Commissioning Building Systems for Improved Energy Performance Project

Summary:

NIST will advance commercial building system commissioning as a standard quality assurance practice by developing techniques to automate labor-intensive commissioning processes, establishing industry-accepted metrics for improved documentation of the quality and persistence of benefits, and incorporating improvements into high-impact industry best practice guidelines.

Description:

Objective: To improve the operating efficiency of building systems by 10 % to 30 % by providing the measurement science that enables improved building commissioning practices and accelerating the adoption of cost-effective commissioning as standard practice through (1) documentation and demonstration of the economic benefits, (2) development and field implementation of a comprehensive set of automated commissioning tools for commercial HVAC systems, and (3) transferring the proven technologies to the private sector by 2013.

What is the new technical idea? To be effective, commissioning results must become an integral part of the day-to-day practice of building managers and operators. The new idea is to build software tools with embedded intelligence that will automate labor-intensive commissioning processes, to develop measurement systems that can monitor component and system performance in buildings, and document key building metrics that practitioners can use to address the lack of performance data for the U.S. building stock. The advanced automation and data collection capabilities of modern control systems for commercial buildings already have the capability of supporting automation, and the commissioning industry has best practice guidelines that can be used to develop automated tools for sector-specific applications. The use of automated tools would improve cost-effectiveness and quality, and the results of the energy and cost benefits of commissioning practices for commercial and high-risk residential projects can be documented and disseminated. Access to measured building performance information, operational measures such as energy and water use, and before and after commissioning performance data, would provide the necessary comparison benchmarks to facilitate ongoing building performance evaluation.

What is the research plan? NIST will enable the development and commercialization of automated commissioning tools and embedded intelligence building control systems. The research plan has a two-pronged approach, one advancing the development of automated commissioning and the second establishing protocols for key metrics to document building performance and commissioning benefits. The key tasks will be:

Developing and testing prototype tools for automated commissioning in a laboratory environment and conducting field tests with industry partners;

Developing information models, validation tools, and performance metrics to enable advanced building control systems with automated commissioning capabilities

Establishing methodologies for documenting energy benefits, non-energy benefits, and persistence of benefits, leveraging the outcomes of International Energy Agency (IEA) Annex 47 including the Cost-benefit Methodology proposed by Annex participants.

Promoting the creation of industry-adopted, on-line databases that are publically available and searchable, providing access to relevant, sector-specific data.

Initial development of commissioning tools was guided by analytical work and used the Virtual Cybernetic Building Testbed (VCBT) under a broad range of conditions to systematically explore the effects of weather conditions and faults for mechanical equipment, including sensors, and control system logic errors. The priority of the next phase will be to collaborate with industry partners (such as Montgomery College or the General Services Administration) for field trials in buildings. The expected outcomes are tools to automate commissioning processes that have been proven in real world commissioning settings, and a knowledge base that can form the basis for new industry best practices guidelines establishing commissioning as business as usual in the U.S. ASHRAE's protocols combined with Annex 47 outputs will form the basis for standardized measures, creating an ideal platform for inclusion of commissioning performance data for a wide range of building types and climate zones into an existing national effort.

The final component of this research will advance the development of process models that are needed to capture and represent information throughout the building lifecycle. NIST will leverage existing process modeling methods, using the Integrated DEFinition (IDEF) method to systematically and hierarchically describe the internal information flow for building commissioning of a simplified test case as a proof-of-concept for the ongoing commissioning of more complex commercial buildings. Although the focus of this research is on high-performance commercial buildings, the NIST Net Zero Energy Residential Test Facility will serve as the test case to document the system requirements and functional performance testing that are part of the commissioning process.

Major Accomplishments:

Recent Results:

Outputs:

"Commissioning Overview", Edited by Chloé Legris, Natascha Milesi Ferretti and Daniel Choinière, 2010, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Natural Resources Canada

"Flow Charts and Data Models for Initial Commissioning of Advanced and Low Energy Building Systems", Edited by Ömer Akin, Natascha Milesi Ferretti, Daniel Choiniere and David Claridge, 2010, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Natural Resources Canada

"Commissioning Tools for Existing and Low energy Buildings", Edited by Christian Neumann, Harunori Yoshida, Daniel Choinière and Natascha Milesi Ferretti, 2010, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Natural Resources Canada

"Commissioning Cost-Benefit and Persistence of Savings", Edited by Hannah Friedman, David Claridge, Daniel Choinière and Natascha Milesi Ferretti, 2010, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Natural Resources Canada

Awarded contract for ASHRAE research to establish consistent and standardized reporting protocols and a database for reliable performance data gathered in the commissioning process, based on the ASHRAE Performance Measurement Protocols for Commercial Buildings and Annex 47 outputs.

NIST commissioning research and Annex 47 project presented to IEA Japan (November 2010)

N. S. Castro and D. Choiniere. "Tune into High Performance Buildings: Reducing Energy and Costs through Proper Commissioning" International Energy Agency ECBCS News, Issue 50. December 2009

Outcomes:

CITE-AHU tool for automated commissioning of air-handling units

Standard cost-benefit methodology documenting commissioning benefits applied to 54 case studies^[1]

Completion of IEA Annex 47 Cost Effective Commissioning of Existing and Low Energy Buildings.

Impacts:

The commissioning process details from the IEA annexes are increasingly recognized internationally as a best practice and are the basis for draft national standards in France, Finland, Japan and Norway.

Standards and Codes: NIST investigators will leverage participation in ASHRAE Guideline Committees to introduce improvements to best practice guidelines, including Guideline 0-2005 on The Total Commissioning Process, and Guideline 1.1-2007 HVAC&R Technical Requirements for The Commissioning Process, which is a natural place for the results of this work. Additionally, ISO/TC 205 is developing standards for building control systems that can be used to disseminate these results internationally.

[1] http://www.iea-annex47.org/eng/public_documents/data_collection_project.html