Joshua Kace, Director of Engineering will be speaking about, “Sub-Metering & Energy Conservation in Existing Buildings: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach & Case Study”, at the 2016 WEEC Conference.
As buildings evolve over their lifespan, through tenant fitouts, electrical/HVAC upgrades, etc, meter systems have historically ‘fallen behind’ these changes to the building, reducing accurate meter coverage of various end-uses, including tenant and base building loads. Compounding the issue, retrofits to existing metering systems (or new metering systems to existing buildings) can prove incredibly costly and disruptive to tenants and other building occupants. This leads to buildings that either mis-allocate energy use to tenants (with certain tenants paying more or less than they should), or flat-fee rent-inclusion which dis-incentivizes energy conservation among tenants. It also hampers the ability to properly measure the effectiveness of energy efficiency upgrades in buildings. Advances in metering technology and multi-disciplinary analysis offer hope to property management clients looking to take back control of their cost allocations and re-incentivize electricity conservation amongst tenants. This case study and technical presentation will review a recent project completed by CodeGreen Solutions at a 270,000 Sq Ft commercial office building in Woodbridge, NJ. The project scope included retrofit and commissioning of an existing submetering system (installed in 1984), in addition to a holistic energy reduction plan (in accordance with NJCEP’s P4P Program) including lighting switchouts, gut HVAC retrofits, and the installation of an energy recovery ventilator. We will address some of the challenges faced by buildings looking to retrofit metering systems, both for the purposes of measurement & verification of energy conservation measures and proper cost allocations to tenants. We will also cover the advantages of an integrated approach to building performance improvements (from metering to energy auditing), and how a multi-disciplinary approach to energy use in buildings proves critical when the costs of direct sub-metering prove cost prohibitive.
