INTRODUCTION: Our project is a 239,122 SF brick manufacturing facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. The project consists of 6,122 SF of air-conditioned office space, control rooms and electrical room, and 233,000 SF of non-conditioned manufacturing area, that includes extrusion, drying, and kiln equipment. The energy required for the manufacturing process exceeds 95% of the facility\'s total energy load. Since industrial energy usage does not fall under purview of ASHRAE 90.1-2004, and in accordance with Credit Interpretation Ruling by USGBC and EA TAG for NCv2.2 EAc2 dated 06/15/2007, an alternative compliance path must be established for the manufacturing portion of the facility. Additionally, our Client has selected a site that is directly adjacent to a municipal landfill, with plans to fuel the kiln with methane off-gassing from the landfill. Our Client has obtained permission from the landfill to tap into this energy source. As part of our project scope, we will install compressors and an underground pipeline to transport the landfill gas to the manufacturing facility. The 06/15/2007 CIR ruled that, among other things, this system does qualify as "on-site renewable energy," provided that process energy is included in energy loads for EAc1 and EA prerequisite 2. APPROACH: For the fully conditioned portion of the facility we will use ASHRAE 90.1-2004 Appendix G performance Rating Method. Pursuant to the EAc2 CIR dated 06/15/2007, an alternative compliance path will be established for the manufacturing portion of the facility. Those two energy saving results will be combined to fill out the EAc1 Submittal Template and come up with overall cost savings for the whole facility. The methane from the landfill will replace the majority of natural gas that powers the kiln and vastly reduce the amount of on-grid energy required by the facility. During facility operation, a 25% of natural gas (supplied from the local natural gas utility company) and 75% of landfill gas will be utilized for facility needs (these numbers are conservative and are used for calculations). Please verify that the following methodology may be used to calculate baseline and design case process loads and the resulting energy savings. PROPOSED COMPLIANCE PATH FOR PROCESS LOADS: a) Manufacturing process baseline: the gas usage baseline model is established based on the historical operational data for fiscal year 2006 for all 21 US brick manufacturing operations. The equivalent established as the measure of kiln efficiency is "BTU of energy required per pound of standard brick." Plant operations monitor and record how many BTUs per pound of brick are required over time and those data establish a yearly average (BTU/pound) for the given facility. Calculated averages are then summed up for all 21 US locations to come up with an overall mean value representing the average kiln efficiency. Also, baseline usage is calculated using 100% natural gas supplied by the local natural gas utility company, which is the brick industry standard. The cost of gas is based on the NYMEX published value of $6.44/Mbtu, which is within a fraction of a percent of the local natural gas utility company (Ohio Valley Gas, Inc.) charge. Natural gas usage for infrared heating and potable water heating within manufacturing area is assumed to be the same for both the baseline and design case. Electrical baseline usage is established based on the historical data for the plant of the similar size and capacity (manufacturing facility in Phenix City, Alabama). Design connected electrical load for manufacturing equipment at this location is 2800kW. Diversity factor ranges from 55% to 75% - diversity factor represents ratio of peak demand kW and design connected load. Electrical energy usage in kWh represents actual plant electrical consumption. b) Manufacturing process proposed alternative: the proposed model is based on actual predicted plant operations with 75% landfill gas usage, and 25% natural gas usage coming from the local utility company. The contractual landfill gas charge is 50% of NYMEX published value. The kiln efficiency was set to be manufacturers guaranteed maximum value of 820 BTU/pound (in reality, and based on the previous experience, this number will vary and can be as low as 670 BTU/pound). Electrical proposed usage is established based on the design parameters for new plant and operational factors obtained from the historical usage data for the existing baseline model. Design connected electrical load for manufacturing equipment for proposed design is 2150kW. Diversity factor is set to be 75%. In order to minimize trade-offs between the diversity factor for the baseline and design case, the proposed design represents the maximum diversity factor figure obtained from baseline model (most conservative approach). Electrical energy usage in kWh is calculated by applying the hourly factor of consumption to peak plant demand. The hourly factor is empirically obtained from the baseline model. c) To determine percentage of renewable energy cost, proposed model will be compared to the model of same efficiency but with 100% natural gas supplied from the local utility company. Credit Interpretation Request: Please confirm that our conservative assumptions and method of calculating the process energy load for both the base and proposed design cases are acceptable for EAc1.