The University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and California Investor-Owned Energy Utilities are collaborating in an innovative new program to retro-commission campus facilities with the assistance of permanently installed energy monitoring equipment and trending capability. This monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) effort spans 25 campuses, with nine projects for plant systems and 37 projects for buildings. Half of the buildings include laboratory or other energy-intensive space. The program is a part of the implementation of the UC Green Building and Clean Energy Policy, the similar CSU policy, and the California Investor Owned Utility (IOU) customer funded Energy Efficiency Program.

Monitoring-Based Commissioning (MBCx) employs remote energy system metering with trend log capability to identify previously unrecognized inefficiencies in energy system operations, facilitate the application of diagnostic protocols, document energy savings from operationalimprovements, and ensure persistence of savings through ongoing recommissioning. The program emphasizes training of campus staff in commissioning techniques includingmonitoring and diagnostic protocols. The program is also demonstrating the potential for MBCx to identify previously unrecognized cost-effective retrofit opportunities. In addition, the monitoring equipment will provide enhanced benchmarking capability for campuses—aiding in overall energy management efforts, as wells as design of new buildings and infrastructure.

Based on the success of preceding efforts on university campuses and supported by research and development efforts, this synergy of retro commissioning practices and enhanced permanent monitoring results in a robust energy efficiency program. The monitoring supports persistence of savings for the commissioning effort, while the commissioning makes the monitoring action-oriented with energy savings the end-result.

The first project results indicate more energy use reduction than expected, making this a promising approach for California universities and indicating potential for other programs as well. The 2004-05 effort is serving as a pilot —with the identification of best practices to form the basis for an expansion of the program to a large portion of the 160 million gross square feet of floor area in the two university systems.

Information feedback loops for building performance range from the long-term— including university education of building designers and their experiential learning from past work on a time scale of years or decades; to the short term—including building occupants seeking to manage their environment with operable windows and thermostats, to building controls themselves on a time scale of seconds or minutes. In between are owners seeking to make informed renovation and retrofit decisions on a time scale of years, and operators looking for ongoing commissioning opportunities on a time scale of hours to months.

Unfortunately all of these feedback loops are often broken, with meaningful convenient performance information typically unavailable for decision-making. Even automatic building controls often fail to perform as expected because of erroneous or missing data from sensors. We examine the current typical disconnects for each of the feedback loops, their interactions, and potential solutions. 

Both improved technology and organizational change are needed to fully establish all the feedback loops for building performance, achieving the twin goals of building quality (e.g., comfort) and reduced resource use (e.g., energy). Currently research sometimes provides an intervention to temporarily close one or more of the feedback loops. However, closing of information feedback loops is often inhibited by perceptions of professional or business risk. Achieving the vision of ubiquitous deep efficiency for buildings will require research, development and demonstration integrating both technological and sociological issues to durably establish feedback at all time scales in building design and operation.

This is the final report for the State Partnership for Energy Efficient Demonstrations (originally UC/CSU Energy Efficient Campuses) project (contract number 500-10-049), conducted by the California Institute for Energy and Environment. The information from this project contributes to PIER’s Buildings End-Use Efficiency Program.

From 2004 through 2014, the State Partnership for Energy Efficient Demonstrations (SPEED) accelerated the market adoption of energy-efficient technologies. This Public Interest Energy Research Buildings End-Use Efficiency Program supported effort included lighting technologies and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) technologies.  This collaboration with industry, public entities, and utilities focuses on field research, beta testing, demonstrations, and activities facilitating technology deployed by California energy-efficiency programs. This report highlights technologies and projects, and summarizes and indexes technical reports, case studies, guide specifications, and other documents created by the program.

This report fully covers Program activities from March 2012 through July 2014. Substantial information about the first eight years of the Program (2004–2012) is also provided for context where appropriate.