Dear All,
we're currently certifying an hotel facility that includes indoor heated pools. In what relates to energy modeling, I have several questions I would like to see clarified:
- According to ASHRAE 90.1 2010 user manual, pools are included under the scope of service water heating. Do you confirm ?
- According to ASHRAE 90.1 2010, section 7.4.5.2, heated pools shall be equipped with pool covers, unless at least 60% of heating needs are supplied with site recovered energy or solar source energy.
If proposed building is equipped with systems that ensures that more than 60% of swimming pool heating needs are supplied by recovered waste heat (and is, therefore exempt from the use of pool covers), but still has pool covers installed, baseline building shall be modelled without pool cover, right ?
- In what relates with water circulation pumps for pools, current local practice is to install constant speed pumps that keep running 24/7. We are evaluating the installation of variable speed pumps to lower pumps speed during unnocupied periods. Do you think this can be accounted as an improvement against baseline building?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
February 14, 2020 - 12:26 pm
Yes aspects of pool water heating are covered by the standard.
Correct you would not model a pool cover in both models.
Sounds like you might be able claim savings for the pumping using an exceptional calculation.
Jamy Bacchus
Associate PrincipalME Engineers
25 thumbs up
February 14, 2020 - 6:28 pm
Interesting Marcus. So you're using G2.4's exception to not have a pool cover in the baseline but require it to use the proposed's energy source for pool heat, right? I don't think I've run into that scenario.
I have submitted pool pump VFDs as an ECM and was successful. We got the customary GBCI response:
The Baseline case description should verify that the efficiency measure is not standard practice for a similar newly constructed facility by providing a recently published document (published within five years of the project registration date), referencing a utility program that incentivizes the equipment installed, or by documenting systems used to perform the same function in other newly constructed facilities (three facilities built within the past five years of the project registration date).
This was a commercial pool about 2 yrs ago. I'm not sure if it's become standard practice. The local pool contractor provided us a dozen projects where they didn't provide VFDs.
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
February 15, 2020 - 6:01 pm
Table G3.1-11 Baseline requires the use of the same fuel source in the baseline as the proposed design for service hot water so I am extending that same logic to pool water heating. If you end up with a heat pump water heater in both then I assume that both would reach the 60% threshold. Table 7.8 only lists an oil/gas pool water heater or a heat pump pool water heater so those systems would be the only baseline options and it makes no sense to compare gas to electric and visa versa.
Your experience on the VFD sounds like what I would expect.