Does anyone know how to deal with Commissioning of District Energy System (DES)? The project which I'm working on is situated in a city which is supplied with heat by a large District Energy System. It's impossible to make a commissioning of the whole system. How can I comply with the requirements of EA Cre 3? Is it enough to submit official documents obtained from the heat generating plant and distribution system owner saying that DES was properly commissioned and maintained?
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Scott Bowman
LEED FellowIntegrated Design + Energy Advisors, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
519 thumbs up
December 8, 2011 - 12:50 pm
Adam;
Sorry, your post has only just come to my attention. We have not had to address this yet, but my reading of the August update to the DES guideline seems to focus on three things; the size of the project, the age of the DES, and the percentage of the load the new building represents of the total capacity of the DES provider. Basically, they want to prevent a project from developing an external energy plant, and then call it a DES.
So, in your case it would seem that you have a plant over 3 years old, your building is probably bigger than 50k SF, and you are looking to gain some energy points under EAc1, which I agree would indicate a need for commissioning of the DES if you pursue EAc3.
Then this guide seems to give you two paths, and yours would most likely be the second, getting some information from your DES on their maintenance and operation practices. My guess is they have something they have to show, since they only sell BTUs, they would have to maximize efficiency to either enhance profit, or keep public utility costs down.
Let us know how it goes, you could be exploring new territory.