Commissioning Building Systems for Improved Energy Performance Project

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.

Objective: To improve the operating efficiency of building systems by 10 % to 30 % by providing the measurement science to develop improved building commissioning metrics and automation tools, and accelerate the adoption of cost-effective commissioning as standard practice by 2014.

What is the new technical idea? To be effective, use of 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 financial 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 conduct the measurement science research needed to enable the development and commercialization of automated commissioning tools for 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; and
  
• Promoting the creation of industry-adopted, on-line databases that are publicly 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.  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.

Recent Results:

Outputs:

“Annex 47 Extended Project Summary”, Natascha Milesi Ferretti and Daniel Choinière, 2012, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Natural Resources Canada. NIST Technical Note 1750

“Commissioning Overview”, Edited by Chloé Legris, Natascha Milesi Ferretti and Daniel Choinière, 2012, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Natural Resources Canada. NIST Technical Note 1725

“Commissioning Tools for Existing and Low energy Buildings”, Edited by Christian Neumann, Harunori Yoshida, Daniel Choinière and Natascha Milesi Ferretti, 2012, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Natural Resources Canada. NIST Technical Note 1744

“Commissioning Cost-Benefit and Persistence of Savings”, Edited by Hannah Friedman, David Claridge, Daniel Choinière and Natascha Milesi Ferretti, 2012, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Natural Resources Canada.  NIST Technical Note 1727

“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, 2011, www.iea-annex47.org

Awarded a grant to 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.

Outcomes: 

A software tool for automated commissioning of air-handling units.

Completion of IEA Annex 47 Cost Effective Commissioning of Existing and Low Energy Buildings. This EL investment leveraged a much larger effort under the International Energy Agency.

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, Building Environment Design, is developing standards for building control systems that can be used to further disseminate these results internationally.