Building Performance

The relative dearth of performance data for high performance buildings, combined with the ongoing need to educate the public and design communities about advancements in building technologies and performance, led us to include a whole building energy monitoring and data-logging system in our building design and construction plans. The energy monitoring system, funded in large part by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, provides the numeric underpinnings for evaluating building performance and forms the core of an ongoing program of outreach to the public and the design community.

Measurements of energy intensity (BTU/ft2/year) for our first year of occupancy indicate a 73% reduction from our previous facilities.

The energy monitoring system measures and logs data from 75 discrete sensors mounted on mechanical and electrical equipment throughout the facility, including sensors for recording outdoor environmental data. These data are then synthesized and recalculated to produce the units and trends that are reported in the following web pages:

• Energy Flow (real-time snapshot of energy sources and loads)
• System Detail (real-time performance of HVAC systems)
• Performance Trends (interactive charts of energy sources and loads - ActiveX - requires Internet Explorer)
• Meteorological Trends (interactive charts of weather conditions - ActiveX - requires Internet Explorer)

Current Results

Since the occupation of the Ordway building in March of 2003, the facility has performed close to our originally modeled expectations. Over the past year (4/2004 - 5/2005), total energy usage was 92,680 kWhrs with 29,280 being generated onsite by our photovoltaic system. The remaining 63,400 kWhrs was pulled from the electric grid. The upshot of this is that 32% of our facility’s total energy requirement was provided by the PV system.

Even with a facility that is nearly twice the size of our old combined offices and labs, we are using less total energy and spending less money on energy while reducing emissions attributable to our operations to 43% of our previous total (21% of the national office average for a building of the same size). With the installation of a wind turbine this will probably drop to zero, or even to negative emissions, meaning that we will effectively be reducing the emissions attributable to our neighborhood.

Anticipated Future Results

The accumulation and analysis of the data produced by our monitoring system will allow us to quantify the performance of the facility and its subsystems to reduce the perceived risk for prospective clients, engineers, architects and mechanical designers. Even without renewable energy sources a building with excellent envelope characteristics and low temperature distribution systems can substantially reduce peak system output requirements. Data on such performance should help engineers to feel more comfortable ïn "right-sizing" mechanical systems to operate more efficiently.

In addition, we hope that our data will demonstrate long-term cost-effectiveness of the energy efficiency strategies and renewable energy systems employed in this office building, and how these investments significantly reduce the risks associated with continued reliance on fossil and nuclear energy sources.

Sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide are all by-products of the combustion of fossil fuels with negative impacts on climate, health and air`quality. Our emissions in our new building are 60 - 70% less than in our former facilities.

©Woods Hole Research Center, 2007