Energy Savings Report For Dallas County, July 2000 – June 2001

This report begins with a complete summary of the energy, demand and cost savings for each of the 12 sites being analyzed. This summary is followed by a two-page report for each site. The report concludes with an appendix that describes a comparison between analysis of the hourly data and of the monthly data for the Records Complex.This report presents the energy and dollar savings for the period July 2000 - June 2001 for 12 Dallas County facilities that have been retrofit by Enershop. The savings for this period total $745,046, which represent 73.2$261,517 and the electric usage savings are $483,529. The savings have improved somewhat from the previous report that included the billing periods for April - June 2000. The savings for the earlier period were 62.6% of the audit estimated savings compared with 73.2% for the current period

Retrofit Savings for Brazos County

This report presents the energy and dollar savings for the period May 2000 - April 2001 for 10 of the Brazos County facilities that have been retrofit. The electricity use saved was 555,170 kWh and the demand was 1062 kW, which is equivalent to a $31,743 dollars savings,$24,650 from electricity use and $7,093 from the electric demand. These savings represent a 60.8% of the audit-estimated savings and a 93.7% of the audit-estimated savings if just the positive one were taken in account. The savings have improved somewhat from the previous report that included the billing periods for January to August 1999. The savings for the earlier period were 48.0% of the audit-estimated savings that means compared with 60.8% for the current period. In general has been an improvement in the energy saving in most of the facilities. The cases where are observed negative savings are the Minimum Security Jail, where is known that the area was increased significantly, the Arena Hall, where the modeling can be normalized due to kind of use of this facility, and the Road and bridges Shop, which looks to be operated more time in this period

Schizotypy : do not worry, it is not all worrisome

A long-standing tradition in personality research in psychology, and nowadays increasingly in psychiatry, is that psychotic and psychotic-like thoughts are considered common experiences in the general population. Given their widespread occurrence, such experiences cannot merely reflect pathological functioning. Moreover, reflecting the multi-dimensionality of schizotypy, some dimensions might be informative for healthy functioning while others less so. Here, we explored these possibilities by reviewing research that links schizotypy to favourable functioning such as subjective wellbeing, cognitive functioning (major focus on creativity) and personality correlates. This research highlights the existence of healthy people with psychotic-like traits who mainly experience positive schizotypy (but also affective features mapping onto bipolar disorder). These individuals seem to benefit from a healthy way to organise their thoughts and experiences, i.e. they employ an adaptive cognitive framework to explain and integrate their unusual experiences. We conclude that, instead of focussing only on the pathological, future studies should explore the behavioural, genetic, imaging and psychopharmacological correlates that define the healthy expression of psychotic-like traits. Such studies would inform on protective or compensatory mechanisms of psychosis-risk and could usefully inform us on the evolutionary advantages of the psychosis dimension

Review on Persistence of Commissioning Benefits in New and Existing Buildings

In recent years the topic of persistence of benefits has gained more interest both for existing building retrocommissioning and new building commissioning. This topic is relatively new, and the only relevant projects identified in the literature to date involve a total of 27 retrocommissioned buildings and 10 new buildings. In retrocommissioned buildings, savings generally decreased with time. 10 buildings in Texas: o cooling savings dropped from 44.8% to 35.1% from 1997 to 2000 o heating savings dropped from 79.7% to 49.7 % from 1998 to 2000 o retrocommissioning savings in 2000 were $985,626/year compared with$1,192,000 in 1998 o three fourths of the decrease was caused by component failures in two buildings Eight buildings in California: o peak aggregate savings occurred in years two and three o about 1/4 of the savings disappearing in year four (year 4 data available for only four buildings) Three buildings in Oregon: o 89% of the electric savings but none of the gas savings in three of the Oregon buildings persisted four years later. One building in Colorado: o 86% of the savings persisted after seven years In new buildings (after at least two years) o over half of the fifty-six commissioning fixes persisted o hardware fixes, such as moving a sensor or adding a valve, and control algorithm changes that were reprogrammed generally persisted. o Control strategies that could easily be changed, such as occupancy schedules, reset schedules, and chiller staging tended not to persist. o persistence is also related to operator training

A Follow-up Study on the Persistence of Savings from the Retrocommissioning of Ten Buildings on a University Campus: Preliminary Results

A study has been initiated to provide follow-up analysis on the persistence of savings achieved from the retrocommissioning of ten buildings on a university campus. The buildings were originally commissioned in 1996, and the energy savings achieved over the next four years were tracked to evaluate their persistence levels. This study has now expanded the time frame after commissioning to an average of eight years by analyzing the energy consumption data for each building for the most recent year that valid data were available for the building. Preliminary results show high aggregate levels of savings persistence over the eight year average period for each building. The aggregate chilled water usage for the most recent data year for the ten buildings was virtually identical with the 1997 level, and only 56% of the baseline consumption. The aggregate hot water usage for the most recent data year for the ten buildings showed savings of 60.6% vs. savings of 66.4% for 1997, while the aggregate electricity savings were 22.9% vs. 11.5% for 1997. However, virtually all of the change in electricity use occurred in two buildings where it can not be regarded as a result of commissioning activities. The two buildings that required follow-up commissioning in 2001 (Kleberg and G.R. White) showed greater thermal savings after the follow-up than in 1997, suggesting that the 2001 effort was more thorough than that in 1997. If they are excluded from the analysis, the aggregate CHW savings of the other eight buildings decreased from 45.0% in 1997 to 36.3% in the most recent year while HW savings decreased from 54.4% to 40.5%. Even these savings show a high level of persistence over an average period of more than seven years. More analysis is needed to verify the quality of the data used in these comparisons, as well as to fill in some missing years where data are available. Follow up investigation is also needed to compare current building operating parameters with those in place just after commissioning and in the year 2000, to get a clearer picture of why changes in savings have occurred in each building

