The project we are working on is a 170,000 SF plus vitamin manufacturing facility with over 10% laboratory space. It does not qualify for an ENERGY STAR rating given too much "other" space. Therefore, we have to use the Case 2 Calculator, which dictates we must use Option 1 for Laboratories and must compare to other lab facilities using the Labs21 Benchmarking tool. There is no guidance for using Labs21 in the reference guide, in the offline calculator, or on Labs21's website. My question is, what does USGBC/GBCI allow us to compare to on Labs21? This makes a huge difference for what the EUI comparison is given if you compare to all types of labs the average is much higher than just those in the specific climate zone, of which, for us, there is no comparison building. If anyone has any experience with this I would appreciate a response. Thanks.
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Dan Ackerstein
PrincipalAckerstein Sustainability, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
819 thumbs up
January 18, 2011 - 11:28 am
Good news Jennifer - the folks at Labs21 have produced a draft guidance document that I think you will find very helpful. I have actually applied their methodology on a number of labs and it seems quite sound.
http://labs21benchmarking.lbl.gov/docs/Applying+Labs21+Benchmarking+for+...
Hope that helps
susan eguia
LEED Coordinator/Construction Administrator/Business DevelopmentBuilding Solutions Group, Inc.
59 thumbs up
January 18, 2011 - 11:56 am
This is our first time to handle LEED-EB+OM, most of our projects are under LEED-NC, thus we don't understand the EA credit 1-Optimize Energy Efficiency.
Here's my question:
1. Is Title-24 related to EAc1 from LEED-EB+OM requirements? If so, how can we apply this?
2. What is the baseline of 71% EPA Energy Star performance rating?
3. How can we increase the percentile to get higher points?
4. what is EPA's Energy Star's Portfolio Manager tool? Where can we access this?
Appreciate any inputs/clarification on this requirements.
Thanks,
Susan
Jennifer Turchin
PrincipalCoda Group Inc.
29 thumbs up
January 18, 2011 - 12:17 pm
Susan,
Here are some comments on your questions:
1. It is my understanding that Title 24 is applicable to new buildings only, so it would not be applicable for EBOM.
2. 71% baseline is compared to 71% of all like buildings on a scale of 1-100, so 71 is better than anything below it with 100 being the best. Definitely visit www.energystar.gov and do the Portfolio Manager overview for more information on this.
3. You will have to increase building energy efficiency to increase your percentage and then wait for that efficiency to show up through tracking of utility bills - the easiest thing is more efficient lighting. Isn't a huge investment and shows up right away. Commissioning also can contribute to energy savings. Note that they can't be projected, have to be actually measured with Portfolio Manager.
4. Portfolio Manager is an Energy Star tool to track performance of existing buildings. You can read more about it here http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=evaluate_performance.bus_portfolio... and create your login to start benchmarking.
Hope this information is helpful.
Jennifer
susan eguia
LEED Coordinator/Construction Administrator/Business DevelopmentBuilding Solutions Group, Inc.
59 thumbs up
January 21, 2011 - 11:08 am
Thanks jennifer for taking time to respond.
Here's my follow-up questions:
1. So, T-24 will not involve for EBOM projects? The type of our building is warehouse/museum for storage of collection cars, non-insulated, low efficient AC and half of the roof is already using PV system.
2. If i access the portfolio manager energy star, where should i start?
3. what kind of tool is that to increase builidng energy efficiency? Can we play around the data from this system to increase the points?
Thanks in advance.
Susan
Jenny Carney
Vice PresidentWSP
LEEDuser Expert
657 thumbs up
January 21, 2011 - 11:25 am
Susan, my $0.02.
1. New building codes like T-24 don't really have any bearing on EBOM projects, since EBOM focuses on actual consumption as indicated on utility bills. They only relationship is that theoretically buildings designed to a stringent design code will perform better than national average, and therefore should theoretically fare well in benchmarking via Portfolio Manager (of course, this is not actually always true in reality).
2. If you are a first time user of Portfolio Manager, you might want to spend some time on the web site reading the how-to guides, review the Licenses Profession Guide to Energy Star (http://www.energystar.gov/ia/business/evaluate_performance/pm_lp_guide.pdf), or Google for free webinars on the benchmarking process. There's a lot of information out there to help novices.
3. If you are used to design modeling tools, the Energy Star approach is going to seem strange to you. It's not intended to identify the best opportunities for improvements in a specific building, but rather show how you are doing based on actual data. Once you enter the data, you will be able to see how close or far away to a target performance you are, and then would need to devise which strategies are most pertinent in your situation to make progress towards that target. An energy audit, commissioning, investigating utility rebates for upgrades, etc are typical next step. If you monkey with the data to artificially raise your score, the LEED reviewers will notice and it will cause you trouble.