Improving Energy Benchmarking with LL87
Local Law 87 of New York City's GGB Plan requires all buildings over 50,000 square feet to file an Energy Efficiency Report (EER) together with the New York City Department of Buildings. The EER contains an ASHRAE Grade II energy audit and retro-commissioning study of base building systems.
Energy Efficiency Reports ll87 are expected once every ten years. The initial reports have to be submitted by 2013 and are due to a staggered schedule depending on the final digit of the construction's tax block amount. Both the energy audit and retro-commissioning research has to be performed within four years before the EER is filed. I had the new unfortunate chance to review a power efficiency report which was poorly prepared and of almost no use to the customer.
It could require your consultant a few months to prepare the energy audit report, and sometimes, it may take 6 to 18 month periods to implement the recommendations fully. The energy audit report is supposed to tell you precisely what maintenance and operations work, and capital improvements, are needed in the building to decrease energy usage. As soon as you get the energy audit report, you're required by local law 87 to complete the retro-commissioning work.
Some of the jobs might be minor, for instance, a boiler cleaning. It may take from 6 to 18 months from beginning to finish to finish a first situation such as this. Since Murphy's Law tells you, nearly everything.
Let's start with some ll87 Fundamentals:
The energy audit report needs to have a page summarizing energy use and costs for the last two or two years to get fuel oil, natural gas, and electricity. It also needs to give a baseline cost of each of those units of power to be utilized from the report's calculations.
For the price of oil, the inquiry is whether to use the present cost of the previous shipping or the average value over the last year. I suggest using the most recent price since it is difficult to forecast the future cost of oil. If the previous delivery were a few months ago, I would instead call up the provider and use the current price. For natural gas, your advisor should not use a regular cost per them from the last invoice but instead should examine the incremental price of the previous them of gas, and any applicable taxes and surcharges.
For electricity, if you are charged with energy and demand charges, your consultant should break down these fees. There may be distortions from the energy expenditure savings calculations for specific energy conservation measures. By way of instance, an energy conservation measure between lighting that is on 24 hours per day, seven days a week may distort the cost savings if an average cost per kWh is used in the calculations.
Every energy conservation measure ought to be on a separate page. It ought to begin by describing the present state. It must explain the recommended energy conservation step. Energy saving calculations must be based on solid science. It should provide a correct prediction showing how much energy is going to be stored on the stage. A simple payback period needs to be supplied.
Energy conservation measures should not engage in double bookkeeping of energy savings. For instance, tuning up a boiler may raise its steady state efficiency from 75 to 80 percent. The report which I watched had a calculation for replacing a 5-ton lobby ac system having a more efficient system. And in this case, a smaller system might have been more efficient and cheaper to install.
Additionally, the foundation for the energy savings calculation was based on a figure of the number of hours the system was conducting; it wasn't based on any real measurements. It was assumed that the system was operating continuously; A/C systems do cycle. The lover may run consistently, however, the breaker may cycle. Additionally, the cost of the setup was too low, making the potential payback period seem shorter than reality.
Another factor isthe heating description faulty. The report mentioned the make and model of the steam boiler but did not inform if it was a one-pipe or two-pipe steam machine. No mention was given of whether the pot had sufficient insulation. There was also no inventory of these insulated steam lines; I have yet to see a building in New York City that has adequate steam pipe insulation. No mention was made if the exterior air to supply the boiler room needed a solenoid-activated damper in series together with the boiler controllers to keep cold air from the boiler room once the boiler is off.
No inventory was made of the steam radiators to determine the overall BTUs necessary to find steam to all of the heaters at the same moment. An individual has to compare the attached radiation load against the firing rate of the boiler. It wasn't clear if the springs have been oversize; after you place double-glazed windows at a building, your drains become instantly oversized which leads to overheating scenarios. In cases like this, you need to put smaller radiators from the construction. Thermostatic radiator valves can be high, but occasionally putting in smaller heaters is much cheaper.
Any calculation that is based on a "percentage" must be treated as suspect. Any consultant that is based on manufacturer's literature instead of sound engineering principles can be more prone to inaccuracies in their reports. My advice is to question all. Use best practices and industrial technology rather than guesswork to avoid any problems down the road.Local Law 87 of New York City's GGB Plan requires all buildings over 50,000 square feet to file an Energy Efficiency Report (EER) together with the New York City Department of Buildings. The EER contains an ASHRAE Grade II energy audit and retro-commissioning study of base building systems.
