Rating System

LEED BD+C: New Construction

Rating System Version

v2 - LEED 2.2, v2 - LEED 2.0

Inquiry

The Seymour- Capilano Water Filtration Plant has a 30,000 ft Operations and Maintenance Centre. The Operations and Maintenance Centre is connected to the main filtration plant process areas (approximately 160,000 ft¦), which are not considered part of the LEED registration. The filtration plant process areas contain equipment, such as pumps, filters, blowers, UV disinfection equipment, etc. The enclosed spaces that contain process equipment have minimal freeze protection heating and condensation control ventilation. Only the Operations and Maintenance Centre is what might be considered "regularly occupied" (it contains offices, meeting rooms, labs, control rooms, etc.). We have included the energy required for heating and ventilating all of the areas (both filtration plant process and O&M Centre) in the energy analysis, for compliance with EA Prerequisite 2 and EA Credit 1. This was done for the following reasons: The entire facility is heated and cooled using a central geothermal system, including heat recovery from some of the process loads that is used to heat the total facility. Considering the integrated heating/ cooling system, splitting the energy consumption between the O&M Centre and the filtration plant process would be problematic and arbitrary. ASHRAE 90.1-1999, the energy performance standard referenced by LEED, applies to whole and contiguous facilities. As stated by the Standard, it applies to buildings that are enclosed and "afford shelter to persons, animals, or property." The standard applies to the envelope of a building, "provided that the enclosed spaces are 1. heated by a heating system whose output capacity is greater than or equal to 3.4 Btu/h-sf" (2.2.(a)). It also applies to "systems and equipment used in conjunction with buildings" for HVAC, service water heating, electrical power distribution and metering, motors and lighting. The CIR question is as follows: Since the filtration plant is only minimally heated and ventilated and since the heating and cooling energy for the operations building is derived from a common heating and cooling system that serves the total facilty, is it acceptable to include the energy consumption of the total facility in the energy model. The portion of the building with freeze protection only would likely be subject to the semi-heated space criteria in the envelope tables. Please provide specific energy modeling guidance for addressing the situation as described above, including the contribution of waste heat recovery from process equipment.