Commissioning For Energy Efficiency Transcript

Commissioning for Energy Efficiency
Course Transcript
Slide 1
Welcome to Commissioning For Energy Efficiency.
Slide 2
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Slide 3
At the completion of this course, you will be able to:
• Explain the purpose and benefits of commissioning, and how it relates to energy efficiency
• Define new construction commissioning, retro-commissioning, re-commissioning, continuous
commissioning, and monitoring-based commissioning
• Explain key success factors for commissioning
• Explain the role of energy monitoring systems in supporting effective continuous commissioning
Slide 4
Building performance problems are pervasive. Deficiencies such as design flaws, construction defects,
malfunctioning equipment, and deferred maintenance have a host of ramifications, ranging from equipment
failure, to compromised indoor air quality and comfort, to unnecessarily elevated energy use or under-
performance of energy efficiency strategies.
Even green buildings, and buildings with high-tech systems for building control, heating, ventilation, and air
conditioning are prone to have problems in systems that have drifted from their original performance, or
which may never have been correctly set up in the first place.
Fortunately, an emerging form of quality assurance, known as building commissioning, can detect and
remedy most deficiencies.
©2021 Schneider Electric. All rights reserved. All trademarks provided are the property of their respective owners.
Slide 5
In this course, we will learn about this activity, which has the potential to find savings of up to 30%, and in
some cases even 50%, with paybacks of three years or less, often much less.
Slide 6
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) was one of the
first organizations to begin publishing commissioning guidelines. It defines Commissioning as “a quality-
oriented process for achieving, verifying, and documenting that the performance of facilities, systems, and
assemblies meets defined objectives and criteria. This begins with planning, and includes design,
construction, start-up, acceptance and training, and can be applied throughout the life of the building”.
Slide 7
Commissioning need not be a one-time-only activity. The California Commissioning Collaborative identifies
a number of types of commissioning, including:
New-construction commissioning: Single-instance commissioning of the systems in a newly constructed

building (or major building addition), applied from project inception to initial occupancy.
Retro-commissioning (RCx) [or existing-buildings commissioning]: Single-instance commissioning of

