Reducing Building Energy Costs Using Optimized Operation Strategies for Constant Volume Air Handling Systems

摘要

Building energy consumption can be substantiallyreduced after implementing what we call ExtendedO&M Measures. The Extended O&M Measures are ascientific refinement of traditional O&M measures.Specifically, they involve resetting the cooling deck orheating deck temperature according to the ambienttemperature such that maximum energy efficiency canbe achieved without compromising indoor air qualityand comfort. Extended O&M Measures optimizesystem performance as a whole rather than focusing onthe malfunction of individual component. Our studyinvolving five medical and institutional buildings atthe University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB).Galveston shows that Extended O&M Measures canreduce chilled water and condensate costs by$517,800/yr or 19% of the total building energy cost($2.7 million dollars). This potential percentagesavings is comparable to the LoanSTAR measuredthermal energy savings in 10 buildings at anotherUniversity of Texas campus where constant air volumesystems have been converted to variable volumesystems. Though in the later case fan electricityconsumption is also reduced but with some investmentcost. On the other hand, Extended O&M Measures donot require any retrofit or investment cost. ExtendedO&M Measures have been implemented in one of thefive buildings, and the measured savings are consistentwith predicted savings. It seems that the ExtendedO&M Measures are an excellent alternative toconverting constant volume systems to variablevolume systems, especially if there are no retrofit funds available.