Campus project - District heating/cooling

What sizes are the two buildings, and just to clarify that one of the two buildings will have the plant equipment inside of it, and will that building be the larger building? Are the buildings being constructed at the same time?

There is some guidance included in the rating system that you should review before you get to Appendix G. 

Hey Nikos,

refer to following guidelines:

https://www.usgbc.org/resources/des-district-energy-systems-guidance-v22-and-v2009-guidance-v20

and the interpretations under this search link, also for european situations

https://www.usgbc.org/search?Search+Library=%22DES+guidance+treatment+of+district+or+campus+thermal+energy+in+Leed%5C%22%22

greetings Arwid

That's helpful Nikos - I think the larger building with the plant inside of it will be treated with the equipment as part of the same building. 

Then the second building would use district energy as the source fed from the first building using the district energy rules.

One more clarification - although you could still use district energy approach being in the same building, the motivation would be if there were other third, fourth, etc. buidlings taking service from the plant so that some of the EA credits might not apply or if there were plant limitations that may be unfavorable. 

In the case where everything is new your most straightforward path is to model and commission everything as a whole in B1, and only B2 would be subject to the DES calculations.

Hi Nikos,

I don´t know if they apply to v4. You mentioned that you have a v3 project or I guessed because you use ASHRAE 90.1-2007. you can investigate on the USGBC webpage or ask directly. They are very helpful.

Other issue: If you don´t have CHP you will not profit very much from the DES guidance described in the guide. I would recommend to proceed as follows:

a1) as you can´t consider the energy plant on master site level it has to be regarded in the corresponding building (technic, efficiency, commisioning,price of heat and cold...) as a normal plant but which is overimensioned for the individual building. You will mostly run, especally the chillers, in more efficient patial-load. I guess it would be appropriate to simulate the second building (building B) first to determine the heat and cold load profile and then Building A with the additioal heating and cooling loads of Building B to reflect the efficiencies correctly if your simulation tool is capable of this . 

a2) for the second building B you can consider supply heat and cold from building A (or a virtual plant) with efficincy losses because of heat exchangers, if exists at all. Otherwise set efficiency of energy supply to 100%. energy prices are the same. 

b1) perhaps your software and the project process allows to simuate the two buildings at once and evaluation seperate (perhaps with postprocessing). Then you prove performance of the main plant in the realistic situation

in both cases the baseline buildings are modelled and simulated seperately with the appropriate plant and efficiencies due to ASHRAE.

Ad a narrative in special circumstances in both campus projects or an additional document to explain the situation.

Which approach you even chosse, I recomend to clear and discuss it with USGBC/GBCI support in front of beginning.

Which software do you use?

regards arwid

The v4 district guidance is incorporated into the LEED Reference Guide and there are some significant changes.