Energy conservation: Out of the drafting room, into the machine room

It has now been 13 years since the oil price shocks of 1973. Since that time, the design of HVAC and other building systems has become substantially more sensitive to energy considerations. Many new facilities are designed with systems incorporating heat recovery, variable air volume, chillers selected at efficient operating points, and energy management, any of which can reduce a facility's energy consumption. Legislation and design guidelines for insulation levels, lighting levels, and HVAC system configurations have resulted in HVAC designs with energy conserving attributes. Within the last 10 years, buildings have begun to incorporate such features. It is the authors' experience, however, that despite efforts taken during the design phase, buildings do not necessarily run efficiently following completion of construction. The authors' firm is in the business of providing project management, financing, and engineering services to commercial, industrial, and institutional clients (half of which are hospitals) for the purpose of reducing their energy costs. Since they make a substantial financial investment in client's facilities and since the investment is repaid out of a share of the savings produced by these investments, their success as a firm depends on practical, measurable, long-term positive results from energy reduction programs.