Measured Equipment Load – Is this a Good Metric for Lab Design?

Matt Gudorf, UC Irvine
Christopher Hartley, MelRok, LLC

Laboratories are quickly evolving through new design, and retrofit to be more energy efficient than any time in their history. From chilled beams to fan wall technology, lab air control valves to demand controlled ventilation systems, building systems have quickly become dynamic allowing them to run as efficient as possible during low process activity and respond when lab operations demand. UC Irvine has noted a sharp increase in equipment load as a percentage of laboratory building load. This is due to the significant number of retrofits completed on the HVAC and lighting systems throughout our lab buildings. Although plug load as a percentage has increased it is our contention that these loads are not as high as current design practices would lead us to believe. Over design based on assumed loads of 5-25W per gross square foot of lab space may be leading to over conditioning of space and energy waste. The equipment load may be the driving factor with respect to cooling demand and air change rates in limited areas and not laboratory wide. UC Irvine in cooperation with MelROK INC commissioned a study to examine lab equipment load. The study includes sub-metering equipment loads in active research environments on the UC Irvine campus to investigate how plug load drives energy use of other systems. In addition the study seeks to correlate energy intensity and air flow requirements to determine optimum designs and retrofits based on lab electrical load. Results of the study will be presented and discussion of lab design, retrofits, and solutions will be explored.

Biographies:

Matt Gudorf has led UC Irvine's energy management group for the last 3 years. The culmination of his leadership has been record breaking energy efficiency project completion under the UC/CSU/IOU Energy Efficiency Partnership in 2012. Matt's work as the Campus Energy Manager has focused on all aspects of energy management including, energy procurement, self generation, renewable generation, energy efficiency, and life cycle energy impact from new construction. His commitment to sharing his team's best practices and lessons learned with the greater community has helped raise the profile of professional energy management and challenge peer institutions to follow in UC Irvine's footsteps.

Christopher Hartley is the Senior Energy Engineer at MelRoK, Inc with three years of experience in energy analysis and audits of commercial and institutional buildings. A graduate of the University of California, Irvine with a Masters degree in Environmental Engineering with an Emphasis in Energy, Christopher has worked for MelRoK developing the algorithms used in "Holistic Energy Assessment." He is also working concurrently on obtaining his California PE license. Before obtaining his Masters degree, Christopher was a commissioned officer in the United States Coast Guard.

 

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