I'm working with a client that is a manufacturing/assembly company. Their building complex includes a 11,300 sq.ft. office space and a 50,000 warehouse and assembly area. The company produces products that are made up or component parts and the do bend some sheet metal.
On the surface, the manufacturing area does not qualify for the Energy Star tool. However, warehouses do qualify. Energy Star is the only way to earn additional energy efficiency credits.
We think that if we declared the entire manufacturing space a warehouse and then operate the facility with all process equipment unplugged for some period of time, we can determine the power load of the building and then use the Energy Star tool.
What do you think of this approach? What should the measurement time be for load of process equipment (we are thinking 24 hours of each operating scenario)? Are there other approaches that would allow us to use the Energy Star tool?
Jenny Carney
Vice PresidentWSP
LEEDuser Expert
657 thumbs up
December 14, 2009 - 3:46 pm
Robert - you're right about Energy Star not rating manufacturing spaces. But, the good news is that USGBC has established a path for these unusual building types to perform energy benchmarking to meet EAp2 and earn points under EAc1. If you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out the EAc1 EBOM2009 Case 2 Calculator, which can be downloaded from LEED Online under the Credit Resources for EAc1 (the Reference Guide offers further info about how to use it).
This is the tool that I've seen other building's with big manufacturing spaces use, and the number of points you'll be eligible for will depend on which of the benchmarking options you choose.
In my opinion, you wouldn't be allowed to declare the manufacturing space as a warehouse for the purposes of getting an Energy Star rating because this other benchmarking path already exists and is specifically to help teams benchmark manufacturing spaces. If you do want to try the other route though, I definitely recommend using a Credit Interpretation Request (CIR) to get an official opinion before proceeding.
Gregory Miller
Alternative Energy Design SpecialistSolar Innovations, Inc.
3 thumbs up
October 12, 2010 - 11:04 am
Althought I don't recall the actual submission wording but you are permitted to use the Energy Star Portfolio Manager, and one of the options is produce a Certificate of Performance. You select for uses other than Energy Star ratings and it will produce a report with comparative data. It's the document that LEED approves of. It must be stamped by a licensed professional, however.
And no, you cannot call the manufacturing area a warehouse. You must call it manufacturing and use the alternative submission path for Energy Star if you'd like to use the portfolio manager. You can do it long hand too, but I recommend using the aternative Energy Star method.