Rating System

LEED O+M: Existing Buildings

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.0

Inquiry

Sherbrooke\'s Cegep campus is composed of six buildings with different facilities for a total of 780,000 square feet. First of all, the buildings are not addressed by ENERGY STAR, because they refer to college campus buildings instead of K-12 schools, so the alternate calculation method should be used. We are requesting a credit interpretation. The main reason is because we cannot create the baseline consumption for each building based on the alternate calculation method despite the fact that each building meets the equivalent of an EPA ENERGY STAR rating over 67. The campus has only one electricity meter and one natural gas meter. To determine the historical average per building, we should use, as recommended, three years of data for each building, but we only have the historical data for total campus consumption. Sub-metering systems will be installed within the next month to begin preparing a historical energy consumption report per building. However, sub-metering cannot be done for the three years prior to the ESCO (Energy Service Contracting) project presented to our client and the measures implemented. Given that this project is not addressed under the ENERGY STAR rating and is based on a calculation method that requires unavailable data, we need to find another way of obtaining this prerequisite. All the relevant data useful to evaluate this project are present below. Annual energy used: 70,401,960 kbtu (average for 2003-2004-2005) Annual energy used: 45,186,230 kbtu (after ESCO project) EIU: 90.7 kbtu/sq. ft (average for 2003-2004-2005) EIU: 57.9 kbtu/sq. ft. (after ESCO project) Average-Site EUI, College/University (campus-level): 120 kbtu/sq. ft. Average-Site EUI, Quebec\'s College: 83.5 kbtu/sq. ft. The first average site EUI has been found on the EPA Web site, but the lack of specifications on the weather conditions or building size makes the comparison inaccurate. So we calculated another average-site EUI based on the energy records (see reference) of the 48 cegeps in Quebec. We chose 12 of them that are a similar size and have similar heating and cooling loads. In both cases, our future EUI is low enough to satisfy the higher standard. According to our energy balance calculations, this project guaranteed our client a reduction of 34.7% in the campus\'s annual consumption. This reduction will be primarily obtained by implementing two FIMS. Boiler room upgrades and Control Optimization will represent 11% and 15% savings on the campus\'s annual consumption, for a total of 26%. The two FIMS will reduce the consumption of each building by between 21% and 29%. Other specific FIMS will be implemented to achieve the 34.7% target. Delaying the implantation of these FIMS to carry out the sub-metering for three years in order to respect the alternative calculation method will harm the project\'s profitability and could force us to reconsider the certification project despite the fact that we are confident that we will obtain Silver certification. In addition, delaying the ESCO project will have an adverse environmental impact since it will mean that 1825 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually will not be reduced, which is 88% of the total CO2 emissions based on the energy consumption of the campus. The same effect is expected for NOx emissions. In conclusion, if we compare our data with the two different calculation methods for the ENERGY STAR RATING, we respect this prerequisite. This project presents a 34% reduction in consumption, about twice of the percentage needed to achieve this prerequisite. The second method consists of a percentile ranking of our campus. After the ESCO project on the campus, 93% of the 48 cegeps had a superior consumption per square foot compared with that of Sherbrooke\'s cegep, versus the 27% before the ESCO project. Reference:MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, RECREATION AND SPORTS, Energy balances of the college buildings network, http://www.mels.gouv.qc.ca/ens-sup/ens-coll/Csom03-04-05.xls , accessed February 10.