Under Option 1 of the DES guide, there is a 10 point cap. I have a project connected to a district chilled water system that I have modeled following option 1 which is showing 8 EAc1 points. However, this project also has a fairly large on-site PV system, which bumps us up to 18 points.
Is this allowed, or should it be capped at 10?
The DES guide gives guidance on how to deal with upstream renewable energy, but not on-site renewables in this context. Keep in mind the DES is chilled water compared to PV system which provided electricity, so my thought is that they are realtively unrelated and the points would be allowed. I've had a similar situation here in Canada and we ended up accounting for the DES as per our DES guide, then accounting for a large PV system on top of that: i.e. in isolation of the DES and any DES rules / guides.
Thanks in advance.
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
May 29, 2013 - 4:08 pm
I would think that the cap is before the on-site renewables. However, the DES in entirely optional. You would simply follow the same method as Option 1 by following the guidance in Appendix G. Since you are not following the DES there would be no cap and you can easily claim the PV output without question.