Any initial findings regarding Project Appendix G performance under v4.1 compared to v4 (or even v3)?

Given the lack of users volunteering to switch from v4 to v4.1 for this specific credit in the past year, it may be a while before we have much feedback to report here. Those who have internally done the analysis are encouraged to share their findings! 

Reviving an old thread. We have evaluated a few different buildings to try to determne this exact thing. The results? Pretty poor, with significant point loss. Best example is a LEEDv4 project achieve 47% Savings / 17 points; flipping to LEEDv4.1 results in 3 points. Project details: CZ4a, high performance envelope, optimized exterior window shading, LED lighting & advanced controls, VRF HVAC with decoupled ventilation and energy recovery. This is one example of multiple where LEEDv4/2010 savings are reasonible/reflective and the LEEDv4.1/2016 target appears well out of range. We've purposefully stuck to LEEDv4 as a result. Time is now running short as more AHJ's adopt 2016 codes, and as we revisit & do further studies, the results are still concerning. Slight hope that we're doing it 'wrong', but thus far the methods & math are checking out. Yes, we are concerned.

Well, now I am concerned. I did not have a business reason to look into this 2 years ago but now I do.

I was working through a LEED v4.1 project today to see what it scored for the Optimize Energy Performance and I found the exact same thing that Daric Adair mentioned back in December of 2020. It is much harder to score points now that we are being asked to evaluate using the Performance Cost Index (PCI) and the Performance Cost Index Target (PCI_t) for energy cost and greenhouse gas emissions.

My preliminary results found that a project posting 18.8% energy cost savings against ASHRAE 90.1-2016 App G Baseline is not close to scoring any points under LEED v4.1. I did some reverse calculations to learn that my particular project needed to score roughly 35% energy cost savings to even start scoring points given where PCI and PCI_t were landing for me. Unfortunately, at this point, it might be hard to return to LEED v4 for this credit. Is that still possible in 2022? I am meeting a project manager today to discuss this situation and I am thinking of recommending that this project move to Option 2: Prescriptive Compliance: ASHRAE Advanced Energy Design Guide or even Option 3: System Optimization. That is if we cannot still use LEED v4.

I am glad this discussion is up on this website even though it is 2 years old. Does anyone else have any other thoughts or ideas that have worked through this in the past? 

Since this discussion was posted, have others gone through the full credit calculation and discovered this situation for themselves? I was caught off guard for sure.

If you registered the project under LEED v4 you can use that version of these credits.

Hi, I was looking into it and I am facing the same challenge to get points under LEED v4.1. Even the proposed design is 20% better than the Baseline in terms of cost but when I calculate the savings based on PCI, there is no points at all under the LEED v4.1

Does anyone got any positive results? How we can achieve points under this credit?

There are many reasons for the challenges to 2016's revised PRM with PCI and BPFs. As folks have noted, it is based on the 2004 Std creating a stable baseline for all future Appendix G in 2016, 2019, 2022 and going forward. The calculations are different than 2013 and prior 90.1 versions. The baselines are based on building type and climate zone, which puts nat gas as the baseline's fuel type in colder climates (CZ 4-8). The energy costs embedded in the BPFs are based on US nationalized values which were relevant circa 2015. If your location has utility costs with a different ratio to those in the BPF creation, then you might have a hinderance on all-elelctric or an easier time. ASHRAE has a tool to help pull out these embedded costs and replace them with your own regional costs. https://www.energycodes.gov/ashrae-standard-901-performance-based-compli...

I'm not aware of anyone submitting this to GBCI for acceptance in asking to use modified BPFs based on local rates, but I would hope it would get accepted if done correctly. 

PNNL has shared a pre-publication report which revised most of the BPFs in 2016 because they were created based on a nearly complete 90.1-2016. Having gone back and re-running them against the published versions, they found some warranted adjustments--most of them were small except "warehouses". But when we're getting zero or near-zero savings, then these incremental benefits are worth leveraging. TBD on the date the world will see this. 

