CIR: Innovation Credit Inquiry for Pre-bidding of Major HVAC Equipment Intent: To demonstrate that equipment costs can be kept competitive and that simulation can be used to optimize HVAC life-cycle costs if major HVAC equipment is pre-bid early in the design process. Description: Most new construction projects use the conventional construction paradigm of "plans and specifications" (plan & spec) meaning that the design is completed and then contractors provide a single bid for the entire job. The project that is the subject of this CIR is a plan & spec project, but with a twist: the main air conditioning units were pre-bid during design development (about half way through the design process). This was done for two main reasons:  Cost Control. Typically on a plan & spec project the HVAC design engineer will design around a particular equipment vendor and model. If the designer is diligent he/she will make sure that "equal" products are available to maintain competitive pricing. However, competing products are rarely identical to the basis of design in terms of features, performance, size, shape etc. While substitution of a competing product might be possible, it can often be difficult to incorporate it once the job is fully designed and everything is fully coordinated. If a vendor sees that a product with unique features is the basis of design, he will usually raise his price. Specifying unique products also can lead to "bundling", which is when suppliers will only provide a single price (often inflated) for all the pieces of equipment that they can supply to a job. For example, a supplier may say "We will only sell you the specified air conditioning units, if you also purchase all the VAV boxes and smoke dampers from us at our bundled price." By taking the extra effort to pre-bid the AC units for this project, we believe that we were able to avoid noncompetitive pricing and bundling and thereby free up limited resources for other energy and environmentally beneficial investments.  Life-Cycle Cost Optimization. In the request for proposal to air conditioning suppliers we encouraged them to provide as many options as they wanted and to provide a range of options in terms of first cost and energy efficiency. We received a total of 11 proposals from 5 manufacturers. In addition to a final price, bidders were required to provide detailed energy performance data (fan efficiency, compressor full- and part-load efficiency, air pressure drop, water pressure drop, etc.). These data were used to develop detailed simulation models of each proposal. The annual energy cost results of the models were combined with the first costs, estimates of annual maintenance costs, and estimated cost impacts on other trades (electrical, general/architectural, etc) in order to arrive at total lifecycle costs. The selected AC units were one of the most expensive options on a first cost basis but they were also the most efficient, and we were able to justify the selection to the owner on a life-cycle cost basis. While the energy efficiency of the selected option is reflected in credit EA 1, the overall cost savings to the project and the fact that we were able to justify a more expensive option through life cycle cost analysis are not reflected in other LEED credits. Therefore, we feel this innovative equipment selection process should be considered for an innovation credit. Submittals: