http://www.scientificconservation.com/ en michael.sacca@gmail.com Copyright 2010 2010-09-04T17:25:10+00:00 http://www.scientificconservation.com/blog/entry/installation_of_smart_meters_in_the_residential_space/ http://www.scientificconservation.com/blog/entry/installation_of_smart_meters_in_the_residential_space/#When:17:25:10Z Today I read an article on the issues associated with the installation of smart meters in the residential space. PG&E has received more than 4,000 complaints. It made me question why so many? Is it because of faulty equipment or a faulty implementation process? As a long time energy consultant for both industry and utilities I have found utilities to be exceptionally conservative when it comes to the selection configuration and installation of metering equipment. All meter “shops” are certified and must comply with rigorous standards that are traceable. Yes, there are cases (I have documented some myself) of improper metering of electricity but they are typically few and far between. So what has lead to the plethora of customer complaints? Transitions regardless of their origin or purpose are difficult at best. Whenever we are in a transitional state at minimum we question things surrounding the transition with greater focus than previously. I contend that this is what is happening with the smart meter program. By receiving more data in a new format with more clarity customers are much more sensitive to possible deviation verses their expectations. There are a number of ways to mitigate this issue. The most compelling is to provide graphical bill based information for the period before and after the change-out while overlaying predictions of what the customer should expect in the upcoming period. By doing so the customer can track any deviation from the expected and the utility can be more effective in providing a smooth transition. by David Wolins 2010-09-04T17:25:10+00:00 http://www.scientificconservation.com/blog/entry/definable_benefits_of_automated_continuous_commissioning/ http://www.scientificconservation.com/blog/entry/definable_benefits_of_automated_continuous_commissioning/#When:18:22:12Z Over the last several years, more and more facility owners are embracing the idea of building commissioning/re-commissioning. Indeed any facility with hopes of obtaining any degree of LEED certification must perform re-commissioning at least once every two years. The commissioning/re-commissioning process requires one to: 1. Collect building system data 2. Review existing operational parameters 3. Evaluate actual operations vs. operational requirements 4. Develop specific recommendations for improved operational efficiency 5. Develop a measurement and verification plan 6. Monitor for sustainable savings Automated Continuous Commissioning (ACC) delivers many definable benefits to the commissioning process.  Below are examples of how a commissioning agent and the end-user customer can leverage ACC to improve both the value of the commissioning while improving the sustainability of the operational efficiency. 1. Collecting building system data – SCIWatch acts as a data warehouse for the raw building system information including a list of equipment and key operating characteristics.  As a result, facility operators no longer have to hunt down this information on the job site. The SCIwatch software aggregates all available energy and control information, typically without need for gateways or additional hardware at the site. 2. Review existing operational parameters – In combination with the legwork done by the commissioning agent, SCIwatch provides a deeper “dive” by generating trend logs that run 24/7 vs. the very narrow time slice a commissioning agent sees while at the site. We often describe the difference as looking at a movie rather than a snap shot. The resulting operational information allows SCI to: a. Establish a traceable baseline b. Confirm operational conditions c. Rapidly identify sensor, control and schedule anomalies 3. Evaluate actual vs. required operating parameters – Aggregation and analysis of site data allows SCIwatch to identify the part load efficiency of mechanical equipment on a 24/7 basis.  This allows the commissioning agent and the customer to make sizing and operating decisions based on actual performance vs. rules of thumb. 4. Develop specific recommendations for improved operational efficiency – As an aggregation source for building specific data, SCIwatch lends its database to the commissioning agent as a source of actual building simulation source data.  Using this data, the commissioning agent can accurately assess the true economics of an energy efficiency improvement.  This takes the guesswork out of using assumptions input into building simulation systems by providing actual energy use data for every single system for an entire year along with actual interval weather data that matches the same period. 5. Develop a measurement and verification plan – Monitoring system and facility operations is integrated into the SCIwatch implementation.  The commissioning agent only needs to identify the variables relevant to the specific efficiency improvement to track the performance.  SCIwatch automatically issues alerts if there is degradation of operational efficiency. 