Thermal Comfort control

Hi Gail, great question! I don't have firsthand experience to share unfortunately, but GBCI's recent ruling on using a smartphone app to demonstrate lighting controls for EQc6 might be a good hint. Here's the LEEDuser FAQ: 

Question: For Option 1, we would like occupants to be able to control lighting in their area from smartphones, tablets, or computers; we plan to eliminate physical switches altogether. Would this meet the intent of Option 1?

Answer: A LEEDuser member reported in July 2018 that GBCI did approve an approach where lighting is controlled through a personalized automation application, e.g. via mobile phones, desk phones, and/or personal computers.

Gail,

I'm sure you have submitted this credit by now, but yes we have successfully submitted this credit with a comfy app.  To assist, the below verbiage was used by our team and was accepted.   Please edit to your project needs.  Thx! 

For this particular system and in the open office areas, we would like to propose an ACP for Thermal Comfort Controls consisting of an Owner developed application available on both mobile and PC platforms that aggregates occupant preferences in an HVAC control zone and analyzes the data to an optimal setpoint for the zone population. The owner is developer of building technologies including HVAC equipment and controls looking to showcase the start of the art in this project, which is a new customer experience center. Our industry is driving us towards sustainability through smart buildings including cloud-based solutions and smart phone applications.

The proposed application enables building occupants to “vote” on how they feel in the space.  When a user “votes” on the app, the application records the vote and aggregates it with others from the same HVAC control zone in order to determine a setpoint best suited to the preferences of the population. This setpoint is communicated to the BAS.  The BAS, or front-end operating system for the HVAC equipment in this building, will be programmed to accept these votes, trend the occupant feedback based on their thermal comfort zone and their location in the building, and modulate the space temperature to the individuals’ thermal comfort trends. This is the capability the Owner is deploying with their building technologies.

To ensure that 100% controllability is given to the employees sitting in the open offices, the Owner has committed to providing every building occupant with access to the application either through a smart phone or workstation computer.  The Owner has committed to achieving LEED Platinum certification, and while the use of this app will continue to provide them with energy efficiency in the building operations, their main goal is for the well-being of their employees.  This includes providing the employees with a healthy and a comfortable work place.  Giving them the tools to enable them to choose their own space temperature adds to the employees’ overall satisfaction with their employer.

While we understand that the open offices are only one component of the building calculations required to prove that 50% of the occupants have comfort controls, the open office area is a significant area of the building.  When we are providing our final documentation for review in LEED Online, we will include all spaces within the building that have individuals seated at work stations or in private offices, not only the spaces served by the chilled beam equipment and controlled via application. 

Our specific request for this CIR is that the review team accept the ability to vote on comfort preference via an application as a control point for the open offices.  This means that each cube in the open offices would be considered as one point of controllability via the comfort application.  Even though on floor plans and control drawings, a single controller tied to the chilled beam valve may be shown for an area covering three employees (i.e. 33%, or 1 point for 3 people), it is our request that the calculations be performed as that same area having 3 points of control for that one valve, with each point representing an employee with an application (i.e. 100%, or 3 points for 3 people).

Uploaded documentation for this credit will include design calculations for compliance with ASHRAE Standard 55–2010 for the open office and additional building areas.  We would provide the specifications for the application and an additional case study of a similar concept, the Comfy solution from Building Robotics, which shows how a real life application trended the space temperature and optimized the HVAC system setpoints.  The link to the case study is also found here, for your preliminary review: http://www.comfyapp.com/resources/ as well as a feature from USGBC on the Building Robotics concept http://plus.usgbc.org/tomorrows-technology-today/.