1. We registered the project as Campus consisting 3 Buildings. Central Plant Building and the future building is not included in the LEED boundary.
2. Central Plant Building has 5 Chillers (2500 tons each), 10 cooling towers and 3 Plate & Frame Heat Exchanges. This building is located centrally serving 3 LEED buildings and 1 future building to reduce the pump energy.
3. The central Plant has no cogeneration
Do we consider this as District Energy System? I was in the opinion of this is NOT considered as a DES.
Can you guys please help. Thanks much.
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5907 thumbs up
August 23, 2017 - 3:24 pm
A DES is a central plant that serves more than one building. It is not even within the project boundary.
Under LEED v4 you can't lump all of these building together as you are required to demonstrate compliance for each of them separately. So even as a campus project I think this is a DES.
Aru Sau
5 thumbs up
August 24, 2017 - 5:32 pm
Thanks Marcus.
Now, if we model for DES as per the DES modeling guideline by USGBC, the baseline systems changes and our design becomes less energy efficient. But if we do the buildings separately, we claim more savings. I want to model these as separate buildings and not go into the DES modeling guidelines. What I want to clarify is - if my modeling approach should be Option 1 or Option 2 from the DES modeling guidelines or completely separate complying each buildings separately just like NC projects?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5907 thumbs up
August 25, 2017 - 10:43 am
Under LEED v4 you no longer have the option of not using the DES guidelines for a DES. Let's make sure you are viewing the most recent version that applies to v4. It is embedded within the LEED Reference Guide. It sounds like you are looking at the DESv2 which no longer applies to v4 projects.