Hi all,

We are modeling a new construction hospital whose cooling loads are met by 3 onsite 1350 ton chillers. A fourth 'future' 1350 ton chiller is added to this plant to provide supplementary cooling to an adjacent but future Lab building (the lab also borrows partial cooling from a campus CHW loop). All four chillers will be connected to the same primary chilled water loop, so essentially both the hospital and lab will feed off the same CHW loop. However, the hospital and Lab are being certified as two separate LEED NC projects.

For modeling the hospital only, should I

1. Create a virtual plant using Appendix C of the LEED DES guidelines and --model all upstream equipment, add a process load profile of the hospital and the lab to determine the average COP of the plant and then apply it to the hospital;

2. OR make an argument that we should be allowed to scale the plant as per the loads of the hospital since the plant is onsite. This will mean that, I will model the hospital as having only 3 onsite chillers and all related upstream equipment without following the LEED DES guidelines.

Any input will be appreciated.

Thank you

Madhav Munshi, LEED AP BD+C