A Low-Cost Path to Energy Efficiency and Cost Savings

Commercial buildings account for almost 20% of the total U.S. energy consumption. A significant portion (up to 20%) of the energy used in commercial buildings is wasted because of improper operations. Today, large commercial buildings use sophisticated building automation systems (BASs) to manage a wide and varied range of building systems. Although the capabilities of the BASs have increased, many buildings still are not properly commissioned, operated, or maintained. Lack of proper maintenance leads to inefficient operation and reduced lifetimes of equipment. Re-tuning BASs ensures maximum energy efficiency and comfort for building occupants. Although a poorly tuned system can maintain comfort, it may do so at a high energy cost while compensating for undetected operational inefficiencies.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is changing the way heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in commercial buildings are operated, serviced, and maintained. PNNL has trained building operators, managers, and businesses that install and service HVAC equipment to optimally re-tune large and small commercial buildings. Re-tuning commercial buildings can reduce energy use of buildings by 5 to 20%.

PNNL initiated the Commercial Building Re-tuning project for the U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office. The goal of this project was to improve building operations by transferring the skills to "re-tune" large (>100,000 sf) commercial buildings through a series of re-tuning resources, including training programs and development of an online interactive training curriculum. The project is targeted at technicians currently working in the industry for an immediate impact. The re-tuning training is intended to provide building operators, building managers and energy service providers with the necessary skills to identify no- and low-cost operational problems that plague commercial buildings and provide the skills necessary to take corrective action. The secondary goal of the project is to train a number of "trainers" to carry out the re-tuning training beyond this project.

PNNL has also developed small commercial building re-tuning resources, which includes prescriptive re-tuning training focused on small commercial buildings (<100,000 sf) that typically do not have BASs. This training helps building operations staff to learn how to operate buildings more efficiently and reduce operating cost. The knowledge and skills learned through the training will be highly valued by organizations and companies seeking to improve the performance of their buildings.

Built to Code: Savings Imminent Post-Code Adoption and Implementation

A new report issued by researchers at PNNL—and sponsored by DOE's Building Energy Codes Program—assesses the potential impact of building energy codes through 2040. The study shows that big savings in energy and offsets in carbon emissions can be achieved over the next 25 years if model codes are enacted as law.
Air Conditioning That's Out of This World

Cutting air conditioning energy use by sending heat into outer space may not be such a far-out idea. Using new technology developed at Stanford University, PNNL researchers recently found that daytime radiative cooling—the physical process by which an object loses heat to another object of lower temperature—could reduce energy consumption of an office building by 30 to 50 percent.
ACEEE Served for Building Efficiency

The ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings continues to draw a diverse group of professionals from around the world—including a large contingent of PNNL researchers—to discuss building energy use and actions to reduce climate impacts. This year, more than 30 researchers from PNNL represented their research in the areas of residential and commercial buildings technologies, performance analysis, codes and standards, capturing savings, and smart buildings.
Energy-Efficiency Technology Gets Better With Time

First developed in the early 1990s, Facility Energy Decision System—or FEDS software—simulates building energy use and identifies cost-effective measures, such as upgrading lighting or HVAC systems. PNNL recently released version 7.0, which added to the building technologies that FEDS can evaluate and improved the building energy simulation engine, among other upgrades.
Cooling off the Energy Impact of Rooftop Units

Packaged air conditioners and heat pumps - referred to as rooftop units (RTUs) – frequently operate well below peak efficiencies. Most RTUs are aged and not well maintained, a major issue for the 2.1 million buildings in the United States that use them, until now.