6. Monitor for sustaining savings – The SCIwatch platform is designed to identify and predict degradation in operational efficiency.  By doing so the equipment is maintained at maximum energy efficiency while minimizing operational costs. These are a few examples of how the SCIwatch ACC solution helps the commissioning agent deliver an accurate, sustainable, easy to execute commissioning solution for buildings.  2009-08-12T18:22:12+00:00 http://www.scientificconservation.com/blog/entry/when_roi_is_a_bad_thing/ http://www.scientificconservation.com/blog/entry/when_roi_is_a_bad_thing/#When:19:15:45Z Customers often ask what kind of ROI they can expect from Automated Continuous Commissioning (ACC).  The simple answer is, if done properly, there is no ROI. Knowledgeable professionals in the industry often say the most sustainable energy is the energy never used. Similarly, the best ROI is the one that never happened.  Understandably, this can puzzle customers accustomed to traditional ROI metrics when trying to wrap their head around the old adage of “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The fact is, in the arena of ACC, ROI is a bad thing.  It means that something went wrong and you corrected it too late.  So how does one decide whether ACC is a good investment? Texas A&M’s Energy Systems Lab research points out that for buildings with manual continuous commissioning “the average measured utility savings are about 20 percent, with simple paybacks typically occurring in less than two years.”  This is the most basic, traditional measure of ROI. As such, it doesn’t factor in other critical considerations.  A few examples cited below will shed light on this. That said, the importance of commissioning is without dispute.  For its highly sought after LEED certification, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) thinks so strongly about commissioning that they have made it a requirement for anyone desiring any level of certification (with additional value given for continuous commissioning).  If looked at from that light, one can say that the average risk of not doing continuous commissioning is a 20 percent increase in energy cost.  But that is only a small part of the story. The key question is how often should one re-commission their facility?  LEED says no less than every two years.  Is two years the magic number?  Fact is, something really wrong can happen as soon as the commissioning agent packs up.  This is the case since commissioning agents don’t access data once the logging part of the commissioning process is complete.  Consequently, problems may go unsolved until that agent comes back, someone in the building notices the issue, or worse, never does get resolved.  Take the recent case of a high-end department store.  The house domestic water pumps were on the same schedule as the air conditioning systems.  Since the air conditioning systems came on a few hours before the store opened, the domestic water pumps were put on a separate schedule.  This cancelled the chiller schedule.  While this problem was discovered and the issue was quickly resolved via ACC, it raises the salient question: how long would this have gone un-noticed at a cost of $90.00 per day?  Four months?  Three days?  Who knows?  It’s entirely possible the issue wouldn’t have been addressed until the next time a commissioning agent went to the site two years later. There is another major benefit of continuous commissioning that is not accounted for in traditional energy savings ROI models.  A customer with two 450-ton chillers allowed one of the chillers to run at a very low part load.  This resulted in periodic surging of one of the units that would inevitably have caused the bearings to fail since the centrifugal compressor was operating at a lower part load than what was specified in the system design.  By catching this problem early, a failure costing thousands of dollars along with days of downtime and angry hot customers was avoided.  Proactively avoiding the cost of catastrophic failure and unscheduled downtime is a compelling and intuitive value of continuous monitoring.  But how should ACC’s ability to mitigate risk be included in the economic model?  Like vibration analysis and thermography before it, ACC breaks new barriers in the financial model.  Any major air conditioning manufacturer can give you excellent statistics of the average life of equipment.  Those statistics cannot be aligned to what would have happened if all that equipment was continuously monitored.  One thing is certain: the small cost of ACC pales in comparison to the benefits. This is not to suggest that ROI is unimportant in determining certain energy projects under consideration. However, to avoid some of those ROI’s in the first place, ACC is essential.  It is clear that energy professionals have relied upon traditional ROI metrics to gauge the value of energy efficiency solutions.  If we ignore the value of sustaining energy efficiency while not taking advantage of the benefits from continuous monitoring, we risk not only overvaluing efficiency gains, but continue to miss the opportunity to minimize the true cost of operations of buildings and their systems. 2009-07-13T19:15:45+00:00