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Building and Maintaining Energy Smart Schools
Develop a Project Plan
A project plan serves as an essential guide through the design, construction, and operations phases of building or retrofitting schools. Some aspects of the plan should be:
- Determine your priorities — express them as a short vision statement.
- Develop an initial statement of goals that will translate your vision statement into targets.
- Organization — identify groups that will share your vision and participate in your project — your local utility, your PTA, and local governmental agencies.
- Select an architect and design the building.
- Create an action plan — for overall leadership, project implementation, evaluation of the project, and promotion of the finished project.
- State how energy use and cost savings will be assessed — two basic methods of monitoring the building's performance: (1) whole building monitoring—analyses of utility metering data for an entire building to generate indices on energy and power use comparable across a group of buildings; or (2) end-use monitoring—measurements of energy flows and/or power levels to identify the performance of individual systems (heating, cooling, lighting, etc.). The International Performance Measure Measurement and Verification Protocol guideline standardizes procedures for quantifying energy savings. DOE's Rebuild America Financial Services also has information on measurement and verification.
- Publicize your energy use and cost savings — through promotional notices, seminars, and recognitions, you can publicize the benefits of your project, and pave the way for other energy-efficient building projects.
- State how you will use your savings — reinvesting back into the schools for books, computers, and athletic equipment; incentives for school staff members; or other building improvements.
Finding a "Green" Architect
When building an energy-efficient school, you'll want to hire a "green" architect. They will be familiar with energy-efficient and renewable energy design principles, and will know of engineering resources who are also knowledgeable about energy-efficient school design.
One of the best resources for green architects is the American Institute of Architects (AIA) online database, Profile. Select "Find an Architect," then select "institutional," then input your state, and then from "Type of Services," select "Sustainable Design."
If your search does not result in a listing, try inputting an adjoining state.
You'll reap benefits for years to come by working with a green architect who is expert in energy-efficient design for schools.
Your architect will also ensure your compliance with building codes and requirements. There are codes for:
- general building
- mechanical systems
- plumbing
- electrical systems
- energy performance
- fuel gas piping and appliances
- fire prevention
- life safety
- indoor air quality, and
- accessibility.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) can provide extensive details about codes. DOE also offers Building Standards and Guidelines assistance.
Designing Your Building
The U.S. Department of Energy has published comprehensive "Energy Design Guidelines for High Performance Schools," a series of manuals organized by climate zone.
The manuals can be downloaded (PDF 1.8 MB) Download Acrobat Reader, or hard copies can be obtained by writing to doe.erec@nciine.com.
The Energy Design Guidelines include everything from building orientation to daylighting to water conservation to resource-efficient building products to a checklist of key design issues. Several case studies illustrate the design principles in action.
Compare Your Design to Other Schools
You can "benchmark" your projected energy consumption and costs against existing school buildings in several ways.
For energy costs, look at total modeled annual expenditures, or expenditures by fuel type on a square footage or per student basis.
For energy consumption, energy use intensities (EUIs) — the rates at which energy is used - are calculated and compared. If most schools in your area have lower EUIs than your design, there may still be energy efficiency opportunities for you to pursue.
EUIs are calculated as follows:
| EUI
(kBtu/sf/yr) = | {[10.3 * electric use (kWh/yr)] + [natural gas] (kBtu/yr) + [other fuels] (kBtu/yr)}/ floor area (sf) |
The federal government has several tools to assist in your comparison.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has a school benchmarking tool that allows you to compare your school's EUI against others in your DOE region.
DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR Label for Buildings program has tools for benchmarking your school nationally. If your score is in the top 25 percentile nationally, you may even be eligible for the ENERGY STAR Label for Buildings.
DOE also offers two software packages that evaluate your school's energy performance.
The Facility Energy Decision System (FEDS) assesses and analyzes energy efficiency of single or multiple buildings. FEDS uses a database of typical costs to determine lifecycle costing.
The software program DOE-2 can be used to predict energy consumption rates of your design.
DOE also offers other analysis tools that may be of interest to you.
Commissioning the Building
Commissioning is the process of evaluating building equipment, subsystems, operation and maintenance procedures, and performance of all building components to ensure that they function efficiently as a system.
Some of the benefits of commissioning are:
- Better building operation — assures that operations and maintenance (O&M) manuals have been delivered and can be easily understood, and that O&M personnel are adequately prepared to perform their jobs
- Reduced liability — results in fewer complaints and injuries, and can lower the risk of legal action stemming from conditions such as indoor environmental pollution
- Budgeting accuracy — especially with retrofits, generally results in projects that are on time and within budget
Commissioning can be implemented at three different times:
- Throughout the retrofit or design process
- Following installation of equipment or retrofit measures
- Used alone at any time to improve building energy efficiency.
During planning, decide on the level and timing of commissioning appropriate for your projects. Commissioning is most effective when initiated at the planning stage.
