Visit the Energy Systems Laboratory Homepage.
Reduce Building Energy Consumption by Improving the Supply Air Temperature Schedule and Recommissioning the Terminal Boxes, Submitted to the Energy Management and Operations Division at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Abstract
At the request of the Energy Management and Operations Department at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the Energy Systems Laboratory of Texas A&M University performed a study of optimizing the HVAC operation at its Basic Research Building. The Basic Research Building (BRB) at M.D. Anderson (MDA) is a seven-story building with a total of 123,000 ft2 conditioned floor area. The building consumed about 81,000 MMBtu chilled water, 41,000 MMBtu steam, and 7.6 MMkWh in 1992 according to LoanSTAR measured data. This energy consumption translates into an annual cost of $l,568,OOO/yr.
Description
This study investigated the improved cold deck settings under current mechanical conditions as well as the optimal cold deck settings when the current mechanical problems are solved. Improvements to the cold deck setting can be made prior to any mechanical repairing. The improved cold deck setting can reduce annual energy cost by $101,400/yr. Terminal reheat leakage and excessive air flow are the major problems in this building. These problems caused excessive energy consumption as well as personal comfort complaints. We recommend that the air flow be balanced and repairs to the leaking hot water valves in the terminal boxes be made. After these repairs, the cold deck temperature settings can be optimized, and an additional $89,000/yr savings can be achieved.Subject
M.D. Anderson Cancer Centerenergy consumption
energy efficiency
cold deck settings
terminal reheat leakage
excessive air flow
Collections
Citation
Liu, M.; Athar, A.; Zhu, Y.; Claridge, D. E. (1995). Reduce Building Energy Consumption by Improving the Supply Air Temperature Schedule and Recommissioning the Terminal Boxes, Submitted to the Energy Management and Operations Division at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu), Texas A&M University; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /2149.