Notes from
instrumented
buildings.
Written for people making decisions about specific buildings, using numbers taken off instruments in those buildings.
HVAC as a demand response asset
The chiller plant is usually the largest controllable load in a building, and the most expensive item in it to run. On roughly ten afternoons a year the IESO will pay for operating it differently, provided the reduction can be proven against a baseline.
What a COP of 1.0 indicates
A coefficient of performance near 1.0 is not a bad day or a fouled tube bundle. It indicates a plant moving water rather than heat. The arithmetic, the four ranked root causes, and the unit error that makes a healthy plant look broken.
Why we adjust the baseline, not the results
A mild winter can produce apparent savings that never happened; a harsh one can mask savings that did. IPMVP Option C adjusts the baseline to the reporting period's own conditions.
Discuss a
specific building.
Thirty minutes, with the engineer who would run the work.
No cost and no obligation. Bring twelve months of utility bills if you have them — that alone is usually enough to say whether a building has a capital problem or a controls problem.