GREENBUILD 2010
Rick Carter
I had the opportunity to attend GreenBuild again this year, as the President of the Minnesota Chapter of the US Green Building Council (USGBCMN) and on behalf of LHB. I wanted to document some of the trends I have seen regarding the measurement of actual performance data, considering GreenBuild to be the best source.
Three years ago, in May, 2007, LHB began collecting the actual energy and water use of the buildings we have designed. Based on the advice of our engineers and some outside research, we have been keeping track of whole building energy use in kBtu/sf/year and water usage in gallons/occupant/day. In addition, we have researched benchmarks (comparable uses) and have modeled predicated (simulated) use. Because of that, when I went to GreenBuild in 2008, I tried to find sessions on collecting actual data. I was only able to find one. It was good, but only one building’s data was presented and the session was mostly about why doing this would be a good idea. In early 2009, I discovered Kim Fowler, a researcher at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) who helped us determine how we could find comparable data for water consumption. I looked again while at GreenBuild in 2009 and only found one relevant session where Kim and another woman, Vivian Loftness from Carnegie Mellon presented a fair amount of actual data collected for GSA on public office buildings.
This year was kind of an explosion of performance data sessions. I found five or six sessions that appeared to cover that subject and I attended four that had good information. They were put on by PNNL, AIA, USGBC and ASHRAE, respectively. Below, I give a brief summary of each, and add a conclusion of where I think LHB is today and what specific steps we should take going forward. Each of these is essentially a program for collecting actual energy use. They are all similar in some ways and different in others. They all primarily focus on whole building energy use, in kBtu/sf/years as the first and most important metric. Also, most include whole building water use in gallons/occupant/day or consider it a next step. They all have future plans for deeper data collection and comparable data of some kind.
AIA 2030 COMMITMENT: REAL FIRMS MEETING THE REAL CHALLENGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
This is a system created by the AIA that goes a bit further than simply taking the 2030 Challenge (which LHB has done) by checking a box on a website and committing to doing some measuring. It requires a participating firm to write a letter of commitment from its CEO, appoint a leader, collect and submit information. The required information includes the number of projects completed in square foot area, the percent of projects where modeling is done, the Lighting Power Density (LPD) and Predicated Energy Use Intensity (PEUI) in kBtu/sf/year for the modeled projects. The information is located at www.aia.org/2030committment. The system generates reports using aggregate data.
The AIA hopes eventually to include the following: actual whole building energy use, regional targets, carbon conversions and water use. We are doing all of these today for most of our buildings, using the MN SB 2030 tool that we are helping to create and develop case studies for. I suggest we have someone do a little research and if it is not too time consuming, sign up. We have most of the information required already.
WHAT DOES GREEN MEAN? PERFORMANCE METRICS FOR SUSTAINABILITY
This was a presentation by several folks from the Pacific National Lab (PNNL), including Kim Fowler, mentioned above. As I learned last year, they have been doing a significant amount of data collection on Federal buildings, primarily GSA office buildings. They are gathering information on six metrics; energy use, water use, maintenance cost per sf, IAQ (measured in % satisfaction), waste generated and transportation (commuting miles). Most interesting was Kim’s indication that there are three levels of data gathering; Informative (gathering and reporting information), Investigative (analyzing and comparing the data) and Diagnostic (taking corrective action based on the data). This and the next two programs all had a similar three level approach to data collection. Since Kim’s program is based primarily on existing (not new or recently renovated) buildings, their primary goal is to fix buildings.
I don’t think there is a lot we can take directly from this system. I have downloaded a lot of their information in the past. Mainly, I think Kim is a great resource. I will reconnect with her and let her know what we are currently doing. She has been very willing to help in the past.
USGBC’S BUILDING PERFORMANCE PARTNERSHIP (BPP)
This is a program developed by staff at USGBC. The new version of LEED-NC 2009, requires the owner to agree to collect data. This is essentially a way to make that as easy as possible. The USGBC has also requested that past version users submit voluntarily. We have received requests on several of our LEED Certified projects. The participants are being asked to submit actual whole building energy use in kBtus/sf/year and whole building water use in gallons/occupant/day. There are currently 220 buildings included who have “opted in” voluntarily. The program generates a report that shows the use compared to a national benchmark (using CBECS or code driven comparable EUI). They consider this to be Phase I (like Investigative above) and plan Phase II to include finer grain reporting like monthly and energy normalized results.
We were asked by the speaker to consider this as the beginning of where LEED is headed. Two of the main catagories of credits (energy and water) will be collected first, then the others (Materials, IEQ, Site) eventually. This is being driven towards the owners, so I think we should assist a couple of our owners (like QBP), where we know the data is good, and get our projects in the system. They also provide customized reports for the specific building to the owner and publish aggregate data to the web
NEW ASHRAE PERFORMANCE METRIC PROTOCAL
This is a relatively new system created by ASHRAE. Initially, the system is promoting the collection of data in six areas: whole building energy and water use, and four Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) metrics; Thermal Comfort, Indoor Air Quality, Lighting and Acoustics. The energy and water data are actual metered data, calculated like the other systems above. The four IEQ metrics are based primarily on occupant surveys and spot measurements. Like the two above, this is also a three level process. The three levels are Basic or Indicative (collecting basic data), Intermediate or Diagnostic (deeper data and more fine grained reporting) and Advanced or Investigative (using the data to solve problems).
The document published recently (David just obtained one for LHB) is called “Performance Measurement Protocols for Commercial Buildings”. I am a bit more skeptical of this program. The energy and water metrics are the same as two of the other three and the IEQ emphasis is based on testing of spaces (expensive) and surveying occupants. I will talk more below about how we might approach these metrics. I think we should review the publication for this system. They are also about to publish a companion piece called “Best Practices for Evaluating and Improving the Performance of Commercial Buildings”. We should keep an eye out for that and get it as well.