Commissioning may even eliminate apparently needed measures. For example, a school might need a more efficient cooling system. A good commissioning agent might be able to solve the problem by simply balancing the existing thermal distribution system. A qualified commissioning agent should have expertise in:
- Designing and supervising system installation
- Equipment testing
- Training
- Developing operations manuals
- Local building codes
- Hands-on operation
- Energy conservation
- Indoor air quality
- Construction practices
The agent can be an independent third-party engineer, a design professional, or other qualified individual. Components of commissioning include:
- Establishing expected outcomes — building performance, occupant needs, and costs
- Updating or modifying the building design to recognize present or future needs
- Deciding what upgrades and modifications cost-effectively meet the needs of occupants
- Measuring or predicting the basic performance of the building's systems
- Testing building equipment
- Providing system documentation for future O&M
- Verifying that building staff have received appropriate training.
EnergySmart Schools encourages school decision-makers to incorporate at least the last three of these components into their local retrofit/design programs.
For more information
- The Building Commissioning Association promotes practices that maintain high professional standards, and has several useful documents available.
- The Portland Energy Conservation, Inc. Web site offers information on conferences, case studies, guidelines, specifications, tests, and Model Commission Plan and Guide Specifications.
- A Practical Guide for Commissioning Existing Buildings, April 1999, was written by PECI and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for DOE. It is available from NTIS (ORNL Document Number ORNL/TM-1999/34).
- DOE's Rebuild America program also offers a Building Commissioning Guide (PDF 1.1 MB) Download Acrobat Reader, May 1998, that is targeted toward existing buildings. Many of the guidelines, checklist, and resources identified apply to new construction as well. This guide is available through DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Clearinghouse hotline at 1-800-DOE-EREC (3732).
- The Florida Design Initiative has ongoing articles and a forum on building commissioning.
- The National Environmental Balancing Bureau offers procedural standards for building systems commissioning, a certification program, and manuals.
- The commissioning portion of the Oregon Office of Energy's Web site discusses the benefits of commissioning, provides case studies, offers a toolkit of new and existing commissioning application, and includes the full text of its publication, Commissioning for Better Buildings in Oregon.
- The U.S. General Services Administration's and U.S. Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program's Building Commissioning Guide in full text is available free.
Operations and Maintenance
Operations and maintenance (O&M) of a building ensures occupant comfort, good indoor air quality, and efficient system performance. Key components of effective O&M include:
- a well-trained staff,
- adequate documentation of mechanical and electrical equipment and procedures, and
- good maintenance management practices.
O&M activities can be reactive (responding to emergencies and breakdowns), preventive (scheduling work to obtain the longest-term, most energy-efficient operation of systems), or predictive (optimizing use of resources to reap greater system savings).
The highest maintenance costs are incurred during emergencies and other reactive maintenance activities. Preventive maintenance reduces the risk of crisis breakdowns and associated costs.
A preventive maintenance checklist (PDF 37 KB) Download Acrobat Reader. covers the following building elements:
- Building envelope
- Heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems
- Lighting
- Service hot water
- Commercial refrigeration
- Electrical systems
ASHRAE's 1999 HVAC Applications Handbook (Chapters 34-41) has guidelines for building a strong O&M program.
Training O&M Staff
Training staff on the proper O&M of energy-efficient equipment comes from experienced school district staff in the construction, design, or maintenance departments. Training is also available, at a cost, from the manufacturers or installers of individual equipment.
When training O&M staff, consider the following:
- The training session schedule, agenda, handouts, and proposed participation should be reviewed by someone knowledgeable at the school district to ensure the scope of the training is adequate.
- The presentation must be clear, well organized, and include an overview of how the system(s) works.
- Participants must be encouraged to ask questions.
- On-site walk-throughs of the systems should be organized.
- Handouts must be disseminated for future reference and include schematic diagrams, control sequences, riser diagrams, etc.
- Systematic information must be provided about routine maintenance and troubleshooting.
A comprehensive training for each type of equipment includes:
- System fundamentals;
- Reference material such as O&M manuals and "as-built" drawings and instruction on how to use them;
- Functions, operational and control sequences, and maintenance procedures, including acceptable tolerances for system adjustments for maximum energy-efficiency savings;
- Warranty information;
- Service guidelines, including how to deal with unexpected conditions and emergencies.
If a computerized energy management system is involved, also include:
- Computer and programming fundamentals,
Instruction in how to operate the system and perform all system functions,- Instruction on programming the system, and
- System maintenance.
Training resources
O&M Training Resource Directory—This directory locates training courses with an energy efficiency focus for commercial building personnel. Contact:
Portland Energy Conservation, Inc.
