I am working on a large project for which the cooling is predominantly from central chillers providing chilled water. This complies easily with the requirements of EAc4.
However, there are also split systems provided for standby cooling in the event that there should be some failure in the chilled water system. Do these back-up systems need to be included in the calculations? As they will not be at their working pressure, the leakage should be low and refrigerant pump down systems could be added if required to further reduce the leakage when they are not in use.
Many thanks
Christopher Schaffner
CEO & FounderThe Green Engineer
LEEDuser Expert
963 thumbs up
September 2, 2015 - 4:57 pm
Interesting question. The credit language applies only to "base-building systems". Lately reviewers have taken that to mean all the equipment that provides primary cooling whether installed by the owner or a tenant. But back-up systems have not been addressed and I don't find any previous rulings on the topic.
Logically, I would say that the back-up systems should be included, but you might want to submit an interpretation to confirm.
Senna Sabir
Arcadis2 thumbs up
April 19, 2020 - 10:34 am
I have a similar issue with one of our projects. We have two CRAC units that will be operating only in the event where the Air Cooled chillers fail. Can we remove these units from our calculation?
Christopher Schaffner
CEO & FounderThe Green Engineer
LEEDuser Expert
963 thumbs up
April 19, 2020 - 11:15 am
Again, logically, I would say that the back-up systems should be included, but you might want to submit an interpretation to confirm. The backup systems still use refrigerant, and still have an impact, so I don't see why you'd expect to be able to leave them out.