I have a group of 3 buildings that are served by the same boilers, cooling tower for LEED certification. Two of the buildings have water source heat pumps, while the third one has 4-pipe fan coil units (which is served by a chiller in the central plant). The central plant serving all these buildings are located in the building with fan coil units.

Due to the unavailability of LEED Group Certification forms on LEED online, we were advised to pursue Master Site certification. Under that scheme, it appears that modeling the central plant as a DES is the only option to go. We are starting out with Option 1 in the "Treatment of District or Campus Thermal Energy in LEED V2 and LEED 2009 - Design & Construction" to see how things work out. But regardless of Option 1 or 2, it seems there is no guidance in that document to model a WSHP system, and it appears that for Option 1, I have to model the WSHPs as fan coils. Is that a correct assumption? I came across LEED Interpretation 5234 (attached), but I don't think that applies to my scenario since that is for a geothermal loop with supplemental cooling tower and boiler.

I know this is not a direct eQuest related question, but there seems to be quite a few people out here with experience in LEED projects. Hopefully, someone has dealt with a situation like this and can provide some suggestions.

Thank you,

Ritwik Kakati, LEED Green Associate