It is that time of year where we ask you to submit your projects for an ASHRAE Technology Award.  Here are the categories:

• Commercial Buildings - (New & Existing)

• Institutional Buildings - (New & Existing)

• Health Care Facilities - (New & Existing)

• Industrial Facilities or Processes - (New & Existing)

• Public Assembly Facilities- (New & Existing)

• Residential Buildings - (New & Existing)
      Single Family
      Multi-Family (Low and High Rise)

• Alternative or Renewable Energy Use

Please use the following application and go to the ASHRAE Website for more information at http://www.ashrae.org/members/page/1646

Submissions with the 2 page write-up and (1) 11x17 of diagrams or plans are due by March 31st.  Send them electronically to Wade Conlan.

ASHRAE Launches Commissioning Certification Program (ATLANTA)

Just as the commissioning process helps buildings and their systems operate optimally, ASHRAE’s newest certification recognizes those with optimal knowledge of the entire building commissioning process. The program is ideal for individuals given a commissioning role who may not have a building HVAC&R background.

ASHRAE’s Commissioning Process Management Professional launches in June at the Society’s 2009 Annual Conference in Louisville, Ky. The program helps building owners, developers, operators and others recognize individuals capable of assuring that building systems and equipment are designed, installed, tested, operated and maintained according to their operational needs.

“As the standard setter for sustainable building performance, ASHRAE’s certification program recognizes that people who manage the commissioning process need to have people- and project-management skills in addition to a level of understanding of building design, construction, operations and maintenance,” Bill Harrison, ASHRAE president, said. “This is what distinguishes the commissioning program from other HVAC commissioning certifications.”

Developed with input from APPA, BCA, IESNA, NEBB, SMACNA, TABB and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the program is the fourth in ASHRAE’s suite of certification offerings. The others focus on healthcare design, high-performance building design, and operation and maintenance.

Individuals must meet certain eligibility qualifications to take the exam. For more information, an exam content outline and available resources for exam preparation, please visit www.ashrae.org/certification. The fee for the exam is $207.50 before June 5 ($147, ASHRAE members).

PRIOR TO MARCH 2009

Standard 90.1-2004 Established as National Reference Standard by DOE (ATLANTA)

Ruling Issued Dec. 30

Standard 90.1-2004 Established as National Reference Standard by DOE 

States must now certify that their building codes meet the requirements in ASHRAE/IESNA’s 2004 energy efficiency standard, under a ruling issued by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) that finds the standard saves more energy than an earlier version.

ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2004, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, has been established by the DOE as the commercial building reference standard for state building energy codes under the federal Energy Policy Act.

The Act requires all states to certify that they have state energy codes in place that are at least as stringent as 90.1-2004, or justify why they cannot comply.  The DOE determined that Standard 90.1-2004 saves more energy than Standard 90.1- 1999, which was the previously referenced standard in the Act.

“The quantitative analysis of the energy consumption of buildings built to Standard 90.1-2004, as compared with buildings built to Standard 90.1-1999, indicates national source energy savings of approximately 13.9 percent of commercial building energy consumption. Site energy savings are estimated to be approximately 11.9 percent,” according to the ruling published in The Federal Register on Dec. 30, 2008.

“ASHRAE is committed to continually improving building energy performance, so we are pleased with this recognition that the 2004 standard saves more energy,” ASHRAE President Bill Harrison said. “ASHRAE is currently working on the 2010 version of Standard 90.1 with a goal of achieving 30 percent energy savings compared to 90.1-2004 as part of our target to achieve market-viable net-zero-energy buildings by 2015.”

“The Illuminating Engineering Society is pleased to receive the DOE’s positive determination on the site and source energy savings achieved by ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2004 compared to the 1999 standard,” said  Rita Harrold, IES director of technology. She also expressed the Society’s appreciation for the contributions of the committee members responsible for developing the standard, which help further the goals of the sponsoring organizations, and for the diligence of the DOE in conducting the determination.

