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The goal of this discovery phase is to gain an initial understanding of the building’s existing conditions, current challenges and potential opportunities. The data and insights gathered during this phase will be used to create the building’s calibrated energy model. Key activities in this workstream include:
This workstream is critically important for several reasons. First, it grounds the team in the reality of the building’s current performance. It also helps build a jointly owned process of uncovering early energy or carbon reduction opportunities that can increase trust and enthusiasm to identify more complex measures as the project progresses. At the end of this phase, the team should have a clear understanding of the building energy systems, its historical energy and carbon profile, the potential impact of local laws or other building requirements, opportunities for additional metering, and preliminary energy and carbon reduction opportunities.
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Learn the BuildingThis workstream provides vital information on current challenges, near and longer-term carbon reduction opportunities and the accuracy of the energy model. It also creates early wins that build momentum and trust. Getting the most out of this work requires trust-based collaboration across facilities managers, operations staff, the energy modeler, external contractors and design engineers. Engaging with tenants to get insight into what drives their loads can also be valuable to the process. Data and insights on the existing conditions of the building typically arise from four sources:
Each source is important, but it is the integration across these four categories of data that leads to deep operational insights and identification of major areas of opportunity.
Getting the most out of this work requires trust-based collaboration across facilities managers, operations staff, the energy modeler, external contractors and design engineers. Engaging with tenants to get insight into what drives their loads can also be valuable to the process.
Gather Information: In this phase, project teams should work with the building management and operations teams to collect the information shown below here in the sample Information Gathering Checklist:
Survey the Building:Understanding a building’s existing conditions requires time on-site. Design drawings, operator interviews, and utility data all provide valuable insight, but do not capture the nuances of how the building runs day-in and day-out. Project teams should plan to conduct an initial site walkthrough to confirm high level information about the building equipment, systems and operations strategies shortly after project kickoff. As the study unfolds, additional site visits to verify information, gain additional clarity on certain conditions, or evaluate the feasibility of implementing ECMs will be necessary. The more time the project team spends in the building, the easier it will be to reflect the building’s existing conditions in the building energy model and to develop ECMs that are feasible. When walking the building, the team should evaluate the following:
Deploy Additional Metering (if required): Collecting documentation and surveying the building will highlight gaps in data or information needed to build a calibrated energy model. To fill these gaps, the project team may elect to deploy additional metering to capture the missing information. Metering ultimately reduces speculation and provides real-time insight into the building’s operations. Project teams should execute the following steps when developing a metering strategy:
Observe and Test Systems:Building system assessments and functional tests are great ways to capture operating parameters, evaluate performance, and identify issues that can be resolved with retro-commissioning. Project teams should conduct some or all the following building tests to further inform the study:
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Build the "Business-as-Usual" Base CaseBuilding the business-as-usual (BAU) base case occurs between the Discovery and Energy Modeling phases and includes an analysis of the building’s utility data to gain insight into how the building uses energy at a high level and how that consumption translates to carbon emissions. From this analysis, the project team will be able to evaluate the building’s exposure to mandates such as Local Law 97.
Building the BAU base case requires obtaining one full year of utility data, at a minimum.
Utility Analysis (Baseline Condition): As the project team learns the building, one full year of utility data (at a minimum) will be collected. The project team should visualize this data on a monthly basis to further develop its understanding of how and when the building uses energy. The following list of questions can be used to guide the analysis:
Based on the results of this activity, the project team will begin to form hypotheses about how building systems interact, which end uses are the most energy intensive, and where deeper energy and carbon reduction strategies may be pursued. Building Performance Standard Impact Analysis:Depending on the jurisdiction in which the deep energy retrofit study is taking place, it may be beneficial for the project team to evaluate the building’s current performance against mandates or building performance standards (BPS) that are in effect. In New York City, for example, Local Law 97 is a BPS that many building owners are focused on. Other jurisdictions may have energy use intensity (EUI) targets or other metrics for performance. The outcome of the impact analysis may help to inform the overall decarbonization approach for the building. Project teams should execute the following steps to conduct a BPS impact analysis:
During the energy retrofit process, the team will discover simple ways to reduce energy consumption that can be implemented almost immediately. With real-time data, the BMS allows the team to analyze how effective the changes to the system are.
Deliverables for this task include the following:
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Identify Preliminary ECMs & Carbon Reduction Strategies
Based on the work completed during the “Learn the Building” and “Build the BAU Base Case” tasks, the project team should already have a sense of the ECMs that are a good fit for the building. The project team should review the outcomes of the work done up to this point and develop a list of preliminary strategies so the team can level set on an approach as the project enters the Energy & Carbon Modeling phase.
Develop a Tiered List of ECMs: Through the document collection and building system assessments, the project team likely identified low or no-cost operational items that can be implemented immediately. These simple items should be grouped and presented as Tier 1 measures. Deeper measures that require more upfront capital and/or have a longer lead time should be separated out into Tier 2 items. Tiers can be based upon cost or timeframe for implementation. Categorizing measures in this way will support building owner decision-making. Conduct a Qualitative Assessment of ECMs: Once the measures are appropriately categorized into tiers, the project team should generate a qualitative assessment of each measure, based on metrics that are important to the building management team. For example, one building team may identify disruption to tenants as their primary go/no-go metric when deciding which strategies deserve deeper analysis. Metrics will vary from project to project. Figure - Energy and Carbon Reduction Measures Qualitative Review (Vornado Playbook by JB&B) Present and Solicit Feedback:Present the tiered list of ECMs, along with the qualitative assessment, and solicit feedback from the building management team. Eliminate ideas that don’t meet the team’s decarbonization approach and welcome new items that the building team may want to pursue that were not originally considered. This process will bolster team engagement and ensure that time spent in the energy model is dedicated to measures that will be considered seriously by the building team for implementation.
The output of this task will be a finalized list of energy reduction strategies to study the next phase: the Energy & Carbon Modeling Phase.
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