I think there are a few things to keep in mind like trying EApc160 and EApc161. You can demonstrate EAp2 compliance using 90.1-2016's ECB path! Then you can use EAc2 and maybe you're not getting much in energy cost savings, but I would hope you see GHG reductions justifying the proposed design. And hourly forecasted electric grid emissions factors are available from NREL Cambium, so eGRID 2021 is not your only option. See LEED Hourly Cambium Demand Adjusted Energy Metrics Calculator.

Lastly, you can double or perhaps triple dip with any on-site renewables in that it can be used in the energy cost savings, GHG savings and RE power credits.

I encourage others to share their feedback.

Reading through Appendix G for ASHRAE 90.1-2016 vs 2010, the 2016 ASHRAE Baseline is less efficient than the 2010 Baseline. I took a model that I had created under the original v4, and compared it to the new v4 points as of the March 2024 update, as well as adjusted it for the ASHRAE 90.1-2016 changes. My results were as follows:

-Original v4 points: 11

-March 2024 v4 points: 4

-v4.1 points: didn't even qualify. 

I am editing this response as I realized I had done my percentage imporvements incorrectly. I'm still not sure if I'm doing the PCI calcs correctly or not, it's crazy to think that I wouldn't even get 2 points under v4.1.

Overall 2016 is more stringent but the funny thing about stringency evaluations is that the result is often all over the map. Some projects show more or less savings than others and it depends on the details of your model. The overall stringency evaluations are an average and do not reflect all possible cases. Your original results were surprising but so are your current ones.

Many of us in this space have voiced concerns about the PRM/PCI/BPF approach for years. We recently submitted a CMP to 90.1 ECB, but will wait and see what comes of it. LEED v4.1 references it. LEED v5 also references PRM but created a completely separate prescriptive path knowing that electrification could be challenging in the current PRM approach. We didn't have the time or capacity to create an entirely new modeling protocol for v5, so we stuck with the devil we know in PRM. But I can't say anyone was excited or thrilled with that. I'm curious what the public comments yield. 

...but I echo others sentiments: it is entirely disheartneing to design or model an all-electric project and then report to the larger team it earns zero or very few credits in EAc2. 

...and I also will reiterate that 18 available credits in EAc2 is indefensible when WBLCA can only get you 1/3 of that. 

I saw this discussion come up yesterday, and my previous comments were already brought forward. Thank you for doing that because I still stand by my work.

I wanted to update the forum on what I have learned since my post on July 18, 2022.

To Jamy's point, I have had my own experience about having to tell larger design teams that the LEED v4.1 EAc2 doesn't score as many points as LEED v4 EAc2. My story pre-dates the March 2024 change and at that time, I made sure to tell everyone to register their active LEED projects in version v4 due to this issue. Design teams looked at me like: "Huh, don't we want to register our project with the newest version of LEED?", I am like "No, you don't. I cannot support a LEED Gold certification with the modeling based on how I am scoring in v4.1".

That is a tough conversation due to the questions it raises and the test it places on my creditability. Unfortunately, I needed to have this conversation several times with various design teams. I have shown my project calculations in both v4 and v4.1 to design staff and project managers. Together we saw 14 LEED points disappear moving between v4 (pre-March 2024) and v4.1. To give these folks credit, they don't do these LEED calculations day-to-day and it is not something they would deal with or would have known about; I am paid to know about it and deal with it.

To be fair and balanced on this forum I need to recognize I have talked to folks internally at LEED who know the modeling. They are aware of the issue and they acknowledged my concerns. They did highlight to me EApc160: Electrification – Prescriptive Path and EApc161 Electrification ACP: Energy Simulation Performance Path as Jamy already mentioned above in this forum. I haven’t gone down either of these paths to date because I was successful in staying in LEED v4 on my projects. Has anyone tried either of these options? I am interested in hearing how that worked out for you.

You are aiming for a % cost improvement over your baseline of at least 30% to look at getting points. What is going to catch designers in the PRM of 90.1 - 2016 App G is the GHG metric for points. Electrification vs using gas or other fossil fuels is critical when trying to get any points under this metric.