 |
MEASUREMENT & VERIFICATION
|
 Imagine trying to determine
the fuel mileage of your vehicle if you didn't have an odometer. Did you go to the store two times or three
this tank? How far exactly is it to work? You paid for a fuel-efficient vehicle, but
are you getting your money's worth, or did you buy a hybrid and get the mileage
of an SUV? You know what you are
putting in, but what are you getting out?
A new building is much like
that vehicle. You invested your time
and capital into designing and constructing a facility, and you have had
building simulations run to let you know how much energy or resources your
building is going to cost you. But now
your building is in operation and you begin to question, "How much did we
really save?" or "Why do our utility bills not match what we predicted?"
Were your expectations
unreasonable, or is your building not operating in a manner consistent with the
original analysis?
Determining the cause of
the differences is not easy. Many
factors affect energy or resource usage.
These can include: weather,
occupant patterns, ventilation rates, indoor air temperatures, production
rates, and many others. Without
adjusting for all relevant factors, your savings level is in question.
Measurement and
verification (M&V) allows you to break down the facility into manageable pieces to
adjust for the various relevant factors to determine if and where discrepancies
occurred. Each individual system or
piece of equipment can be verified against the original energy use model. Examining the data may reveal opportunities to adjust equipment
operation to optimize or minimize resource usage.
|
|
|
M&V FOR LEED® CREDIT
|
Unlike many of the other
LEED® credits, measurement and verification does not involve installing any equipment or features that
save energy or resources. In
many cases, if a building is operating as intended, no additional savings may be
realized. However, measurement and verification has significant
potential for benefit.
LEED® commissioning is a tool to ensure your building is functioning
correctly at the start of usage. From
there, it is up to you to keep it operating efficiently through active
involvement with the energy management system and occupant behavior that is
conducive to meeting energy saving goals.
Measurement and verification is a tool that can be used to keep your building
operating correctly throughout its useful life.
|
|
|
CONCLUSIONS
|
Measurement and
verification is a powerful tool that can be used to maximize savings and
efficiency potentials, determine areas where a building is not behaving like
models predicted, and ensure persistance of savings. It will also help you and your facilities management team better
understand how the facility uses energy, and how to use energy more
efficiently.
|
|
|
 For more information about this topic or additional LEED® concerns, please contact Ryan Kroll at (608) 785-1900 or RMK@MichaelsEngineering.com. |
| Ryan Kroll
|
