Can a building without a core HVAC systems be certified under LEED CS?
For example, a two story building with a 6,500 ft2 footprint per floor. The developer intends to install 80-100% of the HVAC systems. There is not any common area, corridors, lobby or conditioned utility rooms. The building is being modeled with 4 zones per floor and all of the installed HVAC systems will serve one of the future tenant zones. Each floor is a wide open space with no walls or partitions.
At present, each zone will be conditioned by a VRV fan coil with one condensing unit per floor. Temporary lighting will be installed.
What is the procedure for modeling the building if there is no core energy usage?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5899 thumbs up
April 16, 2011 - 3:15 pm
All energy usage gets modeled in a CS project, not just the core. In your situation the available savings will simply have to come from a more narrow pool of opportunities. Savings can be claimed for an improved envelope, more efficeincy HVAC, and lighting is there are tenant guidelies.
The procedure is the same for your CS project as it would be for any ohter.
Tom Nichols
LEED AP (O+M)4 Elements Group
45 thumbs up
April 17, 2011 - 8:51 am
Marcus:
Thank you for the reply.
Actually this project is using the CS V2. Per Appendix 2, the lighting and plug loads for the tenant and core spaces need to be assigned to separate electric meters.
There will be no lighting or plug loads that are not in the tenant spaces as the entire floor will be tenant space.
According to Appendix 2-1.3 " The core and shell building is all parts of the building that is not a tenant space."
Is this the wrong rating system to use for this project?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5899 thumbs up
April 17, 2011 - 2:58 pm
I understand that you have no "core" spaces so you have all "shell" spaces. It sounds like the efficiency of the shell affects all of the spaces so that is where you will need to get your savings. If you are installing most of the HVAC you can get savings there too.
Does not matter if it is V2 or 2009 for energy you will need to model the whole building. Do not get hung up on the area the energy is used, tenant vs core, as it all counts in the calculations. For V2 projects there is a methodology on USGBC's web site which allows you to factor out lighting and plug loads in tenant spaces.
http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=2482