Boston, MA – At MIT, Building 68, the biology building, has been the subject of close scrutiny since January 2009. Called continuous commissioning, or data-based commissioning, this monitoring is an ongoing process to resolve building operating problems, improve comfort, and optimize energy use.
“Computer analysis of building data points out operating patterns that fall outside of a determined tolerance level and recommends the affected system components for study by an engineer,” says Peter Cooper, manager of sustainability engineering and utility planning. “In this manner, large amounts of data can be evaluated and sifted to allow us to identify potential energy savings opportunities.”
In the Building 68 pilot project, the pay-off has been significant. In the current fiscal year, more than $3.1 million of the building’s $4.5 million operating expense has been for steam, chilled water, and electricity. Based on the first three months of monitoring, annual savings from changes in Building 68 alone are projected to top $360,000.
MIT enlisted the help of Cimetrics, a Boston-based pioneer in building optimization, to install a system that delivers building data over the Internet. Thanks to Cimetrics’ monitoring of key operating parameters—541 data points in the building’s automation system are read and analyzed every 15 minutes—building operators could see that heating and cooling were occurring simultaneously in three of the large air-handling units.
Programming changes to the building’s automation system fixed the simultaneous heating and cooling problem, leading to an immediate, dramatic drop in both steam and chilled water use. Repairs to valves and valve operators boosted the poor performance of a heat recovery system—also identified by the data monitoring—and setting back heating and cooling temperatures when the building is unoccupied will result in additional savings.
“As energy gets more expensive and retrofits get more complicated, building owners want to know just how their investment in HVAC or lighting controls is paying off in terms of lower operating costs and higher energy savings,” says Walter E. Henry, MIT Department of Facilities’ director of engineering. “So far, we have applied monitoring technology to Buildings 18, W35, E25, and most recently, 16 and 56. We plan to work our way through other lab buildings, which are the highest energy intensity and most complex of the Institute’s buildings.
