calibration parameters

There are sample plans located in the Resources and Documentation Toolkit above. If you are following Option D, you'll revisit your model in a year or so, after you've collected actual performance data for the building. You'll calibrate the model against the actual operating parameters. (This is the key action in the M&V process under Option D.) The M&V plan must indicate how you plan to calibrate, and how accurate you expect the calibration to be, among other items.

There is a good calibration procedure in the FEMP M&V Guide - http://www1.eere.energy.gov/femp/pdfs/mv_guidelines.pdf M&V accuracy is well covered in ASHRAE Guideline 14. The reviewers are simply looking to see if you understand M&V principles and are applying them in a logical manner.

Those are two different issues. Calibrating meters and other measuring devices is just a good QC practice. This is a minor M&V issue. The calibration procedures refer to calibrating the energy model. This is a major M&V issue. By the way it is very difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to calibrate an energy model without gathering some energy use data beyond the main meters. If you are gathering enough data through the BAS that can be converted to energy use, taking spot measurements and/or using short term trending meters post-occupancy it can be done but there is typically a lot of labor required to do so.

Expanding on Marcus's excellent response. To meet the requirements of the IPMVP Option D, your team must take the model that was developed as part of the design process and compare it against your actual building performance. To do this in an appropriate way, you will "calibrate" the model by adjusting assumptions made in the original model, such as operating schedules, plug and process loads, infiltration rates, weather conditions, etc. This work needs to be performed by someone qualified to do it - often the original modeler, occasionally the Commissioning Agent. The reviewer is looking for details of this process, as proposed by your team. Who, What, When and How? Also, who is paying for it? If this is not what you are planning to do, then you don't meet the credit requirements.