SBIR-STTR Award

The proposed project will develop an integrated building energy evaluation program, to be applied to large buildings that determines the overall building energy efficiency and diagnoses specific sources of energy inefficiency. The approach is to measure and calculate an overall building energy performance factor and compare it to expected standards to provide building energy efficiency evaluation. More importantly, it will indicate areas of inefficiency to be improved. Many data inputs to the analysis will come from a quantitative energy audit procedure that is also expected to diagnose additional energy inefficiencies. The analysis procedure and audit procedure will be tested using data from real uildings and integrated into a complete energy evaluation program.

The proposed project will develop an integrated system of building energy evaluation procedures, equipment, and software for large buildings that determines the overall energy efficiency of the building and diagnoses sources of energy inefficiency in the areas of HVAC equipment and controls. The process will also determine optimum strategies for operating the HVAC equipment and settings for the controls. The approach that has been developed in Phase I and through the first year of the Phase II work to perform the diagnostics has been the use measured data to produce performance factors and to compare them with standard performance factors for a properly operating building. More than twenty performance factors have been developed to date. The differences between the standard and measured performance factors are necessary and sufficient to pinpoint areas of energy inefficiency. The work in this second year of phase ii will result in a completely integrated diagnostic system