Benchmarking Your Energy Curtailment Plans

Do you have a plan to deal with electrical brown-outs or emergency curtailments? That was one of the questions and issues up for discussion at a recent Benchmarking / Best Practices meeting. Our survey asked the question

Question: Do you have a brown-Out Plan (reduction in commercial power being supplied) that you could share?

Most of our participants did have a plan and many of them had utilized an ASHRAE (American Society of Heating and Refrigeration Engineers) paper outlining how to prepare for this event.

ASHRAE Offers Advice for Emergency Energy Use Reduction

One way to save energy is through implementation of a building emergency energy use reduction plan, according to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).

“With increasing energy costs, capacity shortages and dwindling reserves, the need to reduce energy use is more important than ever,” Lawrence Spielvogel, former chair of ASHRAE’s Standard 90.1, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, committee, said. “Much energy could be saved if building owners would prepare and follow an energy reduction plan and take a few simple energy-saving steps.”

ASHRAE first developed its guidance on emergency energy use reduction in buildings during the 1980s. Since that time, it has been included in periodic updates of the ASHRAE Handbook, Applications.

ASHRAE recommends that building owners and operators develop a building emergency energy use reduction plan. Development of a plan should include estimating the amount and type of energy savings, recording energy consumption and demand reduction information and reviewing the plan with local utility companies.

“The best plan is one that reduces building energy while still maintaining the best building environment under the circumstances,” Spielvogel said.

The following actions may be considered in developing the plan for emergency energy reduction in the building:

• Change operating hours.
• Move personnel into other building areas (consolidation).
• Shut off nonessential equipment.

Specific actions to help reduce energy include:

Heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems and equipment

• Modify controls or control set points to raise and lower temperatures and humidity as necessary.
• Shut off or isolate all nonessential equipment.
• Tune up equipment.
• Raise thermostat set points in summer.
• Raise chilled water temperature.
• Lower hot water temperature.
• Reduce the amount of recooling in summer.
• Reduce or eliminate ventilation and exhaust airflow.

Lighting systems

• Remove lamps or reduce lamp wattage.
• Use task lighting where appropriate.
• Move building functions to exterior or daylight areas.
• Turn off electric lights in areas with adequate natural light.
• Replace fluorescent ballasts with high-efficiency or multilevel ballasts.
• Revise building cleaning and security procedures to minimize lighting periods.
• Consolidate parking and turn off unused parking security lighting.

Special equipment

• Take transformers off-line during periods of non-use.
• Shut off unused or unnecessary equipment, such as photo copiers, music systems and computers.
• Reduce or turn off hot water supply.

Building operation demand reduction

• Sequence or interlock heating or air-conditioning systems.
• Disconnect or turn off all nonessential lights.
• Preheat or precool prior to the emergency period.

Using This Information

You should review the ASHRAE paper and your plan for energy curtailments or brownouts. There may be items you have overlooked in your plan that are included in the paper. Obtain senior management approval of your plans prior to an incident.

Metrics from the Facility Managers Round Table (FMRT)

There were 92 unique sites in the FMRT with a median size of about 1,400,000 million square feet. See the chart below to see how the group looked by industry type.

Participants By Industry Type

Space Metrics

• Space Utilization 430 Gross Square Feet per Occupant
• Cost Metrics
• Utilities $2.17 / GSF
• Custodial $1.33 / Cleanable SF
• Maintenance $1.69 / GSF
• Parking and Paving $1529 / Acre
• Groundskeeping $3405 / Acre
• MAIL $0.73 / GSF
• Mail Services $0.22 / GSF
• Environmental Health and Safety $0.35 / GSF
• Fixed Costs (Includes: Building, Leasehold Improvements, Furniture/Equipment) $ 3.71 / GSF

Move / Churn Cost Metrics

• Box Move Costs $317 / Person Moved

Customer Satisfaction

• Satisfaction With Overall Facilities Services 3.80 on a 1 to 5 scale