Over time through use and adjustments, many buildings fail to meet their designed energy use goals, sometime even after just a few years of occupancy. A collaborative approach with buy-in from facilities personnel, management, and the building automation vendor, plus a retro-commissioning (RCx) agent can achieve original energy use intent, or even better, and maintain energy savings. Often, significant savings can be achieved through adjustments to existing equipment, and be conducted through preventive maintenance and within an operating costs budget with little or no new capital investments.
This proposed session will focus on the “mid-level fruit” of energy savings that can be achieved through a Retro- or Re-Commissioning (RCx or Re-Cx) effort. Many “low hanging fruit” energy savings projects such as lighting retrofits and insulation upgrades are easy for facilities personnel to identify. Once the low hanging fruit are addressed, what are the next steps a facility should undertake? How can you maximize limited operations and capital funds on short payback projects?
During this session, a RCx agent will team with a facilities director to share a case study from Einstein Medical Center Montgomery. The team at Einstein Medical Center followed a systematic RCx effort that focused on good communication, training, and user buy-in. Using the example of work performed at Einstein, the presentation team will discuss 5 areas of easy to achieve, short payback period energy savings. The session will also delve into the issues caused by the current climate.
Learning Objectives:
1. Identify 5 areas “mid-level fruit” of energy savings
2. Define role of good communications in the effort to “maintain the gain” of energy savings
3. Lessons learned from working through the RCx effort during the pandemic