Restoration of Short Periods of Missing Energy Use and Weather Data Using Cubic Spline and Fourier Series Approaches: Qualitative Analysis

The paper presents seventeen approaches that use cubic splines and Fourier series for restoring short term missing data in time series of building energy use and weather data. The study is based on twenty samples of hourly data, each at least one year long. In order to differentiate the approaches, two comparisons were carried out. The first comparison was made between the estimated and actual values, as time series and as cross check plots. The second comparison is based on the fraction of the total data that can be estimated by an approach within specific ranges or error. Thus for the cooling and heating data, the fraction of the data set estimated within 1%, 5%, and 10% of the measured values was determined. For the dew point and the dry-bulb temperature samples, the performance is based on the amount of data that are within 1, 3, 5 and 10 °F from the actual data. From the results of this analysis, it appears that linear interpolation is a better approach for filling gaps one to three hours long. The cubic splines approach gave better performance for gaps between four and six

Study of the Outside Air Enthalpy Effects in the Screening of Metered Building Energy Data

The energy consumption in a building is affected by many parameters including the occupancy, equipment, schedule time, HVAC systems and outside environment conditions. Currently, the outside air dry-bulb temperature (TOA) is the primary variable used in the data driven analysis for building energy use, including development of energy consumption models and measurement of savings. The measured building energy data analysis based on the variable of TOA has the drawback of overlooking several effects such as humidity, wind and solar. The application of outside air enthalpy (hOA) on a methodology name as “Energy Balance” for screening building energy data to study the influence of outside air humidity on building energy analysis has been presented in this paper. The variable of hOA has been implemented in a developed screening tool, which is the application of first law energy balance, to analyze the building energy use. The energy balance load (EBL) for a whole building, which is the difference between the heating requirements plus the electric gain and the cooling load, has been presented by the two variables of hOA and TOA, respectively. A design of experiment process is conducted to study the linear relations for the EBL as the function of hOA and as the function of TOA. The comparison results lead the conclusion that the EBL in the high temperature range could be better presented with the application of hOA instead of TOA. The energy analysis for buildings located in hot and humid climate would be better performed by using hOA. Study cases are also presented to illustrate the difference between application of hOA and TOA in energy use data analysis for buildings with different functions. The statistics study shows that the energy use analysis for buildings classified as laboratory would be improved in the application of hOA as the variable instead of TOA

Ambrein: a minor, but common constituent of mammalian faeces?

For nearly 200 years, the only natural source of the alcohol ambrein has been coproliths produced in about 1% of sperm whales and in related jetsam. However, the finding of ambrein in adipocere/faeces of human corpses, led us to hypothesise that ambrein might occur in the faeces of other mammals. Herein, we used a recently developed gas chromatography-mass spectrometry method, with suitable derivatisation of the hindered hydroxy group of ambrein, to screen a number of extracts of mammalian faeces. Minor proportions of ambrein were detected in digested human sewage sludge and in the dung of elephant, domestic cattle, giraffe and buffalo. Whether ambrein formation in the terrestrial species is associated with coprolith formation, is unknown, but solid deposits known as enteroliths and fecaliths occur in humans and some domestic animals

Analysis of the Potential Energy Savings for 14 Office Buildings with VAV Systems

At the beginning of an existing building commissioning (EBCx)/energy retrofit project, some form of screening is usually applied to determine whether there is sufficient potential for savings to justify a formal EBCx assessment/energy audit. In this study, an improved methodology for potential energy savings estimation from EBCx/retrofit measures, based on Baltazar's methodology (2006), is proposed to perform this type of screening. The improvements are included on optimization parameters, space load calculation, simulation of buildings with multiple types of HVAC systems, AHU shutdown simulation, among others. The improved methodology was used to estimate annual potential energy cost savings for 14 office buildings in Austin, TX with either single duct VAV (SDVAV) systems or dual duct VAV (DDVAV) systems. The estimates are based on very limited information about the buildings and the built-in HVAC systems as well as one year of utility bills. From this analysis, the methodology has predicted an average total potential savings of 36% for SDVAV systems with electric terminal reheat, 22% for SDVAV systems with hot water reheat, and 25% for DDVAV systems. To validate these results, the estimated potential savings are compared with savings proposed in respective EBCx assessment reports. Based on the comparison of the report estimates and the potential savings with the improved methodology, it was found that 'generalized' factors of assessment predicted energy cost savings to estimated potential energy cost savings could be found. The factors identified in these cases were 0.68, 0.66, and 0.61 for each type of system - SDVAV w/electric reheat, SDVAV w/hot water reheat, and DDVAV, respectively