Monitoring-Based Commissioning Success

At the BOMA 2011 International Conference and The Every Building Show, presenters Chris Philbrick and Jerry Burin of Sieben Energy Associates examine their experience with monitoring-based commissioning with an office highrise case study. 

Couldn’t make the conference?  Read on for the key takeaways and project highlights.

Sieben Energy Associates, partnering with Portland Energy Conservation, Inc (PECI) and CB Richard Ellis (property manager of 311 S Wacker Drive), was selected to participate in a utility-funded pilot program to test the value of MBCx in a downtown highrise building.

Monitoring-Based Commissioning (MBCx) -- The process of optimizing HVAC performance by the continuous analysis of system performance data. Goals:

• To identify ‘performance defects’ that waste energy

• To assure persistence of implemented measures

311 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL

• 1.3 million sq ft, 65-story multi-tenant office tower

• Opened in 1990

• All-electric building

• Managed by CB Richard Ellis Asset Services

• 95% occupancy

•  Energy Star Score of 65

• 21 million kWh annual base building energy use

Scope of Monitoring:

• Central Station Air Handling Units -- five150k CFM units

• Smaller single zone AHUs -- ten 2k ~ 10k CFM units

• Chilled water plant -- four 500-ton centrifugal chillers

• Chilled water pumps and cooling towers

• Existing BAS can trend and store all data points to control HVAC and Chiller

• 525 control points monitored

• Frequency of data collection; 5-minutes

• Total records daily; 151,200

• Data collected by 311 S Wacker BAS is automatically routed to off-site server at Sieben Energy Associates’ (SEA) office and stored in database for analysis by SEA engineers

• On-going monitoring is helping identify energy reduction measures that would otherwise be overlooked, even through daily monitoring of BAS data

• Halfway into the project SEA began employing analytics software to filter daily HVAC performance data to help identify new ERMs

Program Results:

• Eight energy reduction measures (ERMs) valued at 472,000 kWh were identified in Sept 2010 following SEA’s initial assessment of the project building

• By May 2011, increased to fourteen ERMs for 1.23 million kWh

• Ten ERMs totaling 930,000 kWh selected for further investigation (more than $70,000 annual cost reduction; $38,000 installation cost)

• 528,000 kWh implemented and verified as of May 2011

• Targeting 1 million plus kWh annual energy reduction verified by September 1, 2011

Key Takeaways:

• New flows of data are leading to new business practices

• Trend toward more granular data management

• 311 S Wacker case study demonstrates MBCx helps drive energy savings, sustainability goals

• Rapidly expanding analytics product market