EE&D provided Retro-Commissioning (RCx) services at three VA hospitals in the Northeast region. The project comprises 27 buildings and over 2.2 million square feet of hospital and research lab buildings. Most of the buildings at these facilities are relatively old and have been modified many times over the years, with several projects ongoing at the current time.
In addition to the typical RCx activities, the VA requested that EE&D provide an updated inventory of all of the HVAC equipment and rate the condition of each piece. This totaled over 1,000 pieces of equipment. The deliverables for this project included a searchable database with each piece of equipment and the associated specifications, condition, maintenance issues and related energy conservation measures with associated energy cost savings and estimated project costs.
Energy Engineering and Design, Inc. was selected under Massachusetts State Contract PRF-62. to be on the standing list of firms qualified to provide Performance Contracting Program Consultation and Retro-Commissioning Services. This is a state wide contract under the jurisdiction of the Operational Services Division and allows eligible entities an exemption to the standard procurements requirements of 800 CMR 21.00 for procurement of EE&D’s services as described above.
Eligible entities, such as cities, towns, school districts and other public agencies will need to execute the appropriate contract documents; however, they are not required to conduct a separate competitive procurement since all Statewide Contracts are the result of a competitive process.
Energy Engineering & Design is a Veteran Owned Small Business.
Early in February of 2008, with the support of the National Grid Retro-Commissioning Program, Energy Engineering and Design, Inc (EE&D) began a retro-commissioning project at the Save The Bay Center on Field’s Point in Providence, Rhode Island. The Save The Bay Center is the Headquarters of a non-profit organization founded in the 1970s to protect Narragansett Bay and its watershed. The Center was built in 2005 as a state-of-the-art sustainable building on the waterfront of Narragansett bay. The Center is used as office space and an educational and meeting center for the Save The Bay Organization.
After operating for two years, it was realized that The Center’s energy use was roughly three times what was originally planned by the engineers. Rather than using 65 kBtu per square foot per year as the designers had calculated, the Center actually used 218 kBtu per square foot from July 2006 thru June of 2007. EE&D was called in to Retro-Commission the facility with the goal of getting the energy use on track with the original design intent of a “Green” Building.
Retro-Commissioning (RCx) is a step-wise process to ensure that the building systems are operating as originally intended and to improve the operation of systems in accordance with the needs of the occupants of the building.
The RCx process resulted in the findings that the electronic Building Control System (BCS) programming was not set up to operate the mechanical systems of the building in an efficient manner. As it turned out, the BCS vendor was not given a specific sequence of operations for the complex mechanical system that was designed for the building. The result was a mechanical system that was operating very poorly which also caused the building to be very uncomfortable.
During the RCx process, and again with assistance and incentives from National Grid, EE&D identified some $40,000 worth of energy efficiency upgrades that were subsequently installed by Save The Bay.
As a result of the Retro-Commissioning project and the Energy Efficiency Upgrades, the utility costs at Save The Bay Center have been reduced by 54% from $66,471 in 2006 to $26,654 during the 12 months ending in February of 2009, and the building is much more comfortable.
The Town of Falmouth has a population of 31,000 and comprises 16 Town buildings and 7 schools totaling over 1,000,000 square feet. They are not currently a Green Community, but are committed to energy reduction. They have an active Energy Committee, a part time energy manager and are involved with an ongoing Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC).
EE&D has been working with the Town of Falmouth for the past 3 years as their Owner’s Agent for the ESPC project. During that time we have been assisting the Town with the development, implementation and verification of the ESPC project. Our main role has been to work with the Town’s Energy Manager to provide engineering expertise and contract negotiation support based on our 20+ years of experience with ESPC projects.
Some of the key areas of ESPC Program support included:
Additional support EE&D has provided for the Town’s Energy manager includes:
In order to design or retro-commission a building mechanical system, or develop an energy efficiency program, our engineers first learn from the building occupants and operators. After the project is completed, we make sure the operators are well trained and the occupants are aware of whatbehaviors are most efficient when utilizing the building.
EE&D has been involved in over $200 million of large-scale energy savings performance contracting projects in the federal, state and municipal sectors.
Ward worked in construction installing and servicing HVAC and refrigeration systems for 10 years before getting his degree in mechanical engineering. For several years after earning his engineering degree, Ward worked as a construction project manager on the installation of energy conservation projects. For the past 15 years, Ward has been involved with all aspects of the development and installation of energy conservation projects. This includes; facility energy use audits, building benchmarking and modeling, retro-commissioning, project development, system design, life cycle cost analysis, construction, commissioning, and measurement and verification of energy savings.
In 2007, Holyoke Community College (HCC) became a signatory of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). Under this commitment, HCC has agreed to complete ongoing inventories of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and develop a Climate Action Plan (CAP) to guide the College down a path toward carbon neutrality. The goal has been established to become carbon neutral by 2060.
The College’s CAP was published in November of 2012. HCC has made strides towards achieving the goals set forth in the CAP, and has plans to continue their efforts. In addition to various campus sustainability initiatives such as recycling and public transportation improvements, HCC is implementing a campus-wide energy retrofit project, planning for multiple capital improvements to some of the main campus buildings, and exploring a renewable energy power purchase agreement.
As part of the Accelerated Energy Program, the State’s Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance (DCAMM) launched a new Towards Zero Net Energy (TZNE) Retrofit program at select pilot facilities to help them achieve deeper facility energy savings and implement renewable energy systems. HCC is one of these TZNE pilot facilities.
EE&D was contracted by DCAMM in August 2013 to provide retro-commissioning services for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s Senator William X. Wall Experiment Station (Wall Lab) project.
The four-year, two-phase Wall Lab construction project renovated the historic 22,000-square-foot facility and expanded the lab by an additional 13,000 square feet, achieving a LEED Platinum certification. Substantial completion of the project was in June 2011.
However; in 2012 the facility consumed 48% more energy than predicted by the LEED energy model, the building occupants were not comfortable, and there was a history of high maintenance costs due to HVAC system alarms.
While the building was commissioned during construction, to ensure all systems operated as specified, we found that the many systems did not work together to serve the mission of the facility in the most efficient manner. As an example, all of the many lab hood exhaust systems provided the specified volume of exhaust air, but they provided the maximum amount of air at all times, not only when needed.
Other Retro-commissioning findings:
For the past 2 years, EE&D has been the prime consultant supporting the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Accelerated Energy Program. The Accelerated Energy Program (AEP) was established to accelerate the implementation of energy and water savings projects, renewable energy and innovative technology across the Commonwealth’s portfolio of more than 4,800 buildings.
Our primary responsibilities included supporting the State’s Energy Team and other stakeholders with:
One of the key findings that resulted from the AEP was that most easy energy conservation measures have already been done. In order to reach the goal of 25% energy and greenhouse gas reductions, deeper energy conservation measures with longer paybacks had to be implemented. This lead to the realization that cost savings other than energy should be included and a Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) should be used to describe the full economic impact rather than just a simple payback calculation.
This “Deep Energy” effort, coupled with the application of renewable energy sources, led to the idea of piloting Toward Zero Net Energy (TZNE) projects. Ten sites were selected to pilot the effort of very deep energy savings projects, coupled with avoided capital projects, deferred maintenance improvements, and renewable energy sources. The philosophy is; consider the long term impact of all energy related upgrades, make a long term plan, then begin to implement the measures.
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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is recognized as a national leader in energy and water efficiency. In 2014, for the fourth consecutive year, the Commonwealth was ranked as the top state in the nation for energy efficiency policies and programs by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The AEP is one of the key programs that contributed to the ACEEE designation as #1 in Energy Efficiency.