Quantify & Prioritize Your Energy Savings
As corporate sustainability initiatives become more mainstream, the conversation is shifting from whether to implement sustainability programs to how to lead sustainability programs most effectively. Appropriately prioritizing sustainability initiatives to align with business objectives and effectively managing organizational change are critical to achieving sustainability goals.
Building Audits
Our audit services offer businesses unbiased recommendations for improvements that can be made to building systems and operational procedures. MyCore’s comprehensive audit process is focused on analyzing and prioritizing the best investments for your building.
In these days of uncertainty, it is important to keep operating expenses to a minimum. One difference between those companies that weather these difficult times and those which do not survive will be that the survivors will be those who have reduced their unnecessary expenditures before it is too late.
Unnecessary costs include a portion of your utility costs, which for many until now were just considered “a cost of doing business.” By running an inefficient building, you are overpaying your utility for energy. It just doesn’t make any sense.
A good building energy audit will point the way to reduce your energy costs by 10% to 40%. For large organizations, this can be substantial, and could be the difference between staying afloat and going under.
A commercial building energy audit is a study of your building’s energy using equipment. Building energy audits often also look at water consumption (even though that is not technically considered energy). An energy auditor comes out to your building and interviews facility managers, inspects lighting, air conditioning, heating and ventilation equipment, controls, air compressors, water consuming equipment, and anything else that is using energy. The auditor will develop a list of energy conservation measures (ECMs) that could reduce energy usage and costs in your building. Depending upon the level of building energy audit, the auditor will then quantify how much savings potential there is for each of these measures, and the costs associated with implementing them. Some measures will take decades to pay for themselves, while others will start paying for themselves within months.
Once you have read over your commercial building energy audit, our energy auditor will meet with you over the phone to discuss the report, and what your next steps are to start reducing your energy costs.
We investigate and quantify energy savings potential in:
- Lighting systems
- HVAC Systems and Controls
- Compressed Air Systems
- Renewable Energy Applications
- Electric Motors and Drives
- Process Systems
- Steam Systems
- Heat Recovery
- Building Envelope Upgrades
- Switching Utility Providers or Utility Rates
- and more!
Every building has its own personality. In order to determine the options that a building has for energy improvements, the first step is to conduct a building audit. MyCore offers several levels of audits that allow a building owner to decide how much detail they would like to see before making any investment decisions.
The American Society of Heating Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineers (ASHRAE) has developed standard energy audit levels. Primarily there are three levels of commercial energy audits, two of them conform to ASHRAE’s standards, and the third is a quick check-up for smaller businesses, or clients with a tight budget.
Quick Facts
Cost: $0.05/SF – $0.10/SF
Time: 2-3 Weeks
Confidence: ~25%
Opportunity Audit
Opportunity audits are the least expensive type of commercial energy audit. They involve walking through a facility, identifying energy conservation opportunities, interviewing facility personnel, and quickly reviewing the facility’s utility bills. The opportunity audit is fine for smaller organizations and those on a budget that want some quick tips on how they can reduce their energy usage and costs. It basically gives a road map of what to do.
Our Opportunity audits could be referred to as “walk-through” audits. Because of its brevity, and because expected energy savings are not converted into dollar amounts, it may not be considered sufficient for reaching energy management conclusions. For example, if you are going to invest $100,000 in an efficient boiler, it is important to know how much you are going to save, and to know how long it will take for the project to pay for itself. The Opportunity Audit will not give this information. One of the best things about Opportunity audits is that they usually identify no-cost or low-cost energy measures that can substantially reduce energy usage and costs.
Quick Facts
Cost: $0.10/SF – $0.20/SF
Time: 1 Month
Confidence: ~15%
Improvement Audit
Improvement audits are more intensive than Opportunity Audits and are recommended for clients who are seeking LEED-EB status, or those just looking to cut costs.
This audit is similar to an ASHRAE Level 1 audit and focuses on low-cost/no-cost energy conservation measures, and provides a list of higher cost energy conservation measures. In addition to tasks performed in the Opportunity Audit, in the Improvement audit, we report how much in energy and energy costs can be saved from each energy conservation opportunity. We perform an energy balance, which breaks out energy usage into different end uses.
Quick Facts
Cost: $0.20/SF – $0.30/SF
Time: 1-2 Months
Confidence: ~5%
Investment Audit
Investment audits include a more detailed building survey, financial projections, and energy analysis than Improvement audits.
Basically, Investment audits will identify all appropriate energy conservation measures for a facility, and a financial analysis will be performed based on implementation costs, operating costs, and attainable savings. You will know for each energy conservation measure, the amount to be saved, the amount the measure will cost, and the amount of time it will take for the measure to pay for itself. In addition, Investment audits will discuss any changes to operations and maintenance procedures.
Investment audits are similar to ASHRAE level 2 audits and are used by clients who are seeking LEED-EB status. ASHRAE Level 2 audits are worth 2 points (LEED-EB Credit 2.1, Option B) and are sometimes selected by our clients as it is less expensive than Retro-Commissioning (LEED-EB Credit 2.1, Option A).
In addition, often times, investors will require more rigorous financial projections than Improvement audits provide.
With Investment audits, we will provide realistic savings reports with regard to baseline operating costs. These reports will stress the expected return on investment, and projected savings will be presented in such a way that provides intensive detail, and instills confidence in the investor.
Quick Facts
Cost: $0.20/SF – $0.30/SF
Time: 1-2 Months
Confidence: ~5%
Recommissioning Audit
When it comes to energy savings, a great deal of focus is placed on equipment. While it is very important to have efficient equipment, controlling it correctly may be more crucial. Building controls tell much of your equipment when and how to run. Retrocommissioning (RCx) (also known as recommissioning) is the systematic process that optimizes your building controls to improve building systems and operations. Improvements can be seen in energy efficiency, greenhouse gas reduction, safety, comfort and even equipment lifetimes. It comes as no surprise that a great deal of cash is also saved on RCx.
With such amazing benefits RCx must be expensive, right? Wrong! In fact, RCx is one of the least expensive investments to your building you can make. In a 2009 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) study, researchers found an average payback time of only 1.1 years for RCx.
How does RCx achieve such great savings at a reasonable cost?
The key is that controls affect much of the equipment within buildings. By tweaking the controls, and getting them to operate optimally, you improve the way the entire building functions, without having to replace the equipment itself.
ENERGY STAR estimates the average cost of retro-commissions is 27 cents per square foot. In 2004, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, found RCx energy savings ranges from 11 to 72 cents per square foot, while non energy related savings ranges from 10 to 45 cents per square foot. These numbers back up the 1.1 year median payback estimated in 2009 by LBNL.
This audit will review the major systems in a building and provide a recommendation for low or no cost improvements that can be made to the existing systems.
