Understanding Bldgs. Is Key for Sustainability

IRVINE, CA-Understanding that every building is different—from the perspectives of occupancy, design and technology—is one of the first steps in evaluating a building's energy usage to further cost savings, said speakers at the recent Bank of America-sponsored US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon and XPO at the Orange County Great Park. It's necessary to take the time to evaluate and deploy a strategy fitting to each building.

As GlobeSt.com reported yesterday, the speakers made the point that monitoring and measuring energy use is a key step in reducing costs at this level. Also critical is getting tenants involved in the process of sustainability. But nothing precludes a thorough understanding of the building's energy consumption when approaching sustainability.

“First things you do when you purchase a property is to understand the energy consumption of the building,” said Kevin Devine, director of engineering for Brookfield Office Properties. “The largest energy hogs are lighting, HVAC, elevators. How can we improve those areas? You need to strategically build a plan and deploy that over many years. You can't do it overnight. Work closely with tenants, educate and engage building engineering staff. They understand your buildings, they understand what can be improved and when you have great people operating our building, you can identify these areas and deploy them strategically.”

Remember that buildings vary, Julia Ledewitz, program manager, energy and sustainability, for DTZ, pointed out. “One of the things we should be thinking about is the idea that you can challenge some of the design assumptions when you come into a building renovation. We see that buildings have oversized equipment, and then energy is spent cooling these appliances that didn't need to be so large. Technology has changed recently, especially in lighting. We need to see where we can use sunlight to our advantage.”

Knowing how to operate systems to your best advantage is also essential, said Devine. “You can have the most elaborate building with the most elaborate control system, but that's all useless unless you know how to operate it. If you don't want your tenant to be uncomfortable Monday morning, you have to leave the air conditioning on all weekend. But then they're going to be angry about their energy bill. There are two things that are important to us: safety is first, but comfort is important.”

Understand when tenants are actually in the building, and try to consolidate working hours in batches (a.k.a., occupancy scheduling), said Ledewitz. Kkow the “patterns of occupancy in buildings that are not being paid attention to because we become very accommodating to the idea that everyone is here all the time, and let's keep our systems on all the time.” Systems like demand-controlled ventilation and occupancy sensors can help prevent wasteful energy use, she added. “Systems are smarter to occupancy now.”

Trying to make sure that the easy things are being done before worrying about the complicated things is another rule to keep in mind, said Daniel Becker, energy and sustainability capital program manager for Bank of America. “This is done by having good communication between the engineering staff and the property manager. This can be a challenge sometimes, but it is necessary in order to operate the systems appropriately and understand occupancy better.”