The DOE noted that the newer version of the standard contained 13 positive impacts on energy efficiency. These impacts included changes made through the public review process in which users of the standard comment and offer guidance on proposed requirements to the standard. The positive impacts include:

• Removed explicit allowance for supply air into non-occupied isolation areas.
• Limitations of the use of dampers in closed circuit cooling towers in place of water bypass valves and piping.
• Additions of insulation requirements for buried ductwork.
• Mapping of envelope requirements to new climate zones, which led to increased stringency of envelope requirements.
• Mapping of economizer requirements to new climate zones, which led to greater geographic expansion of economizer requirements.
• Addition of requirements for ventilation fan controls.
• Lowered size range for part-load fan power limitation.
• Addition of requirements for heat pump pool heaters.
• Complete replacement of interior lighting power density allowances.
• Revised exterior lighting power density allowances.
• Addition of occupancy sensor requirements for classrooms, meeting, and lunch rooms.
• Lower retail sales lighting power allowance.
• New exit sign wattage requirement

 

In addition, ASHRAE is working on providing more stringent energy guidance in a proposed standard for high-performance buildings. Being developed in partnership with IESNA and the U.S. Green Building Council, Standard 189.1, Standard for the Design of High-Performance Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, will provide minimum requirements for the design of high-performance new commercial buildings and major renovation projects, addressing energy efficiency, a building’s impact on the atmosphere, sustainable sites, water use efficiency, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.

Since being developed in response to the energy crisis in the 1970s, Standard 90.1 now influences building designs worldwide. It has become the basis for building codes, and the standard for building design and construction throughout the United States. ASHRAE publishes a revised version of the standard every three years. The 2007 version of Standard 90.1 was released last year.

 

ASHRAE Publishes Load Calculations Manual (ATLANTA)

Guidance to help designers improve the performance and efficiency of design as it relates to load calculations is contained in a new book from ASHRAE.

Load Calculation Applications Manual focuses on two methods for calculating cooling loads in non-residential buildings – the heat balance method and the radiant time series method (RTSM).

Author Jeffrey Spitler noted that understanding these methods is crucial when answering three primary design questions – what is the required equipment size; how do the heating/cooling requirements vary spatially within the building; and what are the relative sizes of the various contributors to the heating/cooling load?

“Cooling load calculations are performed primarily to answer the first and second questions, providing a basis for specifying the required airflow to individual spaces within the building,” Spitler said. “Answers to the third question help designers make choices to improve the performance or efficiency of the design.”

The new manual features in-depth examples, as well as bringing together the latest data for building materials, windows, weather and internal heat gains, according to Spitler. The accompanying CD contains spreadsheets that compute the factors needed by the RSTM and compute cooling loads with the RSTM.

The manual is the fourth in a series of load calculation manuals published by ASHRAE, including the first and second editions of Cooling and Heating Load Calculation Manual as well as Cooling and Heating Load Calculation Principles.

ASHRAE 2008 BACnet Published (ATLANTA)

Guidance to reduce a building’s energy consumption on demand is contained in ASHRAE’s newly published BACnet standard.

ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-2008, BACnet® -- A Data Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks, allows building equipment and systems manufactured by different companies to work together. It is the only open, consensus-developed standard in the building controls industry. The new standard contains seven addenda approved since the 2004 standard was published.

“The 2008 version of the standard incorporates many years of work by the BACnet committee,” said immediate past chair Bill Swan. “This includes material first published a couple of months ago. It replaces the 2004 version as the standard for BACnet technical and specification efforts.”

The standard contains new guidance related to the Load Control object, an extension to reduce a building's energy consumption on demand - a key element of the integration of energy utilities and buildings to reduce or eliminate brownouts and blackouts from energy grid overload.

It also covers:

• the Access Door object, the first of the extensions to fully support physical access control
• improvements in requirements on BACnet devices
• new capabilities such as BACnet Web Services which, among other things, are being considered for energy utility-building communications
• a standardized and interoperable means to record alarms

 

New Report Provides Roadmap for Energy Policy and Strategies in the New Administration (ATLANTA)

Completed in July, the $7.65 million renovation includes a new learning and meeting center.  Sustainable measures include projected reduction in annual energy usage of more than 31.5 percent through use of a dedicated outdoor air supply with energy recovery and humidity control, ground-source heat pumps and variable refrigerant flow systems with heat recovery; 52.3 percent reduction in water consumption by using low-flow or no-flow fixtures throughout the building; and increase of outside air delivered to each space by 30 percent beyond minimum rates specified in ASHRAE’s Standard 62.1. More information can be found at www.ashrae.org/building.

