Hello all,
We have an office project which utilizes waste heat from the neighbor landfill gas plant. The plant and office is owned by the same company. The plant produces electricity from landfill gas from nearby landfill (200 meters away) and delivers it to the grid. The office will use the waste heat generated during the electricity production for heating and cooling purposes. All cooling and heating energy will be provided by waste heat. The waste heat from the plant is not going to serve any other buildings and there is more than enough heat for the building.
We believe that this strategy should contribute to the energy efficiency and renewable energy credits since landfill gas is accepted as renewable energy resource and waste heat is utilized. However, we are not sure how to document it. Do you have any experience about it?
I appreciate any advise.
Thank you!
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5868 thumbs up
May 24, 2017 - 12:51 pm
There are probably some variables which would enable you model this a few different ways.Here is what I would probably do.
I would model the baseline according to Table G3.1.1A using the column for purchased heat. I would model the proposed as designed. I would use the same fuel rates for both models. Then zero out the energy cost for heating and cooling in the proposed by counting all the waste heat as a renewable energy source.
You should provide some sort of narrative justification for the baseline and use some local fuel rates. You could probably justify natural gas or purchased energy for heating. Also provide a narrative justification for treating the fuel source as renewable.
I think this is the simplest way to do it. There may be some other variations that would work but essentially you want renewable credit for the fuel source.
Aaron Luthien
1 thumbs up
May 26, 2017 - 10:48 am
Marcus, thanks a lot! I will try to do as you described.
Thanks!