921 SW Washington, Suite 312
Portland, OR 97205
Phone: 503-248-4636
Fax: 503-295-0820
Central e-mail: peci@peci.org
The International Facility Management Association offers a certification program for facility managers. Maintenance and operations management is one of eight competency areas evaluated to become a Certified Facility Manager. An "Ideas exchange among facility managers" section is also available on their site.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers has its ASHRAE Guideline 4: Preparation of Operating and Maintenance Documentation for Building Systems, 1993 to help prepare O&M documents.
The U.S. Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program offers a useful document entitled the Greening Federal Facilities: An Energy, Environmental and Economic Resource Guide for Federal Facilities Managers, 1971. See Section 8, "The Role of Operations and Maintenance."
O&M also includes the comfort of building occupants. Comfortable students and teachers are more productive. A principal purpose of the HVAC system is to provide comfort and a good learning environment. Primary factors of comfort to be considered are:
- temperature
- humidity
- air speed
- noise
- radiation
- metabolism
- clothing insulation and
- occupant age.
Indoor air quality (IAQ) is a problem in many schools nationwide. One survey reported that at least 20% of U.S. schools have unsatisfactory IAQ. Children are especially susceptible.
Diagnosing symptoms, establishing cause-and-effect relationships, and solving the problems are difficult and sometimes costly. But it is far cheaper to act proactively before problems result in complaints or lawsuits.
Also, the benefits of increased productivity can only help increase the value of your school and job performance.
Some indicators of a potential indoor air problem are:
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Illness symptoms are widespread within a class or within the school
- The symptoms disappear when the students or staff leave the school building for a day
- The onset is sudden after some change at school, such as painting or pesticide application
- Persons with allergies, asthma, or chemical sensitivities have reactions indoors but not outdoors
- A doctor has found that a student or staff member has an indoor air-related illness.
Of course, a lack of symptoms does not ensure acceptable IAQ. Symptoms from long-term health effects (such as lung cancer due to radon) often do not become evident for many years.
Impacts of poor IAQ can be subtle and are not always easily recognizable. They can include:
-
Increasing the potential for long-term and short-term health problems for students and staff.
- Impacting the student learning environment, comfort, and attendance.
- Reducing productivity of teachers and staff due to discomfort, sickness, or absenteeism.
- Accelerating deterioration and reducing efficiency of the school physical plant.
- Increasing the potential that schools will have to be closed, or occupants temporarily relocated.
- Straining relationships among school administration, parents, and staff creating negative publicity that could damage a school's or administration's image and effectiveness.
- Creating potential liability problems.
Causes of indoor air pollution can originate within the building or be drawn in from outdoors. Air pollutants consist of numerous particulates, fibers, mists, bioaerosols, and gases.
Air pollutant concentration levels can vary by time and location within the school building, or even a single classroom.
Example sources of indoor air pollutants include science store rooms, newly painted surfaces, floor stripping, idling school buses, and fungi growing in the HVAC system.
Solutions for tackling IAQ issues are generally three approaches:
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Keeping indoor air pollutants out of the building through source control;
- Dilution by controlling the mix of outdoor and indoor air being circulated; and
- Filtration to trap or kill contaminants.
If you've tried unsuccessfully to fix the problem, or if it seems to be more complex than your staff can handle, you might want to call in an expert.
Qualities to look for in an IAQ investigator include:
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A firm grasp of building construction codes, standards, materials, and systems. Building system knowledge may need to include roofing, walls/windows, flooring, drainage, HVAC, etc.
- Building science topics such as pressure-driven air flow in buildings and building systems.
- Moisture loading and water vapor transport.
- Air contamination sources and their associated irritant or health effects.
- Expertise with tools of the trade such as test equipment, computers, modeling software, and data loggers.
- Interpersonal communication skills.
Resources for IAQ information
IAQ Tools for Schools Action Kit offered by the U.S. EPA shows schools how to carry out a practical plan of action to improve IAQ at little or no cost using common-sense activities and in-house staff. The kit provides simple-to-follow checklists, background information, sample memos and policies, a recommended IAQ Management Plan, and a unique IAQ Problem Solving Wheel.
The National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF) has information about K-12 school planning, financing, design, construction, operations and maintenance. This site has links to numerous indoor air quality sites.
As the non-profit health affiliate of the National Education Association, the Health Information Network (HIN) provides health information to educational employees and the students they serve. The HIN Indoor Air Quality in Schools Program is intended to increase awareness about indoor air quality issues among stakeholders.
Portions of this page were excerpted from: Brennan, Terry M. and William A. Turner. HPAC, "Being a Good Consumer of IAQ Services," Penton Media, Inc.: Cleveland, OH. May 1999. Kelly, Thomas J. "Buildings, Measuring the ROI of IAQ," Stamats Communications Inc., Cedar Rapids, IA. March 1999.
Related links and case studies
Portland Public School District: Oregon District Successfully Completes Extensive Energy Retrofits (PDF 239 KB) Download Acrobat Reader.
Warwick Public Schools: Leveraging Knowledge and Partnerships in Rhode Island (PDF 228 KB) Download Acrobat Reader.
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