The renewal was funded through donations of more than $1.65 million in equipment, services and furnishings from more than 20 companies and individuals and the ASHRAE Foundation.

“The generous donations of the companies help ensure ASHRAE’s headquarters is a showcase of sustainability for its members and the HVAC&R industry as a whole,” Harrison said. “With its sustainability and productivity focus, this project showcases their commitment to environmental leadership and healthy built and natural environments. ASHRAE is grateful for not only their donations, but their dedication to the technologies we are embracing as part of the renewal.”

Complete descriptions of donations can be found at www.ashrae.org/building. Major contributors to the Headquarters project include the ASHRAE Foundation, Carrier Corp., Automated Logic Corp. /Automated Logic Georgia, ClimateMaster Inc., Daikin Industries Ltd., Southern Company/Georgia Power Company, and Trane.

The ASHRAE Foundation provided funding for creation of the ASHRAE Foundation Learning Center, a new addition to the Headquarters that reflects the Society’s commitment to education.

"The rapidly expanding technology on which our industry is based requires that individuals and industry alike are proactive in continuing their education,” Richard Hayter, chair of the ASHRAE Foundation, said.  “The Learning Center will significantly expand ASHRAE's ability to serve its members and the HVAC&R industry."

Automated Logic Corp. donated a networked building automation system hardware and software, which provides a user interface for the Living Lab, allowing researchers around the world to monitor performance and extract data for research purposes.

“We are very appreciative of the work ASHRAE does for our industry, conducting research and establishing standards that makes our job easier,” said Steve Tom, director of technical information, Automated Logic Georgia. “We were delighted by this opportunity to give something back to ASHRAE. We also feel that the Web accessibility and data collection capacity of WebCTRL made it an ideal system to support the Living Lab.”

Carrier Corp. donated funding for naming of the Willis H. Carrier Library on the second level of the Headquarters.

“It is with great honor that the ASHRAE Engineering Library will be named after Willis H. Carrier,” said Mary Milmoe, director, marketing communications, Carrier Building Systems and Services. “Carrier invented the first system for ‘manufactured weather’ in 1902 and sparked an industry that revolutionized the way in which we live, work and play. From that defining moment – and through to the present day – Carrier has built on a legacy of innovation. For more than a century, Carrier’s research, expertise and forethought have resulted in market-leading innovations and ‘firsts’ that have shaped and defined the heating, air conditioning and refrigeration industry.”

ClimateMaster provided a geothermal heat system that utilizes on-site renewable energy to provide high-efficiency heating and cooling for the 14 individual zones on the second level of the building.

“With buildings accounting for nearly 40 percent of all U.S. energy consumption, there is no doubt that ASHRAE members will play a crucial role in reshaping our energy future,” Daniel Ellis, president of ClimateMaster Inc., said. “We are pleased that we were able to assist ASHRAE in demonstrating its leadership by making its Headquarters a model of energy efficiency and environmental stewardship.”

Daikin’s donation of a variable refrigerant volume s (VRV®) system serves the first and the Learning Center. The non-ozone-depleting potential refrigerant, individual zone control capabilities and heat recovery technologies helped ASHRAE reach its goal of building a sustainable headquarters. Additionally, Daikin also contributed a vegetative roof garden above the new ASHRAE Foundation Learning Center, which will be known as the Daikin Sustainability Garden.

“Daikin industries, a member of the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations, is committed to providing energy-efficient and sustainable building solutions by ensuring environmentally conscious practices in all business, product development, and manufacturing activities,” said Kosei Uematsu, senior executive officer, Daikin Industries Ltd. , and president, Daikin U.S. Corp. “Daikin Industries is pleased to be a partner in the ASHRAE Headquarters Renewal Project helping to preserve resources for current and future generations.”