systems in an existing building. This may be needed when buildings are adapted, additions are made and/or
considerable time has passed. It may resolve problems that occurred during design or construction and
bring the building back to its original or desired performance.
[Haasl and Heinemeier 2008a; 2008b]
Slide 8
Re-commissioning: Periodic commissioning of systems in an existing building to ensure that systems are
operating as intended. Ideally recommissioning is planned for in the original commissioning of the building,
or when it is retro-commissioned.
Continuous Commissioning (CCx): Texas A&M University (TAMU) has registered this term as “an ongoing
process to resolve operating problems, improve comfort, optimize energy use and identify retrofits for
existing commercial and institutional buildings and central plant facilities.” Specific commissioning protocols
are also associated with the term. This is sometimes called real-time commissioning.
Monitoring-Based Commissioning (MBCx): This refers to an approach that involves three elements: 1)
Energy Information Systems/Building Diagnostics; 2) Retro-commissioning; and 3) Ongoing commissioning
and measurement-based savings accounting using the metered and monitored data.
Slide 9
How does commissioning a new building differ from construction project management? How does
commissioning an existing building differ from maintenance?
Commissioning, in effect, is a type of quality assurance and risk management applied to construction project
management and maintenance. It is discussed as something special because it is so often lacking in the
normal processes of construction and maintenance. Today, in ordinary buildings there is very often little or
no effort to coordinate between designers or installers of different systems. Building construction projects
often fail to have enough quality control checks on fitness for purpose in the design phases, resulting in
buildings that are a poor answer to the needs of the occupants. During construction, there should be clear
processes to verify that implementation matches the specifications and validate that both meets the needs
of occupants. In reality, these processes are often lacking and can result in buildings including systems that
have never been set up correctly, which may even be actively working in opposition to each other.
Once a building is occupied, maintenance SHOULD be checking that the building is both meeting the
specified conditions, and that the specified conditions are satisfying the needs of occupants. Often,
maintenance is just "keeping the system running" without checking if the building meets specified conditions
or maintenance checks the building meets the conditions, but due to changes in use or occupancy, those
conditions are no longer valid. In short, maintenance typically asks “Is that fan working” and does not ask
“Should that fan be on or off?”.
For more information on maintenance, please consider participating in the course, Maintenance Best
Practices for Energy-Efficient Facilities.
Slide 10
Here are some examples of problems that occur in buildings, that would typically be avoided or eliminated
by commissioning:
• For existing buildings
• Unnecessary lengths of duct or piping
• Inaccurate or failed sensors, or sensors that are obscured by other equipment
• Economizers or variable speed drives either stuck or on override, potentially with other equipment
working overtime to counteract the effect
• Heating and cooling on at the same time
For new construction:
• Oversized equipment
• Ventilation blocked by construction debris
• Incorrect set points or control sequences
• Sensors that are too sensitive or not sensitive enough, or that are poorly located
Slide 11
These charts show core results from a study compiled by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The
buildings in the study achieved a range of energy savings with the upper and lower twenty-fifth percentile
ranging from under 10% to over 30%. The median was 16% for existing buildings and 13% for new
buildings. More than a quarter of the buildings saved over 30%. Savings of up to 50% were observed –
naturally those buildings had serious problems when the process was started, but it’s clear that higher levels
of savings correlated with the breadth of the commissioning activity.
What did these projects cost? In existing buildings the median cost of commissioning was $0.30 per square
foot – year, and $1.16 per square foot for new construction. Typically commissioning adds between 1 and
2% to the cost of construction.
In comparison, the median savings were $0.29 per square foot – year for existing buildings and $0.18/ft2 per
year for new construction.
(Charts Reference: Building Commissioning : A Golden Opportunity for Reducing Energy Costs and Greenhouse Gas Emissions,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, July 21, 2009)
Slide 12
This yields median payback times in existing buildings of 1.1 years, and median payback of 4.2 years in new
construction. Another way of looking at the results is using the cash-on-cash return. This is the first-year
cost savings from the project divided by project cost, expressed as a percentage. The higher the
percentage the faster the investment is paid back. If the return is equal to or greater than alternative
investment returns (e.g., 10%) then the project can be considered cost-effective. Existing buildings achieved
median returns of 91% and new buildings achieved 23%. These returns indicate that commissioning is a
highly cost effective process.
(Chart Reference: from Building Commissioning : A Golden Opportunity for Reducing Energy Costs and Greenhouse Gas Emissions,
Slide 13
Commissioning typically brings benefits beyond the scope of energy efficiency. In fact, many
commissioning projects are not started with energy efficiency as the primary goal. Occupant comfort or
productivity are often the prime movers for a project, and customers may be surprised to learn that energy
savings were achieved. Here we see a study of 20 projects, showing the outlay on the commissioning
project, and the non-energy related results. As you can see, most projects made substantial savings in non-
energy related areas – and in many cases these non-energy savings were enough to pay back all the
commissioning costs, even without taking any energy savings into account.
(Chart Reference: Costs and Benefits of Commissioning New and Existing Commercial Buildings, Building a Sustainable Campus
Community, U.C. Santa Cruz, June 21, 2005, Evan Mills, Norman Bourassa, and Mary Ann Piette, Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory, Hannah Friedman and Tudi Haasl, Portland Energy Conservation, Inc., David Claridge and Tehesia Powell, Texas A&M
University - Energy Systems Lab)
Slide 14
The non-energy related benefits range from extended equipment life, reduced change orders and warranty
claims and ongoing labor costs, to occupancy benefits in thermal comfort and indoor air quality. A number of
projects were studied and the cases of benefits in each category were counted. These charts show you
how often each type of impact was reported. Note that they are not weighted for the financial impact, only
the frequency of occurrence.
(Chart reference: Costs and Benefits of Commissioning New and Existing
Commercial Buildings, Building a Sustainable Campus Community, U.C. Santa
Cruz, June 21, 2005, Evan Mills, Norman Bourassa, and Mary Ann Piette,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Hannah Friedman and Tudi Haasl,
Portland Energy Conservation, Inc., David Claridge and Tehesia Powell, Texas
A&M University - Energy Systems Lab)
Slide 15
These two studies show that a wide range of buildings can benefit from commissioning. Schools, retailers,
and hotels tend to be less energy-intensive in their consumption. Payback periods for these types of
building are still very attractive, averaging between 1 and 4 years. But there are often huge savings to be
made in offices and especially high-tech energy-intensive facilities such as hospitals, laboratories, clean
rooms and data centers.
(Reference for charts: Building
Commissioning : A Golden Opportunity
for Reducing Energy Costs and
Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, July 21,
2009)
Slide 16
Commissioning is one of the most cost-effective means of improving energy efficiency in buildings. While
not a universal remedy, it can play a strategically important role in accomplishing energy savings goals. The
ultimate impact of energy efficiency programs lies in no small part in the extent to which they are coupled
with cost-effective quality assurance.
Developing a commissioning strategy means that you have:

