Commercial Buildings Special Working Group (Spin I)

Purpose

This special working group was offered by SEAI to large energy users within the LIEN and Energy Agreements and concentrated on energy usage and energy efficiency opportunities in large commercial buildings.

Members:

6 Members from SEAI’s Energy Agreements Programme and LIEN

Activities

The Commercial Buildings Special Working Group focussed both on quick wins during the life of the SWG and on strategic wins for the longer term, via the following activities;

• Stimulation of energy reduction activity in companies that may not have happened otherwise,
• Provision of a structured approach for unrelated companies to work as a group on common energy issues.
• Exploration of large commercial buildings, to determine the most significant opportunities for the members
• Creation of deliverables and outputs, which can be replicated without duplicating development effort.
• Identification of strategic approaches in energy management that can be standardised to enable a longer term and wider reduction of energy use.
• Bringing peer companies together face to face, to learn from each other and from a technical panel
• Exploiting links to other SEAI programmes e.g IS EN 16001 transition and uncovering compatibilities with other SEAI support structures e.g Special Investigations

Output

Outputs from the Commercial Buildings Special Working Group included;-

• Benchmarking,
• Operations & Maintenance,
• Standard Solutions for Retrofit,
• Retro-commissioning,
• Energy Needs Auditing
• Change Management.

The group focused on materials that might improve the performance of their existing buildings rather than focusing on new building designs.

Opportunities identified

Areas identified for best practice include;

• Operational and maintenance (O&M) improvements to increase energy efficiency of significant energy users;-  heating, hot water and lighting
• Low Temperature Hot Water (LTHW) O&M Tips
• Heating Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) O&M Tips
• Lighting O&M Tips
• Equipment and material solutions available for commercial buildings focusing on considerations for retrofitting existing buildings
• Building Fabric Retrofit Tips
• Heating Retrofit Tips
• Cooling Retrofit Tips
• Application of current known International Building Benchmarks in an Irish Context

Commercial Buildings SWG Documentation (click on links below to download)

All documents will be available here shortly

Commercial Buildings SWG Project Report

Operations & Maintenance for Energy Efficiency

• A energy efficient operations and maintenance reference manual for commercial buildings
  • Commercial Buildings O & M Reference Manual.pdf (size 3.6 MB)
• Associated presentation:
  • O and M Presentation.pdf (size 317.1 KB)
• Case studies on Commercial Building O&M practice
  • O and M Case Study Report.pdf (size 547.8 KB)
  • O and M Case Study Summary.pdf (size 160.9 KB)
  • Occupancy driven HVAC control.pdf (size 569.2 KB)
  • Google ODHC Case Study.pdf (size 646.7 KB)

Benchmarking of Commercial Buildings in an Irish Context

• A report outlining benchmarking of buildings in an Irish context
  • Commercial Buildings Benchmarking Irish Context.pdf (size 224.2 KB)
• Associated presentations:
  • Commercial Building Benchmarking Introduction.pdf (size 1.1 MB)
  • Commerical Buildings Benchmarking Finding Summary.pdf (size 2.2 MB)
• A “benchmarking in an Irish context” excel tool:
  • Commercial Buildings Benchmarking Tool.xls (size 204.3 KB)

Standard Solutions with Retrofit Considerations

• A standard solutions reference manual for buildings focusing on retrofits to existing buildings
  • Current Standard Solutions Report 2010.pdf (size 1.7 MB)
• Associated presentations:
  • Commercial Building Retrofit Standard Solutions Intro.pdf (size 523.6 KB)
  • Commercial Building Retrofit Standard Solutions Findings.pdf (size 327.1 KB)

Change Management in Energy Initiatives

• A report outlining change management concepts in terms of energy reduction initiatives
  • Change Management Report.pdf (size 1.7 MB)
• Associated presentation:
  • Change Management Presentation.pdf (size 419.7 KB)

Retro-commissioning and User Needs Energy Auditing

• A report of the application of EED auditing to existing buildings, creating a retrofit opportunities list, understanding the concept of retro-commissioning, and subsequent handover
  • CB SWG EED Auditing.pdf (size 339.5 KB)
• Associated presentation:
  • Retro-commissioning and User Needs Audit.pdf (size 430.9 KB)
• An EED building auditing methodology
  • EEA Report Template.pdf (size 208.5 KB)
  • EEA Prioritisation Tool.pdf (size 1.9 MB)
  • EEA Occupier Questionaire.pdf (size 60.9 KB)
  • EEA Energy Service Tables.pdf (size 920.6 KB)

Case Studies, Special Investigations & Other Materials

• HVAC SWG Summary.pdf (size 390.8 KB)
• Out of Hours Auditing.pdf (size 229.6 KB)