by Brianna Crandall — March 12, 2012—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the availability of an online training course to help building owners, operators, contractors and others responsible for operations and energy management/sustainability to “re-tune” commercial buildings. The training course teaches building operators how to re-tune their facilities to improve energy efficiency by first collecting and analyzing data from their buildings’ automation systems to identify energy-wasting operational problems. They can then adjust their automated control systems to correct inefficiencies at low or no cost, saving money on their energy bills.
Part of the Department’s Commercial Building Re-tuning Project, the online training started through a five-year pilot program, and has already provided classroom instruction and field training to more than 300 commercial building operators, engineers, and energy managers from more than 30 organizations. Organizations that have utilized the Building Re-Tuning Training course include Efficiency Vermont; the City of Denver, Colorado; the City College of New York; Control Technologies, Inc.; and Johnson Controls, Inc.
Commercial buildings, which use about 20% of the energy consumed in the United States, waste up to 30% of that energy through improper and inefficient operations, notes DOE. Most large commercial buildings use building automation systems to operate heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and other components, but frequently these automated systems aren’t properly commissioned or operated, resulting in costly inefficiencies. By analyzing data from specific building systems, building operators are able to identify inefficiencies and re-tune their facilities by implementing corrective actions that typically reduce energy use of building systems by 5 to 20%, says DOE.
This re-tuning course benefits on-site employees responsible for day-to-day building operations; off-site contractors, including retro-commissioning agents or control vendors hired to improve a building’s energy efficiency; and college students studying building sciences and operations who are interested in entering the commercial building industry. The training currently focuses on large commercial buildings greater than 100,000 square feet, but the concepts and techniques presented during the course can be applied to any type and size of facility equipped with a building automation system.
The online course is already being used by a number of industry partners, and will soon be available on the Energy Department’s National Training Educational Resource (NTER) portal.
