"Today there is all too often a disconnect, or performance gap, between the energy modeling done during the design phase and what actually happens during daily operation after the building is constructed." Scot Horst, Senior Vice President of LEED, U.S. Green Building Council. Late last month the U.S. Green Building Council announced that buildings seeking LEED certification will be required to provide performance data for energy and water as a precondition of certification.
"Today there is all too often a disconnect, or performance gap, between the energy modeling done during the design phase and what actually happens during daily operation after the building is constructed." Scot Horst, Senior Vice President of LEED, U.S. Green Building Council.
Specifically the performance requirement can be fulfilled in one of three ways:
1. The building is recertified on a two-year cycle 2. The building provides energy and water usage data on an on-going basis annually 3. The building owner signs a release that authorizes USGBC to access the building's energy and water usage data directly from the utility provider.
Now the first option of recertification every 2 years doesn't sound convenient. The last option puts the burden on the USGBC and the Utility - which may not be able to easily provide this data. And the second option requires the ability for building management to easily collect the usage data based on an "on-going" basis annually .
How will building management be able to collect and analyze the details of a building's water and energy usage in on an on-going basis? (other than extractions from monthly bills) And is there real value to the lifetime moderating of energy and water usage? How often do I need to measure this? Annually? Once-a-year doesn't seem to be enough,
I think the eventual answer will be the use of real time sensors at the meter level (AMI) and also on individual items in the building. The Smart Grid work today is focused heavily on providing real time meter options to the consumer and residential space. See my posts on Google Power Meter and Microsoft Hohm. But who's looking out for commercial buildings and plants?
Current energy performance work has centered on the "Design" side of the Design-Build-Operate cycle. I expect this will quickly shift to the "Operate" side as people focus on the huge effort to retrofit old buildings, and monitor all buildings more closely than what happens today. Also as commercial buildings begin to become creators of energy for the grid using micro power generation and energy storage solutions - the operate side will become even more complex.
The beginning of a new era for buildings is just starting - soon we're be monitoring them non-stop with continuous readings at multiple point - like an EKG on a patient. Expecting a normal, steady pace all the time, but monitoring for spikes and abnormal patterns. No wonder they call this stuff "Smart"