We are designing a project that will be seeking LEED certification with DES supplied district cooling. The project involves a large capital expenditure and recovery for district cooling infrastructure. This capital recovery fee and subsequent maintenance fees from the district cooling significantly affect the price for delivered chilled water. We are requesting a CIR regarding the recently adopted Required Treatment of District Thermal Energy in LEED-NC version 2.2, Version 1.0 May 22, 2008. The question specifically relates to the third sentence of the section of the document below: Energy Model Implementation - Energy Rates Energy rates for both the proposed and baseline buildings must be identical to each other for the corresponding energy types, and are defined in the models as follows: Step 1 (Building stand-alone method) - energy rates for all non-DES-supplied energy are assigned using the normal ASHRAE and LEED modeling rules, using the local utility rate schedules as they would normally apply to the project building. "All DES-supplied energy is modeled using the actual purchased energy rates if it is purchased from a third-party organization (i.e., private DES utility or municipal system)." If the DES-supplied energy is not actually purchased, (i.g., if a single organization owns or operates both the DES and the satellite project building, or if the DES uses free qualifying renewable energy generated on-site), can we use approximations of local market rates as explained in the LEED-NC v2.2 Reference Guide? Our project includes substantial costs related to creating and building the infrastructure within our development to deliver the DES-supplied chilled water. Along with those costs, there are maintenance fees associated with the utility owned DES plant that are also included in the cost of the delivered chilled water to DES purchasers. The delivered price of chilled water, per ton-hour, is $0.2031 per ton-hour. This amount, however, includes Capital Recovery and Maintenance fees in the amount of $0.1094 per ton hour, which would make the actual manufactured purchased price for chilled water $0.0937 per ton hour. When modeling our buildings for this project, would there be a requirement to hold the cost model constant (Building Stand Alone Method) to include all fees ($0.2031 per ton hour), or can we exclude the Capital Recovery and Maintenance fees from our model. When modeling traditional mechanical systems, the capital (equipment) and maintenance costs would not be included in purchased electricity rates for local generation of chilled water. In order to make the energy-based cost comparison fair, those same maintenance and capital costs should be allowed to be removed from the DES energy model as well. The inclusion of capital and maintenance costs penalizes the DES systems unfairly when comparing them to other traditional systems in the energy modeling. What is USGBC recommended approach regarding this issue?
The applicant is requesting that the capital recovery and maintenance fees for DES-supplied chilled water be excluded from the purchased energy rate. The actual purchased energy rates must be used to model the DES-supplied energy costs per the LEED reference document identified in the request (https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=4176) since the project purchases DES-supplied energy from a third-party organization. The actual purchased DES energy rate is the delivered price of the chilled water (i.e., $0.2031 per ton-hour), which includes capital recovery and maintenance fees. The applicant does not seem to understand the DES guidance document. In the situation that has been mentioned (Step 1), the energy source is modeled as purchased energy (same rate) in both the baseline and proposed cases. Therefore, the DES is cost neutral, and the capital and maintenance costs should not penalize the DES system. In Step 2 (to determine EAc1 points), the DES is modeled as a virtual (on-site) plant in the proposed case and compared to a code-compliant on-site plant in the baseline case. In this scenario, the purchased rates are not used in either the proposed or baseline cases. Applicable Internationally.