Georgia Power/Southern Co. provided 170-watt photovoltaic modules, which make up a solar electricity system and that produces electricity during daylight hours and back feeds energy into an existing grid, and an electric water heater.

“Georgia Power is committed to being a good citizen by supporting of our employees' involvement in ASHRAE's mission of advancing the arts and sciences of HVAC&R and by directly supporting projects that protect our environment’s resources,” said E. Lamont Houston, senior vice president, Customer Service and Sales, Georgia Power. “ASHRAE's renovated Headquarters will serve as a Living Lab, allowing Georgia Power to use this facility with customers as a model of new technologies and give us data to share with customers on the implications and performance of these technologies on their sites.” 

Trane donated key elements of the Headquarter’s building HVAC system, including a dedicated outdoor air system to optimize performance by reconfiguring internal components with bypass dampers. The company is supporting name of a conference area as the Reuben Trane Executive Conference Room.

“Through technology and innovation, Trane continues to support engineers in our industry,” John W. Conover IV, Trane president, Americas, said. “Our donation to the ASHRAE Headquarters living lab is a symbolic way to demonstrate our continued dedication to ASHRAE and to engineers at large.”

Other donors to the project are Aircuity Inc., whose sensing system senses a broad array of indoor environmental parameters and integrates this information with the onsite building management system for control of the indoor environment, and Interface FLOR, which provided modular carpet in most spaces of the Headquarters.

Also donating are Allsteel® /Ivan Allen; Mark H. Brandli/design principal for Richard Wittschiebe Hand; CxGBS; Dynamic Air Quality Solutions; EBTRON Inc. ; GE Power; Bill and Margaret Harrison; Bruce Hunn; ITT/Bell & Gossett/James M. Pleasants Co. ; NorthWrite Inc.; PolyCon Manufacturing; Thermal Gas Systems Inc.; U.S. Green Building Council; and VFA Inc.

A new residential ventilation and indoor air quality (IAQ) guideline is now available from ASHRAE.

ASHRAE Guideline 24-2008, Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality in Low-Rise Residential Buildings, is the companion guideline to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62.2-2007, Ventilation and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality in Low-Rise Residential Buildings, the only nationally recognized ventilation and IAQ standard developed solely for residences.  Guideline 24 provides information on achieving good IAQ that goes beyond the requirements contained in Standard 62.2 by providing explanatory and educational material not included in the code-intended standard.

The guideline, which was written by the committee responsible for maintaining Standard 62.2, includes information on envelope and system design, material selection, commissioning and installation, and operation and maintenance.

Committee chair Steven Emmerich said, “While Standard 62.2 contains the essential minimum requirements that all low-rise residential buildings should meet to achieve acceptable IAQ, Guideline 24 is an essential resource for designers, builders and others looking for reliable information on topics not covered in the standard or seeking to go beyond minimum for high performance construction. Topics covered range from fundamentals of building airflow to humidity control to verification of equipment performance.”

A revised user’s manual will assist users of the ASHRAE/IESNA energy conservation standard in energy efficient design.

The User’s Manual for ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2007, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, is now available. This manual has been through an extensive revision process to incorporate the various addenda approved since the 2004 edition according to Keith Emerson, who oversaw review of the manual for the Standard 90.1 committee. Since the 2004 edition was published, 44 addenda have been approved and are now incorporated into the manual.  

Updates have been made to reflect and illustrate the changes in every portion of the 90.1 Standard. Appendix G changes have also been made. 

“The Appendix G changes will be particularly useful to people involved with projects that are trying to achieve a certain amount of savings over and above the minimum requirements of the standard,” Emerson said.

The 90.1-2007 User’s Manual illuminates the standard by providing detailed instruction, calculation examples and compliance forms for the design of commercial and high-rise residential buildings.  It includes sections on administration and enforcement, building envelope, HVAC systems, service water heating, power, lighting, the energy cost budget method and the building performance rating method.