Energy Efficiency Reports ll87 are expected once every ten years. The initial reports have to be submitted by 2013 and are due to a staggered schedule depending on the final digit of the construction's tax block amount. Both the energy audit and retro-commissioning research has to be performed within four years before the EER is filed. I had the new unfortunate chance to review a power efficiency report which was poorly prepared and of almost no use to the customer.
It could require your consultant a few months to prepare the energy audit report, and sometimes, it may take 6 to 18 month periods to implement the recommendations fully. The energy audit report is supposed to tell you precisely what maintenance and operations work, and capital improvements, are needed in the building to decrease energy usage. As soon as you get the energy audit report, you're required by local law 87 to complete the retro-commissioning work.
Some of the jobs might be minor, for instance, a boiler cleaning. It may take from 6 to 18 months from beginning to finish to finish a first situation such as this. Since Murphy's Law tells you, nearly everything.
Let's start with some ll87 Fundamentals:
The energy audit report needs to have a page summarizing energy use and costs for the last two or two years to get fuel oil, natural gas, and electricity. It also needs to give a baseline cost of each of those units of power to be utilized from the report's calculations.
For the price of oil, the inquiry is whether to use the present cost of the previous shipping or the average value over the last year. I suggest using the most recent price since it is difficult to forecast the future cost of oil. If the previous delivery were a few months ago, I would instead call up the provider and use the current price. For natural gas, your advisor should not use a regular cost per them from the last invoice but instead should examine the incremental price of the previous them of gas, and any applicable taxes and surcharges.
For electricity, if you are charged with energy and demand charges, your consultant should break down these fees. There may be distortions from the energy expenditure savings calculations for specific energy conservation measures. By way of instance, an energy conservation measure between lighting that is on 24 hours per day, seven days a week may distort the cost savings if an average cost per kWh is used in the calculations.
Every energy conservation measure ought to be on a separate page. It ought to begin by describing the present state. It must explain the recommended energy conservation step. Energy saving calculations must be based on solid science. It should provide a correct prediction showing how much energy is going to be stored on the stage. A simple payback period needs to be supplied.
Energy conservation measures should not engage in double bookkeeping of energy savings. For instance, tuning up a boiler may raise its steady state efficiency from 75 to 80 percent. The report which I watched had a calculation for replacing a 5-ton lobby ac system having a more efficient system. And in this case, a smaller system might have been more efficient and cheaper to install.
Additionally, the foundation for the energy savings calculation was based on a figure of the number of hours the system was conducting; it wasn't based on any real measurements. It was assumed that the system was operating continuously; A/C systems do cycle. The lover may run consistently, however, the breaker may cycle. Additionally, the cost of the setup was too low, making the potential payback period seem shorter than reality.
Another factor isthe heating description faulty. The report mentioned the make and model of the steam boiler but did not inform if it was a one-pipe or two-pipe steam machine. No mention was given of whether the pot had sufficient insulation. There was also no inventory of these insulated steam lines; I have yet to see a building in New York City that has adequate steam pipe insulation. No mention was made if the exterior air to supply the boiler room needed a solenoid-activated damper in series together with the boiler controllers to keep cold air from the boiler room once the boiler is off.
No inventory was made of the steam radiators to determine the overall BTUs necessary to find steam to all of the heaters at the same moment. An individual has to compare the attached radiation load against the firing rate of the boiler. It wasn't clear if the springs have been oversize; after you place double-glazed windows at a building, your drains become instantly oversized which leads to overheating scenarios. In cases like this, you need to put smaller radiators from the construction. Thermostatic radiator valves can be high, but occasionally putting in smaller heaters is much cheaper.
Any calculation that is based on a "percentage" must be treated as suspect. Any consultant that is based on manufacturer's literature instead of sound engineering principles can be more prone to inaccuracies in their reports. My advice is to question all. Use best practices and industrial technology rather than guesswork to avoid any problems down the road.Local Law 87 of New York City's GGB Plan requires all buildings over 50,000 square feet to file an Energy Efficiency Report (EER) together with the New York City Department of Buildings. The EER contains an ASHRAE Grade II energy audit and retro-commissioning study of base building systems.