Draft RESNET COMNET Commercial Buildings Energy Modeling Guidelines and Procedures Submitted for Public Review and Comment

May 5th, 2010 - Posted by RESNET under RESNET Notes - April 2010, What's New at RESNET

The first task of COMNET is to develop guidelines and protocols for commercial buildings energy modeling. COMNET has developed a draft set of Commercial Buildings Energy Modeling Guidelines and Procedures. The COMNET energy efficiency calculation process serves three distinct purposes:

  • Establishing eligibility for federal tax deduction per 179D of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
  • Calculating percent savings for point eligibility related to green and sustainable rating systems, and
  • Estimating annual energy use for a building in the design phase for the purpose of energy labels

To view the draft COMNET guidelines, click on http://www1.resnet.us/comments/comnet/

RESNET is accepting public comments on the draft publication until May, 10, 2010. To submit your comments, click on http://www1.resnet.us/comments/comment.aspx?DocumentID=2 Comments are posted real time and you will be able to review comments that have been submitted by going to http://www1.resnet.us/comments/comments.aspx?DocumentID=2

After the completion of the comment period, the RESNET COMNET Committee will review the comments and revise the draft guidelines where appropriate. The revised publication will then submitted to the RESNET Board for adoption.

  • http://www.geopraxis.com Tom Conlon

    RE 1.2 Scope: This COMNET draft identifies three primary objectives. However, based on my cursory review there appears to be no discussion as to whether the scope of COMNET might eventually be extended to include any post-occupancy applications of simulation, for example for the purpose of existing building asset ratings (e.g., the “Building Energy Performance Labeling Program” proposed in early drafts of HR2454; as a successor to the very limited first generation real estate transfer disclosure requirements contained in California’s AB1103, etc.).

    Although post-occupancy asset ratings may not be a priority at this time, I recommend that a discussion be added to clarify either that COMNET’s scope is intended to remain limited to new construction, or if not, what additional issues will need to be resolved and what additional requirements specified before post-occupancy applications might be supported.

    My expectation is that this exercise will encourage the COMNET team to reflect on some of the limitations inherent to the “percent-savings” approach (which become more noticeable in extremely low energy buildings). Perhaps this might even lead to an outline of some of the next-step modeling standards enhancements that will be needed to build the next generation building lifecycle impact assessment tools.

  • http://www.geopraxis.com Tom Conlon

    Section 4.2
    XML specification is still only very high level. Recommend more detail:
    Table 7 — Project Data
    Where will the following be defined?
    – units of measure (e.g., area)
    – Simulation Program/Version (list lookup?)
    – Energy Code Used/Version (list lookup?)
    – Weather File / Source (list lookup?)

    Table 11 — Energy Efficiency Measures
    Table contains only user defined text inputs, no place to store numeric data on energy performance expectations, nor cost data. Recommend considering the benefits of a more developed specification for measures (e.g., DEER or an alternative to DEER). I understand NREL is currently developing an XML schema for standardizing residential measure definitions… may have some relevance to this section?

    Table 12 — Annual Energy Results
    – units of measure

    May also wish to add a brief web services specification to encourage consistency and clarify that this would be a rating authority requirement.

  • http://www.geopraxis.com Tom Conlon

    Which date is deadline for these comments? One page says 5/10 and another says 5/15. Recommend the latter.

    Great step forward. Thanks for the opportunity to comment!

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