• A building that is easier to manage
• A building with a lower cost of operation
Slide 17
Commissioning is an underutilized strategy for saving energy and money while managing related risks.
So, if commissioning is such a great way to obtain these benefits, why is it applied so rarely?
There are a variety of barriers:

• Widespread lack of awareness of need and value on the part of prospective customers
• Insufficient professionalism within the trades
• Splintered activities and competition among a growing number of trade groups and certification
programs
• Misperception that it is not cost-effective in smaller buildings
• The absence of commissioning-like requirements in most building codes
• Omission or obfuscation of the strategy in most energy-efficiency potentials studies
• Tension between standardization and recognition that each building is unique and must be
approached with an open mind.
(Barriers Reference: Building Commissioning : A Golden Opportunity for Reducing Energy Costs and Greenhouse Gas Emissions,
Slide 18
So what does it take to succeed with commissioning.
Shipbuilding is the source for the term “commissioning”. Ships that are commissioned are ready for service.
To accomplish this, several milestones must be passed. The equipment is installed and tested, issues are
identified and resolved, and the crew are comprehensively trained.
Building commissioning takes the same approach to new buildings. At the time of initial commissioning an
intensive quality assurance process begins during design and continues through construction, occupancy,
and operations. Commissioning ensures that the new building operates initially as the owner intended and
that occupants of the building correctly use its features, while building staff are equipped to operate and
maintain its systems.
Some key success factors include:
• Leadership
• Process
• Involvement
• Documentation
• Awareness
• Monitoring
Let’s take a look at each of these.
Slide 19
Leadership is essential. Since commissioning deals with the interplay of the various building systems, it is
always a team effort. The team will typically include designers, engineers, contractors, onsite operations and
maintenance staff, and, ideally, building owners. This team will have diverse skills and concerns, and its
members may never have experienced the type of collaboration a commissioning project requires.
Concerns over tradeoffs, fears of increased cost, insufficient paybacks, and missed schedule deadlines
mean that tempers may run high. A competent and experienced leader A competent and experienced
leader is therefore essential, to facilitate effective dialogue, maintain discipline and foster rational choices
Slide 20
A well organized project will follow a well defined commissioning process, like these examples. Planning for
these tasks at the outset will ensure that roles and responsibilities are clear within the team, that the right
people are involved soon enough, and stay with the project long enough.
Commissioning Process Overview
● Select a commissioning load
● Pre design phase commissioning meeting
● Begin developing owner’s project requirements
● Develop initial commissioning plan outline
● Design phase commissioning meeting
● Perform commissioning focused design review
● Update commissioning plan
● Develop commissioning requirements for the
specification
● Begin planning for verification checklists,
functional tests, systems manual, and training
requirements
● Construction phase kick off meeting
● Review submittals, monitor development of shop and
coordination drawings
● Review O&M manuals
● Perform ongoing construction observation
● Perform verification checks
● Perform diagnostic monitoring
● Perform functional testing
● Develop commissioning report and systems manual
● Develop re-commissioning plan
● Verify and review training of owners staff
● Resolve outstanding commissioning issues
● Perform seasonal/deferred testing
● Perform near warranty –end review
Retro-Commissioning Process Overview
● Select the project
● Set project objectives & obtain support
● Select a commissioning lead
● Document the current operating requirements
● Perform an initial site walk through
● Develop the retro-commissioning plan
● Assemble the retro-commissioning team
● Hold a project kick off meeting
● Review facility documentation

