Hello,
I am involved in a Medical Device facility that is pursuing LEED evaluation. It was built and operates since three years ago outside the US. It has great green features so the owner wants to certify it as Existing Building which is appropiate in this case. The problem is that no similar facility exists on Portfolio manager to get a performance rating. I requested information to Energy Star and they responded:
"Unfortunately, we do not have an Energy Performance Indicator (EPI) for medical devices, but are looking into the feasibility of developing an EPI for those space types although that process will take a while."
¿Do you know of how to deal with this situation?
I would be really appreciate any answer.
Ben Stanley
Senior Sustainability ManagerWSP - Built Ecology
LEEDuser Expert
250 thumbs up
February 23, 2012 - 4:41 pm
It sounds like your building would fall under Case 2 Option 2. This path is available for buildings that aren't eligible for either an Energy Star rating or for Case 2 Option 1. You can use the Case 2 calculator, which is linked on the resources tab for this prerequisite, to determine if the building is eligible for Case 2 Option 1.
If you're not eligible for Case 2 Option 1, then your best bet is to benchmark via Case 2 Option 2C and that involves using both the building's historic energy consumption and energy consumption from 3 comparable buildings to generate a benchmark for comparison.
Nelina Loiselle
Above Green239 thumbs up
April 17, 2012 - 11:29 am
I have the EXACT same issue, medical device plant. Where are we supposed to get energy consumption form 3 comparable buildings?
Dan Ackerstein
PrincipalAckerstein Sustainability, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
819 thumbs up
April 17, 2012 - 11:59 am
Manufacturing poses a substantial challenge for EAp2; there simply won't be any easy answers in most instances. As Ben notes, starting with the historic baseline comparison is the path of least resistance, but many buildings will not be able to document the required reductions in energy consumption (after normalizing for production) during the prescribed time period. In that case, two places you might look for comparable buildings are trade associations and the EIA, which collects manufacturing energy consumption data for a variety of product types in much the same way that they collect data for commercial buildings. It's not easy to make this work, but it can be done (and a number of plants have done it recently).
Hope that helps,
Dan