Large Commercial Buildings: Tuning for Efficiency

Today, large commercial buildings use sophisticated building automation systems (BASs) to manage a wide and varied range of building equipment. While the capabilities of BASs have increased over time, many buildings still do not fully use their capabilities and are not properly commissioned, operated or maintained, which leads to inefficient operation, increased energy use, and reduced lifetimes of the equipment. Tuning BASs, much like tuning automobiles periodically, ensures maximum building energy efficiency and the comfort of building occupants. A poorly tuned system can maintain comfortable condition but at a higher energy cost to overcome inefficiencies. For this task, Battelle is leveraging previously successful experience in tuning large commercial buildings and applying it to building control and HVAC systems and other systems such as lighting controlled by the BASs of commercial buildings 100,000 sq. ft and larger.

Battelle staff will train HVAC service providers selected for this project. Training will include both classroom and hands-on retuning of one building after which, each participating company will be required to tune 5 to 10 additional buildings.

Participants will be reimbursed for staff time for training and re-tuning of buildings under the program. The program will encourage service provider companies to continue to offer the retuning service to customers after completion of the project.