● Perform diagnostic monitoring
● Perform functional tests
● Perform simple tests
● Perform simple repairs
● Develop master list of findings
● Prioritize & select operational improvements
● Develop implementation plan

● Implement selected operational improvements
● Verify results
● Develop final report

● Compile a systems manual
● Develop re-commissioning plan
● Provide training
● Hold close out meeting
● Implement persistence strategies
(Reference for processes: Building Commissioning : A Golden Opportunity for Reducing Energy Costs and Greenhouse Gas
Emissions, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, July 21, 2009)
Slide 21
Commissioning relies on involvement to prevent and solve problems. Conventional projects do not provide
any opportunity for the people who will maintain the facility to provide input or feedback. Commissioning
ensures this involvement is built in during design, and also ensures a better training plan and a smoother
transition to operational use. Also, the concerns of installers can be discovered at the design phase, instead
of during the construction phase when the issues may be many times more costly to address. The process
also ensures that designers and contractors remain engaged during the handover and tuning of the building.
Without commissioning, they are typically absent during the period when the building is actually set to work
and becomes functional. Their absence means that problems that might be easily addressed can be ignored
in the rush to achieve schedule deadlines.
Slide 22
The documentation set should include:
• Clearly specified requirements, designs and specifications for the systems to be constructed, or the
as-is systems for an existing building
• Commissioning plans
• Records of settings, tests, results and modifications
• Processes to ensure designs and specifications are updated with “as built” or “as modified” details
• A full systems manual for operational use, including how the systems will be monitored and
corrected over time. Since commissioning is a “soft” process, ensuring persistence of the results is
a concern.
• A full maintenance manual, including the methods, frequency and tools to be used
Slide 23
Awareness is a key success factor because without it the commissioning process will not receive adequate
support. As we have seen, commissioning does not happen by itself due to a variety of barriers. Managers
have to make it happen.
The team-oriented approach of commissioning means that its main costs are time and labor, not materials
and equipment. Decision makers must be cognizant of this during budget reviews.
Especially in new construction, the stakes can be high regarding total equipment and material cost, and
completion deadlines. Awareness that investing in commissioning now prevents delays and expense later is
essential to maintaining wise decision making under pressure. Successful commissioning ensures a smooth
handover. An absence of commissioning virtually guarantees problems later on. The building owner in
particular must keep this in mind. The project participants may not have the same risks or rewards at stake
and the project leader must manage this. The increasing complexity of building systems means that time for
tuning is a necessity. Awareness of this is an asset during schedule reviews.
It returns to the roots of the needs for the building – instead of asking “how can we make this equipment
more efficient”, it will ask “is this equipment even necessary?” This will require owners and specifiers to
clarify their expectations, and designers, installers and maintainers to challenge pre-conceived ideas.
Awareness of this will foster the enquiring mindset necessary for commissioning to succeed.
Slide 24
Lastly, monitoring is a success factor for commissioning because it allows the commissioning team to:
• Benchmark the site consumption against other sites
• Identify normal patterns of consumption, or patterns that correspond to the building's optimum
setup, and to identify promptly when some change occurs. That change could be due to a fault in
the system, to someone overriding a setting and not returning it to its original value, to some other
change like new equipment being brought in, or to an increase or decrease in the occupancy.
Whatever the cause, an energy monitoring system would show the facility manager that there is a
deviation from the expected energy performance and allow him to investigate, discover and solve
the problem much more quickly
• Provide data that can be analyzed to determine if a change to a setting had a positive or negative
effect on energy consumption
If modeling is supported, provide a "what if" analysis that may help the facility manager anticipate the
influence of changes in drivers such as production level or occupancy
We learned earlier that commissioning projects can produce considerable savings but savings can be lost if
