Energy monitoring and building simulation of a university laboratory research facility

This paper presents a case study of how performance monitoring and operational assessment coupled with subsequent analysis led to identification of potential energy savings for a large laboratoty research facility. This project highlights the benefits of simple energy-monitoring techniques as part Of the process. The energy-monitoring method consisted of a structured review of data collected by the existing building automation system, which revealed a number of operational faults. These faults resulted in an increased energy consumption of approximately 8% (4.0E9 Btu, 1.2E6 kWh) over the estimated total annual building heating and cooling energy (5.0E10 Btu, 1.5E7 kWh, estimated $726,000). A detailed simulation of the building energy systems enabled comparison of alternative control strategies. The simulation results indicate the potential for savings of more than 25% of the facility's current building heating and cooling energy requirements. The potential savings identified with building simulation are higher than obtained for the energy-monitoring approach, but the time and effort required to create the simulation were also substantially higher While the focus here was on a single laboratory-type research building, the findings maybe generalized to other facilities.