiency opportunities, forecast project performance, and quantify performance risk using empirical building data. In this paper, we describe the process of collecting and preparing data for the database, and present a peer-group analysis tool that allows users to analyze building performance for narrowly defined subsets of the database, or peer groups. We use this tool to explore a case study of a multifamily portfolio owner comparing his buildings’ performance to the peer group of multifamily buildings in the local metro area. We also present a performance comparison tool that uses statistical methods to estimate the expected change in energy performance due to changes in building-component technologies. We demonstrate a low-effort retrofit analysis, providing a probabilistic estimate of energy savings for a sample building retrofit. The key advantages of this approach compared to conventional engineering models are that it provides probabilistic risk analysis based on actual
measured data and can significantly reduce transaction costs for predicting savings across a portfolio.
The Smart Monitoring and Diagnostic System (SMDS) is a low-cost technology that helps building owners and managers keep rooftop air conditioner and heat pump units (RTUs) operating properly at peak efficiency. The SMDS technology has the potential to significantly benefit small commercial buildings, which predominately use RTUs for space conditioning. Through the Better Buildings Alliance, a field demonstration was conducted at four sites using two SMDS prototypes. This case study provides a summary of the field demonstration results.
The full report is available at: https://buildingdata.energy.gov/cbrd/resource/1927
In 2014, NorthBay VacaValley Hospital became one of the first U.S. health care facilities to install an energy-efficient, ultra-smart outdoor LED lighting system. The award-winning project was so successful that the NorthBay Healthcare group is now considering expanding the VacaValley system and retrofitting the outdoor lighting at other sites.
The Building Controls Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB) is a software environment that allows expert users to couple different simulation programs for co-simulation, and to couple simulation programs with actual hardware. For example, the BCVTB allows to simulate a building in EnergyPlus and the HVAC and control system in Modelica, while exchanging data between the software as they simulate. The BCVTB allows expert users of simulation to expand the capabilities of individual programs by linking them to other programs. Due to the different programs that may be involved in distributed simulation, familiarity with configuring programs is essential.
Develop a simple document and Web-based information guidebook to help commercial building software developers, energy managers, and control companies implement strategies for commercial building energy analysis and performance monitoring. This project will use the following book as a model for the design of the handbook: Builder's Guide to Mixed Climates: Details for Design and Construction by Joseph W. Lstiburek. February 2001. Taunton Press. ISBN 156158388X.
The principal objective of the ECoMIC project is to develop integrated control solutions that reduce energy consumption in new and existing commercial buildings while improving comfort. In this report, we summarize the technical progress that has been achieved in Phase 1 and provide the technical basis for determining whether the research results to date satisfy the success criteria for the Phase I work.