Potential Operation and Maintenance (O&M) Savings in the John Sealy North Building at UTMB

Abstract

The LoanSTAR Monitoring and Analysis Group, Energy Systems Laboratory at Texas A&M University, was requested by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston to investigate O&M measures in their five LoanSTAR program buildings. This report describes the suggested O&Ms in John Sealy North Building, a surgical building of 54,494 ft2,which currently spends $502,100 per year on electricity, steam and chilled water. The suggested O&Ms include optimizing the outside air treatment cold deck reset schedule, the cold deck reset schedule and the hot deck reset schedule. These optimized HVAC operation schedules were determined using an analysis involving a simplified HVAC model, which was calibrated against daily data measured by the LoanSTAR program. It is estimated that annual savings of $67,000, or 13% of the annual costs, can be realized using the optimized operation schedules which can be implemented without additional costs. Our analysis indicates that the room comfort levels will not be degraded by these measures.