The intent of this point is to achieve increasing levels of energy performance above the prerequisite standard to reduce environmental impacts associated with excessive energy use. Our project is a multi unit residential building at a resort. As such, some of the residential units may sit empty for periods of time when they are not rented, or in use. There will be a building management service that will clean the rooms, before, during and after they are occupied. It will be an operating protocol for the building management service to set the thermostat in an unoccupied unit down, and turn it up shortly before the guests arrive. This practice obviously reduces the amount of heating and cooling that will be unnecessarily provided to units that are not occupied. This is not an automated system, but rather a manual system that would be a part of the operating protocol for the building. When compared to unmanaged buildings of our type, our energy usage will be significantly reduced. Is it appropriate to consider the benefit of the diminished energy use that will result from this practice in our energy modeling, thereby representing this savings to help us satisfy this point?
The described operational sequence is a form of setback control. Schedules and equipment use profiles are addressed in ASHRAE 90.1-1999 subsection 6.2.3 - Controls, which is under section 6.2, Mandatory Provisions, and also addressed in the LEED v2.0 Reference Guide page 125. Since setback control is addressed under the mandatory provisions of the referenced standard, both the baseline and proposed models must have the same setback control settings. Therefore, energy savings due to setback control cannot be gained in the proposed model.