Rating System

LEED O+M: Existing Buildings

Rating System Version

v3 - LEED 2008

Inquiry

The project is a two story building in rural Pennsylvania. The 55,000 sf building opened in 2001 and consists of a 12,200 sf exhibit space, above a 41,000 sf global data center, with ancillary spaces totaling approximately 1,800 sf on the lower floor. The EBOM Reference Guide offers 3 compliance paths to document energy performance for EA prerequisite 2 and EA credit 1. This CIR is attempting to get clarification on an acceptable approach to establishing a baseline for these credits prior to initiating the project application. The EBOM reference guide has the following options to develop a baseline: Option A: This is an inappropriate path as the building cannot be rated by Energy Star, more than 50% of building is classified as a data center. Option B: The USGBC EAc1 Option B&C Offline calculator indicates that the project should follow an Option C compliance path per Question C4 as more than 10% of the project building space is classified as a "data center". Option C1: The CBECS "Other" category includes a wide range of buildings from very energy intensive spaces (such as laboratories) to spaces with low energy intensity (such as aircraft hangers). As our project type is closer to the highest intensity spaces listed in the "other" category, this comparison appears to contain too many unknowns to be helpful to the project and establish an accurate baseline worthy of comparison to. Option C2: This option cannot be used as the project does not have 3 years of complete historical utility data available for all end uses. The last option available to us is to use Option C3. Given the commercial sensitivity around the energy performance of comparable data centers, the project team has had difficulty gaining any access to comparable utility data. However, we have access to an available data set from the New Building\'s Institute as found in their report entitled "Energy Performance of LEED for New Construction Buildings (March 2008)." The NBI report compares the EUI for a number of discrete building types, including one labeled "data centers" that we feel is appropriate to use. The report defines a data center as "all building types with high computer activity around the clock," which mirrors our project. In addition, the NBI data is generated from six projects, which exceeds the three representative buildings that Option C3 requires. Finally, the EUIs in the NBI study were generated based on the most recent 12 months of utility data for purchased site energy and included all end uses in each case. By logging our data for 12 months, we feel that we can use the NBI study as a baseline for comparison with our project. Can you confirm that we can use the data set of "Data Centers" as contained in the NBI study referenced above as a baseline for our project?