Page 99 - Zero Net Energy Case Study Buildings-Volume 1

CREDIT: DOUG JAMIESON
PHOTO: JOHN ELLIOTT
envisions these renewable systems integrated with the campus landscape and symbolic of Uni- versity’s sustainability goals at UC Merced.
In the meantime, between 2010 and 2020, the new Central Plant will supply heated water and chilled water for the new buildings using primarily natural-gas-fired boilers and utility grid-sup- plied electricity to power the centrifugal chillers. To meet the imposed limit on peak electric power demand on the grid, the chillers utilize the cooler night temperatures and off-peak utility rates to generate chilled water at night and store it in a two-million gallon thermal energy storage tank.
With the off-peak production of chilled water and the night-purging operation of the individual building ventilation systems to pre-cool the building, UC Merced has flattened its daily demand curve for electric power and minimized the rate paid for utility-generated electric power.
Program of Building Performance Monitoring
Because of the ultimate plan for the UC Merced campus to reach zero-net-energy performance for its entire ensemble of campus buildings, all new buildings are carefully metered in the energy and power categories defined by the benchmark targets. The energy required for Central Plant heated water and chilled water is also included in the metering and analysis of total building energy use.
The performance data is essential to confirm both that the energy budget is being met and to determine the effect of improvement strategies that are devised and put in place during the first years of occupancy. Using metered data to inform and guide the commissioning process, as well as for post-commissioning improvements, to lower energy use will result in higher and more persistent energy savings7. It will also guide the setting of feasible energy-use benchmarks for specific types of buildings and can identify those measures with the best potential for energy savings.
It is the latter objective that is particularly important since the ability to set new “stretch” budgets depends on showing the feasibility of lower energy use in the first phase of building design and construction. Getting to a level of 25%-of-benchmark budgets is the key to successfully achieving ZNE by 2020. Toward this end, UC Merced (with the assistance of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) developed the Energy Performance Platform (EPP)8, a customized energy information system that relies on an extensive metering infrastructure that has been established for all campus buildings.
The discussion of each two case study buildings, the Science & Engineering Building I and the Classroom & Office Building, includes a detailed analysis of the results of the metered perfor- mance data and the resulting work to correct, adjust and improve the overall energy performance in the post occupancy phases. This is the primary focus of this case study document.
7 K. Brown, M. Anderson, J. Harris, “How Monitoring-Based Commissioning Contributes to Energy Efficiency for Commercial Buildings”, Proceedings of the 2006 ACEEE Summer Study of Energy Efficiency in Buildings, (#485-Panel 3)
8 A. Mercado, J. Elliott, “Energy Performance Platform: Revealing and Maintaining Efficiency with a Customized Energy Information System”, Proceedings of the 2012 ACEEE Summer Study of Energy Efficiency in Buildings, Washington, D.C.: American Council for an Energy- Efficient Economy.
PHOTO: RICHARD CUMMINGS
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED
CASE STUDIES NO. 5 AND 6
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