User electricity on Industrial buildings

There is currently limited guidance for projects with high process loads. You can include process energy savings in your calculations, but you need to justify VERY CLEARLY, why you feel the savings is justified. Follow the methodology for exceptional calculation measures. Data centers, waste water treatment plants and manufacturing facilities have successfully been certified using this approach. All energy use must be included. There is currently no procedure that allows any energy consumption to be excluded.

Are there any 2009 NC CIRs - or do 2009 CIRs only apply to projects individually ? Also, is it acceptable to use waste heat ( say from a data centre next door ) as "free energy" ? Or must it be on-site only ?

Timo, we had a manufacturing facility acheive certification where more than 90% of the facility energy use was from the process loads of the manufacturing equipment. We found a few CIRs that gave some guidance for NC2.2: EA credit 1, CIR Ruling 8/13/2007, Ruling 5/27/2008, and Ruling 2/4/2008. All energy use, including all process loads have to be accounted for in the model. Reductions in process energy use can contribute to credit acheivement, but since it is not addressed directly by ASHRAE 90.1 we had to create a theoretical baseline for process energy use against which to compare the proposed process. It has been up to the design teams how to create a credible baseline for process loads, but some methods we've seen include comparing the proposed plant's process loads against other similar plants operated by the company, against industry averages, or a manual calculation. In one case the manual caluclation involved comparing the energy consumption of the more efficient proposed equipment with less efficient but commonly available equipment. Savings from high efficiency motors are one place to look, you may even be able to use calculations based on engineering principles that show greater efficiency of one process over another standard practice. To compare the energy use of the baseline and proposed systems, some teams have used energy use per unit of product produced as a comparison, but reviewers have required all energy savings be converted to back annual energy cost savings. Be careful of calculations that only suggest increased annual production, as this may not be seen as producing annual energy savings. You may need to word your narrative explanation of how the process loads are modeled very thoroughly and carefully, as the assumptions or approach can be misinterpreted.

I recently filed a refrigerated warehouse facility where a majority of the load was process. In order to document the savings for the process load space (lighting, refrigeration), I had to provide the savings under the exceptional calculation method along with a narrative. My energy model was able to provided the modeling capability for this process load but it had to be broken out separately. Be very clear in the template which square footage is associated with process loads so the reviewer understands why you selected system x vs y in the base design.