The project scope includes new HVAC equipment & controls as well as occupancy sensors for lighting control. The Cx scope will include testing of all HVAC and Lighting controls, and as I understand it, these systems need to be included in the Monitoring-Based Commissioning (MBCx) Plan, as well. I have two questions:
1) The credit language says to include elements in the MBCx Plan that evaluate performance, specifically energy and water profiles. However, as LEED-CI doesn't require even Building-Level energy or water meters, so must energy and water profiles be monitored for credit compliance?
2) What needs to be monitored as a part of MBCx of lighting controls? We can likely monitor the status of the occupancy sensor (occupied vs. unoccupied), but is that sufficient?
Scott Bowman
LEED FellowIntegrated Design + Energy Advisors, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
519 thumbs up
August 29, 2016 - 6:32 pm
Good questions, and I do not have solid answers. But here are my thoughts.
1) While not required for certification, in my opinion, if you want to pursue monitoring based commissioning, then you would need to measure performance metrics. Otherwise, how would you know if systems are drifting out of sync. With a new HVAC system, it would seem that you would have a BAS system, so could extend this to power use or other indicators that systems are performing as planned.
2) You can only monitor what you can. So having a log that occupancy or dimming controls are functioning and align with expectations of time of day or time of year expectations would seem to be appropriate. Thinking out loud, but if you monitored outside irradiance, that could be compared to the amount of dimming if daylighting is being used.