Open Building Control- Performance Evolution, Specification and Verification of Building Control Sequences
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Recipient
Berkeley, CA
Recipient Location
9th
Senate District
15th
Assembly District
$1,000,000
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
The project is complete. The team documented the potential for the control sequences to reduce heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning system energy use by 30% through the use of advanced controls. The project resulted in a process and a set of software tools, documented at obc.lbl.gov, that pave the way to a digitized control delivery process. They enable the performance evaluation and improvement of building control sequences using whole building energy simulation. Typical performance indices are annual energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, peak demand and thermal comfort. Such performance assessment can be done by researchers and control companies as part of developing and evaluating new control sequences, or by mechanical designers as part of the building design process.
View Final ReportThe Issue
Commercial buildings often fail to perform up to their technical design and equipment specifications. One solution is to install control systems to improve performance. However, the current software tools available to design building controls are tedious and error-prone. This agreement's goal was to build software tools to address the gap between expected building controls' design and actual performance.
Project Innovation
This project developed a software tool that improves the design process, implementation, and validation of commercial building control sequences. This tool has the potential to substantially reduce energy use in both new and existing commercial buildings through building control system retrofits. The agreement is co-funded by the California Energy Commission and the United States Department of Energy (DOE). The project website is https://obc.lbl.gov.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
A major barrier to achieving the state's statutory energy goals is the failure of most commercial buildings to perform close to the technical design potential of their equipment. This can account for significant wasted energy. The project showed that innovations in commercial building control sequences can transform existing buildings to achieve energy savings. The team worked with the ASHRAE Standards Committee to use a standardized programming language, pioneered and developed under this project. The software language will have an impact on improving California Energy Code, Title 24, which requires specific algorithms, documented in ASHRAE Guideline 36. This can result in a large impact to industry by enabling accountability for controls performance between design and operation.
Affordability
The software platform tools could reduce energy use in commercial buildings by improving the design and implementation of building controls. If this technology was widely adopted for 50% of existing medium and large commercial buildings, it could achieve a 12 percent reduction in energy, with a potential cost savings of approximately 0.05 quads per year in California, saving IOU ratepayers an estimated $300 million per year.
Key Project Members
Michael Wetter
Subrecipients
Taylor Engineering
Arup North America Ltd
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Facility Dynamics
Integral Group, Inc.
