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88 CommerCial ConstruCtion & renovation — January : February 2014 BUilDiNg reNovatioN energy conservation measures, implement funded opportunities and verify continual progress. Applying this process and many other energy conservation techniques across campus will help it meet its Better Buildings Challenge goals. Step No. 1 – The frst step was to prioritize where the energy was being used the most, and then put the information into MSU's inte- grated campus energy model. This helped verify that the approach the commission was taking was consistent with the direction it need- ed to proceed. It also allowed MSU to determine the costs upfront. Step No. 2 – The second step was gathering and organizing building information in a consistent format and creating a sort of technical specifcation. Having this "tem- plate" allowed its efforts to be duplicated, which is important considering the limited size of its department. The technical specification also allowed bidders to understand what to ex- pect from each project. MSU pulled infor- mation from maintenance and operations, and from capital projects – information needed by consultants before they could start work to give them a better under- standing of what they were bidding on. As part of the second step, it went into the buildings, educated the occupants on what it was doing and why, and learned more about how it was using the building. Step No. 3 – The third step was an energy audit, which was done in two phases. MSU started with the conventional ASHRAE Preliminary Energy Assessment, ASHRAE Level 1 walkthrough and ASHRAE Level 2 energy engineering assessment, where it discovered high-level capital types of projects with energy conservation measures before it began with the more in-depth retro-commissioning process. MSU then moved into phase two of step three, which was a more conventional approach to retro-commissioning. It involved ac- tivities such as vibration analysis of rotating equipment, steam trap testing, compressed air leakage testing, testing/adjusting/ balancing (TAB) of chilled water systems, airside TAB survey and re-calibration of sensors and controllers. It also performed control checks on each major system and did comparisons of test and balance data to gauge what was happening in terms of control systems while fnding nuances that needed to be addressed. From these activities, the organized data and observations into a report, classifying its findings into four catego- ries: low-cost/no-cost (anything under $1,000 and a seven-year simple payback), maintenance and repair (M&R;), energy conservation measures (ECMs) and facility improvement measures (FIMs). M&R; items consisted of anything ex- isting and in disrepair while ECMs and FIMs were new opportunities for energy effciency, enhanced operations and maintenance, re- liability or life safety. The main distinction is that ECMs can be directly quantifed in terms of energy avoided while FIMs typically cannot (or have very long paybacks). FIMs might include window replacements, operations and maintenance accessibility, programma- ble vibration sensors on a cooling tower or freeze protection on an air-handling unit coil. Did you know? The expected savings of this project is that approximately 15 percent of square footage is laboratory space and uses 40 percent of our energy. Expected annual energy savings once implementation is complete is 34 percent with a payback period of approximately seven to 10 years. Buildings were chosen using a profling system that helped us assess where it could save energy and how to prioritize projects based on where energy was being used the most. CCR-JanFeb.14_48-.indd 88 2/7/14 2:27 PM