Beyond Commissioning

Michael R. Brambley and Srinivas Katipamula, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Keywords

Abstract

The emerging practice of commissioning when applied to existing buildings generally provides energy savings of 10% to, in some cases, more than 60% of a building’s energy consumption. Moreover, commissioning ensures that equipment and systems are installed and operate properly, providing occupants with the conditions expected. Without commissioning, new buildings can have incorrect equipment installed, devices like fans installed backwards, and unimplemented control algorithms to mention a few deficiencies sometimes found. Existing buildings can have faulty and failed equipment such as clogged filters and coils, stuck dampers, leaky valves, and imbalanced air distribution, as well as overridden controls, improper set points, and incorrect schedules. Commissioning of new and existing buildings helps prevent and alleviate such problems. Yet only a small fraction of commercial buildings has ever been commissioned, and many buildings that have been commissioned have only a fraction of the recommended actions implemented. Time may change this situation or maybe other changes can accelerate the progress of commissioning.

Will commissioning continue in the future as it is performed today or must it change? The authors share a vision for 20 or 30 years from now for how the functions provided by commissioning could change. The paper delves into the roles of automation technology for functional testing, diagnostics, prognostics, correction of problems, data management, design review, and project management in building commissioning. The authors suggest that these technologies will change the practice of commissioning, increase its beneficial impacts— building performance, lower energy consumption, managed peak power use, and occupant satisfaction—and help accelerate its adoption by the commercial buildings sector by reducing the cost of commissioning while increasing its quality and persistence.