The new child care facility for the Naval Academy just completed December 2011, LEED –NC v2.2 Silver applied for. This is steel and masonry design includes geothermal heat pumps, a two pipe loop, boiler, dedicated outside air system with air to air heat recovery, radiant floors, kitchen hood, emergency power, occupancy sensor controls and state of the art surveillance.

Foulger-Pratt and Hascon were prime contractors on this design-build project.

Iberville East Math Science and Arts Academy, St Gabriel, LA has a new 53,000 sf K-12 school intended to meet the highest international levels of design, materials, and execution. CPM provided energy modeling and commissioning to help achieve LEED-NC Silver certification. A 30% energy reduction below ASHRAE 90.1-2007 standards is expected. This was the first LEED project for the team and it went smoothly, thanks to the professionalism of those at Guy Hopkins Construction and The Energy Group.

This project was completed in 2011.

A new science building on campus with expanded science labs will serve middle and high school students. Approximately 15,000 sf including labs, prep rooms and support space. This serves as an example of the German School’s commitment to good design and energy efficient building, with a key objective to achieve LEED Silver Certification, under the LEED for Schools rating system. In doing so, it will also meet recently enacted Green Building requirements of Montgomery County, MD. This new building will serve as a prototype for future upgrades to MEP systems around the Potomac, MD school campus.

As part of the Base Realignment and Closure Program (BRAC), the existing Walter Reed Medical Center has relocated to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Two new buildings, labeled A and B, were recently constructed there.

Building A, comprising about 500,000 square feet, will house such areas as the Children’s Health Area, Cancer Treatment Center, Neurology Area, Physical Therapy, and Medical Staff Offices. Building B, with about 220,000 square feet, will house Patient Bedrooms, Operating Rooms, and the Ambulance Receiving Center.

This elegant 505,000 sf office building, with state-of-the-art systems, is part of a larger office complex owned and operated by Property Group Partners adjacent to historic Union Station. CPM Scheduling was CxA for both core and shell and the Interior fit-out for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the dominant tenant of the building.

The building is LEED-CS Silver certified and the Interior is awaiting LEED –CI v3.0 Silver certification. This job completed 12/2010.

This 8 story office building, originally built in 1985, contains approximately 225,000 square feet of professional office space. The facility was recently updated to the highest standards of design, materials, and execution resulting in LEED-EB (Existing Buildings) platinum certification.

CPM retro-commissioned the building focusing on mechanical, lighting, and plumbing systems; they facilitated achieving the highest LEED certification. A US DOE Energy Star rating of 86 and a positive indoor environmental quality for all building occupants were also results.

The USGBC & LEED divides the commissioning process into two parts. Fundamental commissioning focuses on installation and verification of the mechanical and electrical systems during construction. Enhanced commissioning covers a broader scope of systems, and involves broader participation of the CxA, beginning during construction documents and continuing through occupancy.

The Enhanced Commissioning credit is open to any project, but project teams often choose not to pursue it due to the increased cost and uncertainty around its benefits. Enhanced commissioning fees are typically $0.90–$1.20/ft2 for LEED and LEED for Schools projects. These fees represent a 25%–40% cost increase over fundamental commissioning, while providing almost double the scope of work.

All projects benefit with enhanced commissioning, though it can be more obvious for large or more complex projects. Projects can choose to make the decision for pursuing enhanced until after receiving the bid proposal, in order to evaluate the actual cost, but should hire a commissioning agent by the end of design development for enhanced commissioning.

Retro commissioning is a full facility tune-up designed to help your building perform optimally. RCx entails a systematic evaluation that can save owners and managers up to 15 percent of their annual energy costs. Other potential benefits include:

• Targeted energy savings opportunities
• Reduced maintenance and repair costs
• Extended equipment service life
• More comfortable working environment

Every owner and manager wants to increase occupant comfort and reduce operational costs. CPM provides RCx services that include:

• Sophisticated analysis of building energy usage
• Comprehensive on-site investigation
• Monitoring & review of BMS data
• Functional testing of savings measures
• Credible measurement & verification of final savings

The goal of RCx is to make sure that existing equipment works better. CPM Commissioning delivers recommendations for reducing operational and maintenance costs, presents measures that will bring equipment to its proper operational state, and improve occupant comfort while reducing complaints about mechanical issues.

Continuous commissioning uses ongoing efforts to resolve operating problems, improve comfort, and optimize energy use for existing commercial and institutional buildings and central plant facilities.

In the building is a system that gathers hundreds of data points hourly, or even more frequently, and transmits them to a central server. Data analysis software performs fault detection and diagnostics, alerting facility managers to hidden problems that waste energy and compromise occupant comfort.

For example, air handling units can get stuck in a mode where they’re heating and cooling simultaneously. Correcting that would immediately reduce energy waste, sometimes dramatically. Short term, building occupants experience greater comfort. Longer term, it reduces wear and maintenance on expensive mechanical equipment.

Continuous commissioning goes by many names, like monitoring-based, or data-based commissioning, or just ongoing energy monitoring. By any name, it’s a real energy saver.