Hi,
I'm putting together a LEED 2009 Submission and the rules now state that
"Both the baseline building model and the proposed model must cover all
building energy components." (pg. 286 of LEED Canada 2009).
I have no trouble including computer equipment, elevators and exterior
lights but we also have a rainwater cistern pump and electric vehicle
charging stations. I'm not sure if the electric vehicles should be
considered "building energy components". As well, both technologies
actually save energy elsewhere (gasoline/diesel and water utility pumping
power) so I don't think we should be penalized in our % energy cost savings
by adding these two energy uses to both reference model and proposed model.
Any thoughts on these?
Cheers,
Aaron Smith, P.Eng
Aaron,
I would think you would include these measures as an external load directly on the meter. Each one individually is probably contributing to its own LEED point. However, it does raise questions on how one could benchmark such measures. For the electric vehicle charging stations, what if an on-site gas station was theorized as a base case? Sounds like a lot of extra work, and what takes more energy to make, coal or gasoline? Also, the rainwater pump is used for toilet rooms or for gardening? Last I checked pumping energy to water flowers was not included, though I suppose it probably is not.
Kevin
Aaron -
I agree with Kevin - my understanding is, if the load is served from the building meter and located within the LEED boundary, it should be included in the LEED model.
Both items would show up in the design and the baseline, as process energy consumers.
There is a tradeoff between water efficiency and energy efficiency that is made when a building decides to install its own water pressurization pumps. I'm not sure if your municipal water supply system has the controllability to reduce its water pressurization pumping energy based on your use of recovered water - but I haven't had the chance to work on those systems before, and I'm not sure how those systems are assembled.
If there are any efficiency measures on the rainwater pump that would be considered above "documented industry standard", you could look at documenting a reduction from the baseline via an Exceptional Calculation method.
That said, I imagine that the key thing for both loads would be determining a realistic schedule of use. You might find that the electric charging station in particular has a high peak power draw but a relatively low consumption, due to limited hours of use.
In line with Kevin's suggestion - if the electric vehicles are replacing fleet vehicles that would "traditionally" be sourced from another fuel, there may be an opportunity to claim a different baseline and show savings. But if they are just for visitors / employees, you might just use a baseline that is identical to your design.
Aaron Dahlstrom , PE, LEED(r) AP
Water pumps I see as a building system that could be included. Other energy users related to plumbing would be part of the building energy.
Electric vehicles though I think you could make a case for as an external load to the project subject to your ability to quantify the usage. For example if you had a submeter and billed the fleet manager for the electricity I see this as a pass-through.
Without a submeter it might be harder to justify, as you'd never really know how much it was, and your subsequent utility bill reporting would include this energy.
Let me suggest a parallel - If there was a diesel tank on-site for fueling trucks it wouldn't be included.
But it would be tricky to document/report if that same tank fed the heating system, if you didn't log the usage for trucks.
-DSE
Sent from my iPhone
I bring up the case of indoor electric vehicle
charging stations such as one might find in a
huge refrigerated warehouse - I toured a Loblaws
facility. The vehicles, batteries and charging
systems were the latest and most efficient the
designer could find. The quote I heard was "20%
more efficient, less heat, etc.". The
ventilation requirements for this type of
vehicle/charging system are also less than for
industry standard equipment. Therefore, there
are significant savings if there is a baseline
for this equipment and I think the whole point of
including such equipment would be to calculate
the savings over industry standard and apply
those savings as process energy credit. At
least, that is how I would make my case if I were submitting for LEED Canada.