Energy savings potential from improved building controls for the US commercial building sector

Journal Article · Wed Sep 27 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Energy Efficiency

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-017-9569-5· OSTI ID:1422276

Fernandez, Nick; Katipamula, Srinivas ; Wang, Weimin; Xie, Yulong; Zhao, Mingjie

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Building Technologies Office (BTO) sponsored a study to determine the potential national savings achievable in the commercial building sector through widespread deployment of best practice controls, elimination of system and component faults, and use of better sensing. Detailed characterization of potential savings was one source of input to set research, development, and deployment (RD&D) goals in the field of building sensors and controls. DOE’s building energy simulation software, EnergyPlus, was employed to estimate the potential savings from 34 measures in 9 building types and across 16 climates representing almost 57% of commercial building sector energy consumption. In addition to estimating savings from individual measures, three packages of measures were created to estimate savings from the packages. These packages represented an 1) efficient building, 2) typical building, and 3) inefficient building. To scale the results from individual measures or a package to the national scale, building weights by building type and climate locations from the Energy Information Administration’s 2012 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) were used. The results showed significant potential for energy savings across all building types and climates. The total site potential savings from individual measures by building type and climate location ranged between 0% and 25%. The total site potential savings by building type aggregated across all climates (using the CBECS building weights) for each measure varied between 0% and 16%. The total site potential savings aggregated across all building types and climates for each measure varied between 0% and 11%. Some individual measures had negative savings because correcting underlying operational problems (e.g., inadequate ventilation) resulted in increased energy consumption. When combined into packages, the overall national savings potential is estimated to be 29%; seven of the nine building types were in the range of 23 to 29% and two exceeded 40%. The total potential national site savings in for each building type ranged between 95x106 GJ (0.09 Quadrillion British thermal units [Quads]; Large Hotels) to 222x106 GJ (0.21 Quads; Large Office, Hospital Administrative areas, and College/University), resulting in total site savings of 1,393x106 GJ (1.32 Quads) when the three packages are applied to the U.S. commercial buildings stock. Using the source (or primary) energy conversion factors of 1.05 for natural gas and 3.14 for electricity resulted in an approximate potential primary energy savings of 2,912x106 GJ (2.76 Quads), which would be 15% of the sector’s 2015 use of approximately 18,991x106 GJ (18 Quads). Extrapolating the results for other building types not analyzed as part of this study, the primary energy savings could be in the range of 4,220x106 GJ to 5,275x106 GJ (4 to 5 Quads). If this savings potential is realized, it would be equivalent to not combusting 180 to 230 million tons of coal or reducing the energy impacts, at today’s energy intensities, of the per capita consumption of 12 to 15 million people in the U.S. To realize most of this potential savings, many gaps can be addressed through RD&D, as recommended in this paper.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 1422276
• Report Number(s): PNNL-SA-121880; BT0310000
• Journal Information: Energy Efficiency, Vol. 11, Issue 2; ISSN 1570-646X
• Publisher: Springer
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English