Hi - I have a very strange scenario. The local utility company is providing the site and parking lot lighitng, including installing it and maintaing it. They are NOT metering it. The client is just billed a flat fee they have come up with as an estimate for it every month. There is literally not a meter being put in by the utility company for this site lighting (never seen anything like this before!). At this point, we have no way to meter the usage because it is not our lighting system, even though it is being used by the building. We are going to request (again) that the power company put a meter in maybe at our expense so we can monitor the usage??
Grateful for any other thoughts, or if anybody has any thoughts if USGBC would accept this scenario without the site lighting included...
Thank you in advance.
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5868 thumbs up
April 21, 2021 - 2:27 pm
Sounds like the owner is essentially leasing the lighting from the utility and paying a flat fee. I have seen this often for this kind of lighting. In my experience the lease cost is going to be significantly greater than if they had their own fixtures.
All energy use within and associated with the project must be included as far as I know.
David Posada
Integrated Design & LEED SpecialistSERA Architects
LEEDuser Expert
1976 thumbs up
April 27, 2021 - 2:48 pm
Marcus - For energy modeling, it makes sense to include all uses associated for the project, but for this metering pre-requisite the language keeps using the phrase "building-level meter" and "building-level data."
In the Further Explanation section of the Guide, under "Meter location" it says "the best location for the purposes of determining building-level energy consumption is generally at the point where energy enters the building."
In other credits we sometimes have the flexibility to define the LEED boundary or scope to exclude areas or systems outside the control of the project team, such as rainwater on a public sidewalk that is associated with the project, or a base-building MEP system when we certify a tenant space under ID&C.
Is it reasonable to take this pre-requisite title and language literally to mean "building" and not include site lighting in this case if it's provided separately and un-metered by the utility?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5868 thumbs up
April 27, 2021 - 3:25 pm
As usual the answer is it depends and then you have to rely on principles. IMO the "building" is what is within the LEED boundary. So if the parking lot is outside then fine, if inside then it would need to be included. You can't have one scope for one credit and another scope for another one that are integrally related. Of course you can always put forth an exception via the usual channels.