Monday, October 30, 2006

Washington State Utility Rates

Topic: Provide quick access to current utility rates in Washington state.

Notes:
(1) PSE Electric Schedules: 7 Residential, 31 General Commercial
(2) PSE Gas Schedules: 23 Residential, 31 General Commercial, 36 Special Educational

Thursday, October 19, 2006

eQuest Transfer Air and Other Notes

Topic: Document notes from internal meeting on above referenced topic

Friday, October 13, 2006

Combining the High-Performance Building Alternative

Note page 25 excerpted from Washington State ELCCA Guidelines, which documents the acceptable criteria for using one of the previously-studied alternatives as the High-Performance Building (HPB) alternative.

According to the criteria, the HPB alternative may use ANY previously studied alternative, PROVIDED that it meets the energy savings goal of the LEED scorecard. IF the previously studied alternative will meet the energy goal only with a some modification (e.g. the addition of heat recovery and/or demand ventilation) THEN the MODIFIED ALTERNATIVE may be used as the HPB. However a modified alternative is still another alternative, and so must be analyzed equivalent to the others.

Note that the HPB alternative does not necessarily need to be based on the 'Renewable' alternative. But 'waste heat recovery' can qualify many of the systems we design as renewable alternatives (see Table 4.3 the ELCCA Guidelines, at the top of page 25), and this feature will help significantly in attaining the LEED energy goal.

So what is the 'energy goal' referred to by LEED as the benchmark criteria?

The energy goal is defined per ASHRAE 90.1-2004 Appendix G as the energy savings required of the HPB over the Baseline Building (BLB):

LEED 2.1 EAc1:

1 Point New Buildings 10.5% Existing Buildings & Renovations 3.5%
2 Points New Buildings 14% Existing Buildings & Renovations 7%
3 Points New Buildings 17.5% Existing Buildings & Renovations 10.5%
4 Points New Buildings 21% Existing Buildings & Renovations 14%
5 Points New Buildings 24.5% Existing Buildings & Renovations 17.5%
6 Points New Buildings 28% Existing Buildings & Renovations 21%
7 Points New Buildings 31.5% Existing Buildings & Renovations 24.5%
8 Points New Buildings 35% Existing Buildings & Renovations 28%
9 Points New Buildings 38.5% Existing Buildings & Renovations 31.5%
10 Points New Buildings 42% Existing Buildings & Renovations 35%


Attaining LEED Silver requires 33-38 points on the LEED Scorecard; the ELCCA Guidelines further stipulate that no less than four points shall be earned from the 'Energy Optimization' portion of the scorecard for the HPB alternative.

So, the bottom line is that the HPB alternative is required to show improved savings of 21% for new construction, and 14% for existing buildings and renovations over the BLB.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

ELCCA Templates

Topic: Use modified templates to expedite the preparation of required forms.

Templates use a "prior job" format to demonstrate what the completed form should look like, and a color key macros to simplify differentiation between changed and unchanged work.

Note: The above link(s) are only valid within the HEI intranet. Firefox users install the "IE Tab Plug-in", then right-click the link and select "Open in IE Tab" from the context menu.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Energy Analysis Glossary

CHP = Combined Heat and Power
COP = Coefficient of Performance, ratio of energy output divided by energy input

DER = Distributed Energy Resource

EER = Energy Efficiency Ratio, the COP times 3.412
EIR = Energy Input Ratio, the inverse of COP
ELCCA = Energy Life Cycle Cost Analysis

LEED Leadership Energy and Environmental Design

NREC Non-Residential Energy Code

WSSP Washington Sustainable Schools Protocol

The Public Facilities Energy Characteristics (PFEC) Form

Topic: The Washington State Facilities Energy Characteristics (PFEC) form is integral part of every ELCCA report.

  • For projects less than 25,000 sf, or where the renovations total less than 50% of the value of the facility, then the PFEC alone suffices to satisfy State of Washington Department of E&A Services energy analysis requirements.
  • Show common data required on the PFEC and NREC forms.
Updated PFEC Template with improved formulas, comments, and color-coded data entry. [Note this linking to a local file doesn't seem to be working... investigate]

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

ELCCA Process Flow & Report Structure Diagrams

Future Topic: Post a link to the ELCCA process flow diagram, generate an ELCCA report structure/outline diagram.