A private high school near Denver is a new campus that will consist of 3 main buildings - Arts, Athletics and Academics. The project is currently registered under LEED-NC 2.2 and we plan to use the LEED-NC Application Guide for Multiple Buildings and On-Campus Building Projects to guide us during design and documentation. The owner has chosen to register and pursue certification for the Academics and the Athletics buildings that are in the first phase of construction. They will be tracked and submitted together. The heating and cooling system consists of a central plant located in the Athletics building sized to provided chilled and hot water to all three main buildings (the two currently under design and the third that will follow at some point in the future). Should the energy model use the size of the chiller and boiler even though it is sized for all three buildings? Or should the energy model include a model for the proposed Arts building in order to more accurately determine part load performance and then subtract out the load of the other two buildings (all on a separate meters) when submitting the energy usage per building?
The LEED project consists of two new buildings served by a newly constructed campus central plant. The central plant capacity is sized to include a building that will be completed in a future phase of construction. The project team is seeking clarification regarding how to model the capacities for the central plant equipment. For the Proposed Building case, the plant capacities (including chiller, boiler and cooling tower capacities, and circulation loop flow) should be scaled to represent the portion of peak thermal loads contributed by the buildings included in the LEED submittal. For example, if the projected peak chilled water loads are 200 tons for the buildings included in this LEED submittal, and 100 tons for buildings planned for future construction, the chiller capacity modeled for this submittal would be two thirds multiplied by the installed chiller capacity. Pump head should be modeled as reflected in the design documents. If the Baseline Building HVAC system type for the project includes a central plant, the type and number of chillers or boilers modeled for the Baseline Building shall be based on the conditioned floor area for the current LEED submittal. Similarly the Baseline chilled water and hot water pump controls shall be modeled based on the conditioned floor area for the current LEED submittal.Update April 15, 2011: Please note that all 2009 projects in multiple building situations must follow the 2010 Application Guide for Multiple Buildings and On-Campus Building Projects, located here: https://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=7987. 2009 project teams should check this document for up to date guidance on all multiple building issues.