Advanced Search

This document provides facility managers and building owners with an introduction to measurement and verification (M&V) methods to estimate energy and cost savings of rooftop units replacement or retrofit projects. The M&V methods presented here are helpful in estimating paybacks to justify future projects.

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 BEDES Strategic Working Group Recommendations document is a guide to how the BEDES Dictionary can be brought to market and provide the services for which it was designed.

The U.S. Department of Energy created the Building Energy Data Exchange Specification (BEDES) to facilitate the exchange of information on building characteristics and energy use in an inexpensive and unambiguous manner.

The BEDES Dictionary 1.0 was developed by DOE to support the analysis of the performance of buildings by providing a common set of terms and definitions for building
characteristics, efficiency measures, and energy use.

This project focuses on testing and demonstrating both the hardware and Cloud versions of theSMDS under field conditions. The objectives for testing and demonstrating the hardware are to 1) characterize the performance of the SMDS technology, 2) estimate the savings-to-cost ratio for demonstration units, and 3) characterize the usability of the SMDS including ease of installation and use. The SMDS provides information to the user, but to realize savings, actions must be taken by the user. The hardware demonstrations seek to discover how effective information is in influencing actions, including which faults generate the most servicing actions by the user.

These field demonstrations are of prototype SMDS units, which have not yet completed the product development process. These early demonstration projects are critical to understanding SMDS performance in the field and to gaining a better understanding of the potential performance or user interface enhancements needed in the next generation SMDS units. Conclusions related to the larger commercial building market, such as the incidence of performance degradation and specific faults and the energy savings resulting from addressing them are beyond the scope of this study and not compatible with the current stage of SMDS development.

The demonstration was performed separately for the hardware and Cloud versions of the SMDS. Both demonstrations involved selecting buildings, installing the required hardware (although it requires less hardware, the Cloud version requires sensors and cell modems), collecting and processing data, and viewing and tabulating results. Details of the procedures are presented later in this report.

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

Comprehensive commissioning can greatly improve the quality and energy efficiency of commercial refrigeration systems. This guide provides direction to owners and managers of commercial and industrial facilities that use refrigeration systems to help ensure that project requirements are met and that owners' expectations are achieved. This includes retail grocery, food service, refrigerated warehousing, and industrial refrigeration systems. The guide was produced as an ASHRAE special publication with funding from DOE/NREL.

NorthBay VacaValley Hospital completed lighting retrofits to their 150,000 square foot parking lot and its 225 parking spaces. They did so with help from The California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) at the University of California, Davis. The project has achieved 65% savings and received a 2014 Lighting Energy Efficiency in Parking (LEEP) Campaign’s award for best use of lighting controls. In addition, the retrofits improved lighting maintenance operations and end-user satisfaction.

The lighting retrofit included replacing roughly 50 induction luminaires with new LED fixtures with embedded lighting controls.
The new LED fixtures were coupled with various kinds of lighting control systems, including a radio frequency (RF) connectivity control system that was installed in dedicated zones with passive- infrared (PIR) and long-range microwave sensors to achieve energy savings. An “ultra-smart” lighting control network was also put in place, giving facility managers the ability to adjust lighting schedules, light levels and time-out settings, monitor the system’s energy use, and receive automated alerts when luminaires require maintenance.

On December 6, 2016, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the launch of a new partnership to jump-start zero energy schools across the country. The Zero Energy Schools Accelerator enables states and school districts alike to design, construct, and operate these cutting-edge, energy-saving schools. This press release highlights the importance of the Accelerator by featuring a completed zero energy school, Discovery Elementary in Arlington, Virginia.

Refrigeration systems account for a significant portion of commercial building energy use, especially in the food sales and service sector. Thousands of systems are installed annually in grocery stores and convenience stores, as well as food distribution and processing facilities. The key is to design and operate these systems to minimize energy consumption. DOE, NREL, ASHRAE, and industry experts recently completed the Refrigeration Commissioning Guide for Commercial and Industrial Systems to lead owners, design teams, and operators through the process of commissioning.

"This study, commissioned by the Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA), and conducted by the New Buildings Institute (NBI), details how existing and emerging building monitoring and control technologies are helping designers, owners, operators and occupants achieve and maintain zero net energy (ZNE) buildings."