ASHRAE President Sees A Busy Year Ahead For The Industry, Part 2
And now, part 2 of our interview with Gordon Holness, 2009-2010 President of ASHRAE, (the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers). To recap Part 1, 2009 was a challenging year, to say the least. In the spirit of closing the door on the less-than-ideal year we all experienced, we’re proactively moving forward to the coming year. What does 2010 hold in store? What trends and issues will shape how we do business this year, in five years and even further into the future?
To get a broad overview of what is to come, we spoke with Gordon Holness, and in a wide-ranging discussion, he addressed the trends and events that will affect the industry for years to come.
An important goal for ASHRAE in the coming year is to raise awareness of the role existing buildings play in the use of energy. To that end, ASHRAE will be rolling out its Building EQ program nationally. The heart of the program is a label for a building which will describe both its as-designed energy consumption, based on engineering specifications and computer models, and, after data is available, its actual energy consumption.
“Knowing the actual energy consumption of a building, as compared to how much energy it should consume will benefit owners, operators and tenants,” according to Holness. Owners will find their more energy-efficient buildings to be more marketable to both prospective buyers and tenants. Tenants will be able to compare a variety of buildings in their market area, and operators will be able to use the data to work with management to improve their ratings.
“The primary job here is to keep the occupants of a building comfortable and happy. If a tenant or lessee can pay less for a building that keeps them equally comfortable, they will remain happy.”
Holness noted that in the European Union, legislation aimed at improving the efficiency of existing buildings dates back at least to 2003, with the passage of the European Building Performance Directive. Among other things, that law sets minimum performance standards for buildings, requires energy performance to be labeled and displayed and mandates inspection of boilers and air conditioning systems.
Europe is also leading the way in passive systems such as lighting, according to Holness. “Many offices in the U.S. have background lighting levels as high as 200 lumens and 1-1/2 watts per square foot,” noted Holness, quoting data from memory. By switching lighting schemes to more of a task orientation, lighting levels have been dropped to as low as 50-70 lumens or .6 to .65 watts per square foot”. In many European buildings, coupled with a switch to LEDs, that approach has reduced lighting loads by as much as 75%, Holness noted.
Among the areas that Holness feels will yield the greatest reduction in energy use for your renovation dollar are insulation, fenestration and lighting.
While ASHRAE’s name denotes its emphasis on heating, refrigerating and air conditioning, Holness says that the organization is evolving to encompass other building systems such as lighting and the building envelope. “To achieve the kind of energy efficiency levels that we need will require a totally integrated building design approach,” he says. To that end, ASHRAE is actively involved with the Department of Energy’s five Energy Alliances – retail, commercial, health care, education and government.
ASHRAE also works closely with other certifying and standard-setting bodies such as the U.S. Green Building Council, the organization that created and fosters the LEED program and the IES (Illuminating Engineering Society of North America).
One result of that cooperation is the proposed Standard 189.1 for high performance green buildings. “The proposed Standard 189.1 represents a certain amount of a move away from the idea of “the more air the better” and also away from the prior targets of 30% or more air than Standard 62.1, toward a more focused effort on contaminant source control.
On the economy as a whole, Holness notes that “While there has been some market upturn, we are not out of the trough yet.” He noted a correlation, however, between the incentives in ARRA and the performance of the economy. “The incentives in ARRA are a short term solution to our current economic conditions. I believe that when the incentives and stimulus money slow down, so will the economy before we see any long term upturn.”
Holness projects that technology will go a long way toward achieving the goal of reducing building energy use. He looks to SSPC 135 – BACNet – to gain more acceptance as a means for building systems to talk to one another. “We’d like to see the major manufacturers like Honeywell, Johnson Controls and Siemens embrace it as a standard – a supplier-agnostic way for everyone’s HVAC and other building systems to work together.
Holness also feels that the smart grid will play a major role in reducing building energy costs and consumption by enabling real-time management of HVAC systems. “The entire electric system in this country was built to accommodate a few hours of peak energy consumption. In a house with a smart grid connection and smart meters, a utility could turn off individual air conditioners for brief, 15-minute intervals, for example, to reduce peak power consumption – power which can cost 20 to 50 times more than ordinary power to generate.
As Holness’s wide-ranging discussion shows, there is a great deal happening in our business. And the ASHRAE winter conference January 23-27 in Orlando this year will be the place to catch up on all the latest developments – the changes that will affect how we conduct the day-to-day business of heating, cooling and lighting the buildings we own and operate.
The theme of the conference is Building Sustainability – From The Inside Out. If you happen to find yourself in Orlando for the meetings and the exhibition, stop by and see us at Goodway booth 2138.
Photo courtesy of ASHRAE
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