Seven short years ago, the first Greenbuild conference drew over 4,000 attendees to Austin, Texas,
and was considered a smashing success in the green building world.
Now that Greenbuild 2009 has ended, and its more than 24,000 attendees have gone home, I think
it's fair to ponder the explosive growth of green building and sustainability since that first
conference.
Everywhere I look these days, a new trend supporting the growth of green building is reported.
The latest: A recent AIA study shows a 50 percent increase in the number of municipalities with
green building programs since 2007, even though these cities are suffering through the worst
economic downturn since the Great Depression. Yes, green building is here to stay.
And while much of the attention in the green building world has been and remains focused on the
most flashy techniques or the latest technology -- think ecoroofs, rooftop renewables, net-zero
buildings, rainwater harvesting -- there's an old-fashioned yet very green building technique
that's starting to recapture interest. That technique? Building commissioning.
So what, exactly, is commissioning? This can be a hard question to answer, there are several sets
of standards currently making the rounds. In the broadest sense of the word, it means a thorough
testing of a building's systems (including HVAC, lighting, electricity) and making sure they work
and interact as designed, as a way to promote a building's optimal performance.
This kind of comprehensive testing, where a building's systems are run through their paces, can
yield energy savings, fewer system and equipment malfunctions and increased occupant
satisfaction.
I'm still amazed at the numbers of high-performance buildings that are never commissioned,
despite its proven benefits. Unfortunately, many of these buildings end up performing much
more poorly over their lifespan than they were designed to, simply because commissioning was
ignored.
When properly designed and executed, commissioning's major benefit is energy savings. In fact, a
recent Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study of 643 buildings found that commissioning
provided mean whole-building energy savings of between 13 and 16 percent. The same study
also found that if every non-residential building in the U.S. were properly commissioned, the
nation would $30 billion in energy savings by 2030.
The value of Building Commissioning
Kohl's Aims for Carbon Neutrality by Close of 2010 Years ago, a rudimentary form of
commissioning was performed on nearly every building before the keys were handed over to the
owner. In those days, this meant examining every feature of the building to make sure it worked:
for example, checking the doors and windows to make sure they opened and closed, testing the
boiler, making sure that handrails were installed in stairs.
In more recent years, commissioning has come to mean the testing of a building's heating,
ventilating and air conditioning systems as a way to promote optimal efficiency and save energy.
A more recent trend of "whole-building" commissioning combines these two processes: The
old-fashioned checking of doors and windows with the high-tech monitoring of building systems,
which provides a building owner with a fully-functioning building performing at the peak of
efficiency.
The U.S. Green Building Council's LEED certification system has recognized the importance of
commissioning to a building's performance, requiring a point for "fundamental commissioning"
and offering an additional point for "enhanced commissioning."
Our firm has had the opportunity to work on both fundamental and enhanced commissioning
through the Los Angeles Community College (LACCD) green building program, the largest of
its kind in the country. When finished, the LACCD initiative will encompass 85 LEED buildings,
the single largest LEED building project of its kind.
As commissioning agents for one of the LACCD campuses, we've learned a lot about what it takes
to make sure that buildings -- even an entire campus -- run as efficiently and effectively as
possible:
Get your commissioning agent involved early
Whether you are working on a new construction project or a major renovation, it's a big advantage
to get your commissioning agents involved during the design process. That way, your
commissioning agent can represent the building's future operators during design and construction,
making sure that design intent, maintainability and future performance are linked. In addition,
pieces of equipment can be tested, individually, as they are delivered to your job site, to make
sure they are functioning. Then, as the components of electrical and mechanical systems are tied
together, your commissioning agent can help develop operational scripts for functional testing,
saving time and money.
Consider the possibility of failure
If any of your building's electrical equipment is going to fail, it will most likely fail within the first
80 hours of operation. Our commissioning process focuses both on efficiency as well as testing
the peak demand for equipment, to see if anything at all will go wrong, and early. It's much easier
to fix something during the commissioning process, than to try and fix it when your facility is up
and running.
Don't skip the training
There is a direct relationship between the efficiency of a building and the training of facility
managers and operators. Your commissioning agent can provide you with some guidelines on
training programs, syllabi, videos and other information about exactly what your operators will
need to know. Remember to ask for hard or digital copies of training and information for future
building operators, so that your building can be kept running efficiently throughout its 50- or
100-year lifespan.
Don't assume someone else is worrying about performance
Even if you have the best design and construction team and are getting the most energy efficient,
sustainable building possible, don't assume that the building will run efficiently from day one.
Someone needs to represent an operator's point of view throughout the design process, as a link
between the design team and owner. The person or firm tasked with commissioning is the only
person or firm who will make sure that the design intentions carry through to performance.
Once may not be enough
Many buildings benefit from a re-examination of their performance after several years.
Re-commissioning-also called retro-commissioning-is performance testing for an existing
building, and can yield the same benefits for owners and tenants as commissioning a new
building. Monitoring-based commissioning provides continual analysis of a building's
performance over time (days, weeks, or months) and often provides building owners and facility
managers with valuable data about performance during different seasons, times of day and uses.
Everyone knows that an automobile without regular oil changes and tune-ups becomes less
efficient and over time, more prone to equipment failure, than an automobile that receives regular
tune-ups. Buildings may be larger than cars, but they benefit from the same kind of regular
attention we give our cars, and will perform better -- and more cheaply -- when given some
commissioning every now and then.