Just like the right dose of medicine can improve health, proper ventilation is an integral part of patients’ well-being in health care facilities.

Requirements to ensure high-quality ventilation can be found in a new standard written by ASHRAE and the American Society for Healthcare Engineering (ASHE). ANSI/ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170-2008, Ventilation of Health Care Facilities, defines ventilation system design requirements that provide environmental control for comfort, as well as infection and odor control.

The standard is the first ANSI standard in the nation to specifically address ventilation in health care facilities and is available for adoption by various authorities for health care facility construction such as city, state and federal governments and by private national organizations such as the Facilities Guidelines Institute and the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).

Without high-quality ventilation in health care facilities, patients, health care workers and visitors can become infected by simply breathing.

“Air-transmitted pathogens can be found everywhere in poorly ventilated health care facilities,” Richard Hermans, P.E., ASHRAE certified healthcare facility design professional (HFDP), chair of the committee that wrote the standard, said. “Because these organisms are found in higher concentrations in hospitals and because patients are susceptible to them, additional care should be taken in the design of ventilation systems.”

The standard addresses systems and equipment; space ventilation for a variety of areas in health care facilities, including airborne infection isolation rooms, critical care units, burn units, surgery rooms, and Class B and C operating rooms; and planning, construction and system startup.

The cost of ASHRAE/ASHE Standard 170, Ventilation of Health Care Facilities, is $54 ($43, ASHRAE members).

Maintain to sustain is the name of the game when it comes to saving energy and money in today’s building stock.

A new standard from ASHRAE and the Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) will help ensure a consistent minimal level of HVAC&R maintenance and inspection to preserve a system’s ability to achieve acceptable thermal comfort, energy efficiency, and indoor air quality in commercial buildings.

“Consistent maintenance ensures that energy efficiency remains at design levels,” Baker said. “Where maintenance is neglected, energy costs rise significantly and equipment life drops dramatically. With HVAC&R systems responsible for about 60 percent of site electrical energy use, it’s imperative that we provide consistent maintenance and inspection to improve energy efficiency along with thermal comfort and indoor air quality. When systems are not maintained, indoor air quality, occupant comfort and energy efficiency all suffer.”

In addition, much of the information that will be required to prepare the maintenance program can be obtained from building commissioning documents, which provides a basis for identifying failures.

The cost of ANSI/ASHRAE/ACCA Standard 180-2008, Standard Practice for Inspection and Maintenance of Commercial Building HVAC Systems, is $31 ($25, ASHRAE members).

To order, contact ASHRAE Customer Service at 1-800-527-4723 (United States and Canada) or 404-636-8400 (worldwide), fax 404-321-5478, or visit at www.ashrae.org/bookstore.

Under a teaching project funded through a grant from ASHRAE, students at the University of Oregon will be challenged to develop, construct and determine the R-value of a green roof through a hands-on experience, known as the Eco-Roof Game. The project was one of 10 grants funded by ASHRAE through its senior undergraduate project grant program.

The grants, totaling some $65,000, are awarded by ASHRAE to colleges and universities worldwide to promote the study and teaching of HVAC&R, encouraging undergraduate students to pursue related careers. The grants are used to design and construct projects. For more information, visit ASHRAE.org/studentzone.

As part of the Eco-Roof Game, students will use actual building materials, a heat flux transducer, dataloggers and moisture meters to learn about heat loss and gain, insulation value, material properties, water conservation, evapotranspiration and to consider strategies for conserving energy.

“Targeting both architecture and engineering students about energy and the environment is particularly important because, whether aware of it or not, they play a central role in shaping the world in these areas,” said Alison Kwok, a professor at the university who submitted the grant application. “A thoughtless decision about building orientation may create a cooling load that lasts as much as a century. Instilling an experience about envelope materials can influence decisions about building design that will impact power use for thousands of business days.”