monitoring is not in place. Let’s take a look at how monitoring can affect the savings in an active energy
efficiency plan.
Slide 25
An energy efficiency program could save you up to 30% - maybe more in some cases. Often around 10 to
15% of consumption can be saved with passive energy efficiency measures dealing with efficient devices
and installation. You could take that further with automation and regulation to optimize the usage of those
devices – another 5 to 15%. Then, your monitoring program could bring another 2 – 8%, by noticing
patterns and allowing you to optimize them.
However, you can lose these savings quickly if you don’t keep your monitoring and maintenance program in
place. Automated systems can drift away from optimal performance as small adjustments are made over
time. People can slip back into energy-wasting behavior if deviations are undetected and expectations are
not reinforced. Power reliability is also an important contributor – energy efficiency gains can be lost quickly
if there are unplanned, unmanaged shutdowns of equipment and processes. Without proper monitoring,
each year 8% of savings can be lost.
Slide 26
The role that monitoring can play is clearly illustrated in this chart from Lawrence Berkeley National Labs.
(Reference for chart: Building Commissioning : A Golden Opportunity for Reducing Energy Costs and Greenhouse Gas
Emissions, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, July 21, 2009)
Here the top line of the chart shows the business-as-usual situation faced by a building operator. The load
is gradually increasing and so are the costs.
This red area shows the benefits that conventional recommissioning can bring. Periodically, the systems of
the building are adjusted and savings are made, but those savings start to leak away again over time.
The green area shows additional savings resulting from bringing in monitoring-based commissioning.
Notice that the line is still a sawtooth, but each tooth is much smaller, since the monitoring activity notices
deviations and corrects them faster.
The use of monitoring itself during the commissioning activity helps to find new areas where savings can be
made, shown in gold.
And as time goes on, the monitoring will tend to find more and more opportunities, shown in blue.
Slide 27
In conclusion, the purpose of existing building commissioning is to:
• Ensure that the building operates in a safe, comfortable, efficient manner
A properly commissioned building will:
• Save energy and operating costs
• Increase tenant satisfaction
• Extend equipment life-cycle
• Ensure the persistence of improvements over the building’s life.
• Assist in achieving LEED, BREEAM, HQE or other green building standards
• Improve the building’s energy rating in programs such as ENERGY STAR
• Contribute to meeting carbon footprint goals
Slide 28
Commissioning a new building (and systems within a building) helps ensure that:
• The owner’s project requirements are complete, feasible and well-documented.
• The design team’s solutions adequately address the owner’s requirements.
• Construction is complete and of appropriate quality.
• The owner receives the training and project documentation to successfully operate the building.
Slide 29
Let’s summarize some of the information that we have discussed in this course.
Commissioning is the quality-oriented process for achieving, verifying, and documenting that the
performance of facilities, systems, and assemblies meets defined objectives and criteria. This begins with
planning, and includes design, construction, start-up, acceptance and training, and the operational life of the
building
Commissioning ensures that all building systems meet performance objectives, including indoor air quality,
thermal comfort conditions, and lighting levels
The commissioning process reduces operating costs and can produce savings of up to 30% of total building
energy costs, with a simple payback from energy savings alone averaging in just over one year in existing
buildings
Energy monitoring systems are an important part of any active energy efficiency program
In a commissioning project, they ensure savings are sustained over time, and help to find more savings
Slide 30
Thank you for participating in this course.

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Commissioning for Energy Efficiency

New-construction commissioning: Single-instance commissioning of the systems in a newly constructed

Retro-commissioning (RCx) [or existing-buildings commissioning]: Single-instance commissioning of

[Haasl and Heinemeier 2008a; 2008b]

Developing a commissioning strategy means that you have:

There are a variety of barriers:

Retro-Commissioning Process Overview

● Review facility documentation

● Develop implementation plan

● Develop final report

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