Investment Grade Energy Audits

Abstract

Having helped give birth to the energy audit borne in the late 70's,
I'm proud of what we accomplished back then; and for the most part, it
has serve d us well. Unfortunately, it is no longer good enough. The tra-
ditional energ y audit ha s been a "s nap shot" approach that typically
a ssume s all current conditions will remain static for the projected pa y-
back time of the measures. But buildings seldom, if ever, are static. They
are typically dynamic places with changing functions . What's more,
the y are populated by people who simply will not behave in predictable,
con sistent wa ys.
We ha ve historically skirted the implications of the human element
in energ y auditing . As early as 1983, an evaluation of the first eight
cycle s of the U.S. Department of En ergy's Institutional Conservation
Program revealed that up to 80 percent of the savin gs in an effective
energy management program could be attributed to the energy efficient
practices of the O&M personnel.
In other words, as little as 20 percent of the savings will be attrib-
uted to the actual hardware, but we have continued to make calculations
like a piece of hardware was going to always operate in the same fash-
ion under vastly differing conditions.
We are a little better about assessing the impact existing energy
related equipment will have on newly installed equipment; but, for the
mo st part , it's still in the back-of-an-envelope stage. More hunch than
science.