Measured savings and cost-effectiveness of conservation retrofits in commercial buildings

Technical Report · Sun Apr 01 04:00:00 EDT 1990

OSTI ID:6659900

Greely, K M; Harris, J P; Hatcher, A M

In this study, we examine the measured saving and cost-effectiveness of 447 commercial retrofit projects, representing over 1700 buildings. Topics include saving and cost-effectiveness by building type and retrofit strategy, savings from individual measures, peak electric demand savings, comparisons of measured vs predicted savings, the persistence of savings in the year following a retrofit, and retrofit performance by year of installation. Median annual site energy savings amounted to 20 kBtu/ft{sup 2}. Median pre-retrofit energy intensity, for all building types in the data base, was higher than that of the corresponding US stock. Changes to the HVAC system were the most popular retrofit strategy, installed in 85% to 95% of the projects in each building category (education, health, office, retail, and other). Projects in which only maintenance practices were changed typically saved 12% of their pre-retrofit consumption often using in-house labor. Projects sponsored by the Institutional Conservation Program (ICP) included more shell measures (with long payback times) and relatively fewer HVAC and lighting retrofits than projects paid for by the building owner; for the buildings in this data set, retrofits installed after 1983 had lower savings, higher costs, and longer payback times than measures installed earlier. Very few predictions of savings (about one in six) came within 20% of measured results. Over half of our projects had multiple years of post-retrofit data; energy use continued to decrease for most of these buildings. Our research suggests that, despite significant savings and short payback times for the majority of projects, savings often fall well short of economically optimum levels. 28 refs., 8 figs., 5 tabs.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (USA)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/CE
• DOE Contract Number: AC03-76SF00098
• OSTI ID: 6659900
• Report Number(s): LBL-27568; ON: DE90016629
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
296000 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Electric Power
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320100* -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Buildings
AC SYSTEMS
BUILDINGS
COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS
DATA BASE MANAGEMENT
ECONOMICS
EFFICIENCY
ELECTRIC UTILITIES
ENERGY CONSERVATION
ENERGY CONSUMPTION
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
ENERGY SYSTEMS
FUEL CONSUMPTION
HVAC SYSTEMS
INVESTMENT
LIGHTING SYSTEMS
LOAD MANAGEMENT
MANAGEMENT
MEASURING METHODS
PLANNING
POWER SYSTEMS
PUBLIC UTILITIES
RETROFITTING
WEATHER