            Other ASHRAE grant recipients are:

• American University of Beirut, experimental investigation for performance and optimized design of radiant heating panels for rooms constructed according to Lebanese building thermal guidelines

• Cairo University, Water Cooling Tower Educational Stand: Design and Fabrication

• Purdue University – Fort Wayne, Design and Development of Solar Cooling Demonstration Unit

• Mapua Institute of Technology, Development of an Indoor Environment Quality Measurement Laboratory and Laboratory Set-up of Thermal Ice Storage for Air Conditioning Systems

• Purdue University – Calumet, Cooling Systems for Data Centers

• Texas A&M University, Design and Construction of Solar Powered Refrigeration System Using Carbon Nanotubes and Methanol

• Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Solar Absorption Refrigeration Module for the Chiller Type HVAC Lab

• Western Kentucky University, Passive Residential Cooling System

Two senior management changes are being announced related to ASHRAE’s Technology Department.

Bruce Hunn, Ph.D., who has served as ASHRAE’s director of technology since 1997, has been named to a newly created position, director of strategic technical programs. Claire Ramspeck, who formerly served as assistant director of technology for standards and special projects, has been named director of technology.

“These changes allow for better support of ASHRAE resources as the demand for ASHRAE’s technical expertise and collaborative projects continues to grow,” Jeff Littleton, ASHRAE executive vice president, said. “This will enhance ASHRAE’s efforts in key technical areas such as net-zero-energy policy and the advancement of our activities with other organizations in the building industry.”

As director of strategic technical programs, Hunn will oversee ASHRAE’s special projects, such as development of its Advanced Energy Design Guide series, the upcoming Advanced Indoor Air Quality guide and other documents that will provide design guidance to achieve net-zero-energy buildings.

Prior to joining ASHRAE, Hunn served as head of the Building Energy Systems Program, Center for Energy Studies, the University of Texas at Austin.

Ramspeck will direct staff support of ASHRAE’s $3 million per year research program, its 90-plus technical committees and its 120-plus standards as well as technical services.

She has worked at ASHRAE since 1995, previously serving as manager of technical services and manager of standards. Prior to working at ASHRAE, she was a design engineer for Bechtel.

A new standard way of representing building data will give BACnet new capabilities for standardized communications between a wide range of applications.

A definition for an XML syntax which can be used to represent building data in a consistent, flexible and extensible manner, is defined by addendum t, recommended for public review by the BACnet committee during ASHRAE’s recent 2008 Annual Meeting.

The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a popular technology in the data processing and communications worlds, based on its ability to model a wide range of data, and its ability to be transformed and extended. 

"With this new IT-friendly way of representing building data, we are opening up a whole range of possible new ways to share data. XML can be used for exchanging files between systems, integrating buildings with energy utilities, and expanding enterprise integration with richer Web services.” said Dave Robin, incoming BACnet chair.

In a busy three-and-a-half day session during the meeting, the BACnet committee moved eight other addenda toward publication.

Addendum g, a new means for securing BACnet messages using updated encryption technologies, was recommended for another public review following an extended period of revision and analysis by the Network Security working group following the preceding public review.

The Life-Safety and Security working group, comprised of BACnet and physical security industry experts, recommended another public review for Addendum j, which proposes physical access control extensions for BACnet. 

“We received only nine comments on the previous public review,” said working group convener David Ritter, “and they were all positive and constructive comments.”  The Testing and Interoperation working group revised its definitions of several new types of BACnet operator workstations following the first public review of addendum l last fall.  "These definitions will not only allow users to specify the capabilities of different workstations, but are necessary for defining the tests done on those workstation by BACnet testing labs," said working group convener Carl Neilson.

Addenda h, r and s, all comprised of a number of independent changes, were also recommended for public review.

After reviewing the comments submitted for two addenda, the BACnet committee determined that addenda b and m had passed spring public review and will be submitted for publication. Both addenda are comprised of several independent changes but include user-oriented extensions such as the Event Log object, which keeps a history of BACnet alarms in a standard fashion.

Also during the meeting, outgoing BACnet chair Bill Swan announced the publication of BACnet 2008, incorporating the five addenda that have been approved since the publication of BACnet 2004.

The BACnet committee continues to work on a broad range of other items, such as architectural and theatrical lighting controls, developing standard profiles for various building automation devices, CCTV control, and elevator monitoring.