In our office building, the annual Gas Consumption accounts for more than 40% of the total annual energy consumption. The gas is used for Heating and for Cooking (for a Restaurant). The project has a general gas meter, another sub-meter for the Restaurant, but no sub-meter for the heating plant. Both gas meters are fitted with electronic devices which read the meters and transmit data to the BMS. Calculating the difference, we can monitor the consumptions for the Heating plant. Is this approach acceptable, since we don’t actually have a dedicated meter for the Heating plant?
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Hannah Bronfman
Senior Associate99 thumbs up
February 20, 2014 - 12:15 pm
Hi Oana
Unfortunately, I think that the approach you've outlined wouldn't fly, because the credit requires that metering be permanently installed (therefore the energy use is not interpolated) and that the meters be read continuously, automatically, and electronically. Also, bear in mind that the readings have to occur every 15 minutes, at a minimum, to comply, so a calculation methodology likely wouldn't meet that requirement either.
That said, I'd be interested to see if anyone has had success with this approach.
Best,
Hannah
American University
SustainabilityAmerican University
56 thumbs up
February 20, 2014 - 1:53 pm
Interesting, my first instinct was the opposite. It seems like if you can get 15 minute data for the main gas line and restaurant and write a program in the BMS to keep subtracting those every 15 minutes and storing that data you are fulfilling the permanent, continuous, and automatic criteria. Definitely a tough one though...I could see them getting hung up on the fact that technically there is no submeter.
This sort of reminds me of our chilled water loops where the chiller plant resides on one building but feeds several other buildings. My metering all other buildings, whatever is left is consumed by the first building where the chiller plant lives.
Hannah Bronfman
Senior Associate99 thumbs up
February 20, 2014 - 1:57 pm
Emily
I totally agree with you. This is not only a common practice, but also would in theory meet the credit intent, especially if trend data was available for that portion of energy use. That said, the requirement is to have in place permanent submeters, so I could totally see the review team having issue with it.
This could be an opportunity for a LEED Interpretation.
Oana Stamatin
LEED AP BD+CColliers International
1 thumbs up
February 21, 2014 - 2:11 am
Thank you for your answers. It's good to have two different opinions on this and not just a categorical one. Since we might meet the intent of the credit with this approach, I think it's worth submitting a CIR...
Magda Aghababyan
CEOCo-Energi (Pvt) Ltd.
15 thumbs up
April 9, 2014 - 6:40 am
Oana, please let us know the outcome of the CIR. Will be valuable information.