Hello!! I have a question regarding energy modeling for my project located in Northeast Mexico. It is a shopping mall in which all the middle hallways and circulation areas are going to be outdoor, covered by a series of canvases. These areas can be semi-ventilated when the weather gets too hot. All the shops and tenant spaces will be closed and have HVAC. Is it possible to model the baseline building as a closed mall with HVAC, and the proposed building as the open mall, since the decision to open it in the first place was to achieve energy savings by not providing cooling to these circulation areas, but only some ventilation instead (to deliver some comfort to the visitors)?

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Marcus Sheffer

LEED Fellow

7group / Energy Opportunities

LEEDuser Expert

4454 thumbs up

Tue, 02/12/2013 - 16:29

You will need to do an exceptional calculation and make the case that the baseline is appropriate. I think what you suggest would be a hard sell. Comparing enclosed and fully conditioned spaces to semi-open air spaces is apples and oranges and would not be allowed. You might consider just modeling the baseline without the canvases assuming these are shading devices they would already be eliminated in the baseline and modeled in the proposed. My only concern with this approach is the semi-ventilated nature of the circulation areas. Assuming that these spaces still meet the definition of unconditioned it might be a viable approach.

LEED Pro Consultant

Bioconstruccion & Energia Alternativa

LEEDuser Basic Member

63 thumbs up

Thu, 03/14/2013 - 22:15

Thanks for your answer, Marcus. Regarding this shopping center, I have a doubt on how to model the anchor tenant spaces (that we still don't know who they will be, but typical anchor stores such as SEARS, Walmart, JC Penney, etc) in which the developer has absolutely no control. We were originally considering the scenario where we would model these tenant spaces the same for the baseline and proposed, with the characteristics as stated by App G, with their energy loads accounting for approx. 40% of the total energy load of the building. But, one of the members of the project team told us that on other shopping center projects (LEED registered), they are not even including anchor stores inside the project. They are just empty spaces with no influence on the project. So, their tenant space would not come into the LEED project (nor in energy nor any other aspect), since those are spaces in which the developer can have no control and no way of claiming energy savings. Is this a valid approach for the energy model? Thanks!

Marcus Sheffer

LEED Fellow

7group / Energy Opportunities

LEEDuser Expert

4454 thumbs up

Fri, 03/15/2013 - 00:46

You must model the whole, occupied building for LEED. The other projects will not be accepted with empty spaces and that is not a valid approach.

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