Commissioning of New Schools: A State Funded Study of the Costs and Benefits

Kristin Heinemeier, Michael Martin, and Dean Schneider, Brooks Energy & Sustainability Lab
Balaji Santhanakrishnan, ∗ Johnson Controls, Inc.
Anita Ledbetter, ∗ Solar San Antonio
Jim Shoop and Wes Harvey, Testing Specialties, Inc.
Joseph Martin and Frank Thomas, Northside Independent School District

Keywords

Abstract

Industry insiders know intuitively that commissioning benefits exceed the costs. Anecdotal evidence supports this intuition. However, there is little concrete documentation of the benefits. In 2003, the State of Texas funded a study of the costs and benefits of commissioning of new school facilities. The study involves close investigation of two schools: one school that was commissioned, and a similar school that was not commissioned. The complete study will include modeling and monitoring of both buildings to evaluate energy savings, as well as detailed interviews, surveys, and audits. It will also looks at impacts on the building’s design, construction and turnover processes, as well as improvements in operations and maintenance, and other aspects of building acceptability. Although the study includes only two buildings, the richness of the data collection and the analysis will make this a unique study with results that will shed light not just on the magnitude of the savings, but on the nature of the benefits and on the appropriateness of the commissioning process.

This paper reports on early findings of the study. It provides a detailed description of the methodology used to document the benefits, since the industry is presently searching for more appropriate methodologies. It presents a set of metrics for evaluating the performance of the baseline school (to be used in the future for comparison with the commissioned school). The paper also shares the experiences from the early design stages of the commissioning project and what lessons have so far been learned to benefit other Texas schools engaging in commissioning.