American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers: Pushing the Technology Envelope

By John Contstantinide, PEASHRAE Region XII Director and Regional Chair

Spotlight Sponsored by: C&W Engineering, Inc.

Technology is the lifeblood of ASHRAE, and its role in the built environment to focus on building systems, energy efficiency, indoor air quality, refrigeration and sustainability makes the organization well-poised to address present and future issues of our industry. Stemming from its roots of focusing on heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration, ASHRAE’s use of technology has evolved to meet today’s industry in terms of access, quality and relevance of content, and applicability.

ASHRAE Technology Portal

The ASHRAE Technology Portal, accessible at www.ashrae.org/technologyportal, is the central location for all digitally accessible resources ASHRAE offers its members. ASHRAE members gain value through technical resources that provide relevant information for all types of built environment professionals, including building owners, engineers, architects, contractors and technicians.

Among the resources available on the portal is Handbook Online, which provides all four volumes of the ASHRAE Handbook on a subscription service. The ASHRAE Handbooks are the staple literature of heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration engineers for decades and have evolved to include considerations of building systems beyond mechanical systems.

Also on the Technology Portal are other subscription services of value to built environment professionals and researchers, including the Duct Fitting Database, Weather Data Viewer, and Datacom Encyclopedia. As ASHRAE technical committees develop more web-based and web-accessible technologies, these additional subscription services will be added to the Portal.

ASHRAE Building Energy Quotient

In addition to the ASHRAE Technology Portal, ASHRAE offers the Building Energy Quotient (Building EQ) program, a web-based platform accessible at www.ashrae.org/buildingeq. Building EQ benchmarks a building’s energy performance and assists with a Level 1 Energy Audit.

The benchmarking compares the subject building against buildings of the same type in the same climate zone, as used in ASHRAE Standard 90.1 for new construction and renovation projects and ASHRAE Standard 100 for existing buildings. In the portal’s In Operation feature, The Level 1 Energy Audit, completed in compliance with ASHRAE Standard 211, evaluates energy performance through a site visit and energy conservation measure assessment.

Level 1 Energy Audits have documentation requirements that Building EQ can assist with, saving energy auditors and engineers time and money. The portal is designed to help professionals with providing information, including utility energy consumption, completing all the items required in a Level 1 Energy Audit, and conducting indoor environmental quality surveys.

With the information provided, Building EQ provides energy and carbon performance scores for the building, which are based on energy use intensities calculated through the 2003 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) from the U.S. Department of Energy, the same survey used by ASHRAE Standard 90.1. After a project is submitted, professionals can order products compliant with ASHRAE Standard 211 for submission to municipalities, building owners and other stakeholders, saving hours to document energy audits and providing project scoping information to prospective design consultants.

Building EQ also assists professionals with projecting the energy consumption and carbon footprint of buildings to be constructed or renovated. This As Designed feature takes information from energy models compliant with ASHRAE Standard 90.1, Appendix G to calculate projected building energy use intensities and conducts the same comparison with buildings of the same type in the same climate zone as is done with buildings in operation.

Taking this one step further, building owners can have a building evaluated prior to construction or renovation with the As Designed feature and one year after completion of construction with operational data with the In Operation feature. This evaluation can compare whether a building is performing as it is designed and addresses gaps that can be overcome with continuous maintenance and commissioning.

Technology Empowering Industry

ASHRAE always seeks ways to empower the built environment industry to achieve its vision of a “healthy and sustainable built environment for all.” Whether through its Technology Portal, the Building EQ platform, free resources available at www.ashrae.org/technicalresources/free-resources, or subscription resources that can be found on the ASHRAE website (www.ashrae.org), our Society is ready to increase capability in an industry always challenged to do more with less.