Date
Inquiry

The owner for our convention center expansion project is the City. The City has contracted outside the design firms with a construction advisor and also with an energy management company. The energy management company has a long term performance based contract with the City to ensure the performance of City\'s buildings and equipment. The energy management company\'s scope of work for this construction project includes the following services: 1. LEED documentation assistance - helping the design team to coordinate the application paperwork 2. Baseline and final Design Case Energy modeling for the purposes of LEED (design and design energy modeling done by the design team) 3. Technology design review for maintainability, life-cycle benefit, efficiency and serviceability of equipment designed and installed by other firms. 4. Fundamental Building Systems Commissioning tasks 1-6. A separate division of the energy management company will bid for and if successful, provide temperature and humidity control equipment for the building. The controls design and installation will be done by the design team engineer and contractor, however, the controls division of the company may assist in the selection of the most effective equipment to satisfy the design criteria. Given these responsibilities and the fact that the energy management company is working directly for the owner with a performance based contract, the owner belives there is adequate separation from the design and construction interests to allow the energy management company to also complete task 1-5 for the Additional Commissioning credit. Is this indeed a correct interpretation of the suggested third party relationship?

Ruling

Indepedent third-party commissioning also includes independence from manufacturers and their representative. In your potential scenario, the control equipment supplier (which may also be the manufacturer) would be the same company that is providing commissioning services. The commissioning staff would thus experience conflict of interests if a piece of its company\'s equipment being commissioned is not working properly. To achieve EAc3, choose a different equipment supplier or a truly independent, third-party commissioning agent. Applicable internationally.

Internationally Applicable
On
Campus Applicable
Off