Preliminary Commissioning and Energy Audit of a UNLV Building

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2006

Publication Title

Energy Engineering: Journal of the Association of Energy Engineering

Volume

103

Issue

1

First page number:

27

Last page number:

58

Abstract

A partial commissioning and energy audit were performed on a recently constructed building at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Although the building is relatively new and has passed all building code requirements, it has not undergone a formal commissioning process to check that the mechanical systems, such as the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), were performing at optimally designed conditions. The building is approximately 35,000 ft2 spread over three floors.

The following components and systems were inspected, tested, and/or analyzed during the project: rooftop units, ducting flow rates, VAV units, room supply air flows, thermostats, temperature control sensors, some preliminary aspects of IAQ, some aspects of lighting, hot water heating, occupancy and occupant perceptions, and operating parameters. The building chosen has an energy management system (EMS), and hence its data can be reasonably evaluated.

In addition to the inspections of the above items in the above areas, an energy use simulation was conducted using RESHEAT to test the effects of changing thermostat and hours of operation settings on the predicted energy savings in the building. The simulation showed that with the proposed changes, as much as 16.0 percent reduction of energy use could be achieved. The proposed changes resulting from this study were deemed to minimally impact the interior environment and occupants.

Keywords

Air conditioning; College buildings – Energy conservation; College buildings – Energy consumption; Energy auditing; Heating; University of Nevada; Las Vegas

Disciplines

Energy Systems | Engineering | Mechanical Engineering | Sustainability

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the item. Publisher policy does not allow archiving the final published version. If a post-print (author's peer-reviewed manuscript) is allowed and available, or publisher policy changes, the item will be deposited.

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