May 1, 2020

Retro-Commissioning

  • Retro Commissioning
  • What is Retro Commissioning?
  • Typical Problems in an Old Building
  • Energy Saving Opportunities
  • Continuous Commissioning

Retro Commissioning

What is Retro Commissioning?

Retro-commissioning is the process of commissioning an existing building controls to regain efficiency. This would involve fine-tuning the programming of the building controls.

Typical Problems in an Old Building

As a building ages, there are many minor issues accumulate over the years, such as

01

Equipment Replacement

02

Hidden Manual Override

03

Changing users occupancy patterns

04

Aging of existing equipment

These issues imply that the original design commissioned becomes less efficient, yet our company sees new opportunities here.

Energy Saving Opportunities

Many energy saving opportunities that would require no additional capital expenses, for example (Source: EMSD HK):

01

Chilled Water Flow adjustment during low load

02

Chilled Water Temperature Reset during low load

03

VAV temperature setpoint review

04

Chiller sequencing based on part-load performance

05

Cooling Tower sequencing

06

Schedule and timer reprogram in BMS

Many energy saving opportunities that would require no additional capital expenses, for example (Source: EMSD HK):

Continuous Commissioning

Since equipment replacement, maintenance and usage pattern change over time, constant retro-commissioning is necessary for more efficient use of energy.

Continuous commissioning is the process of performing on-going retro commissioning. This is made possible by gathering data continuously from the running system and an associated analytics platform for revealing the energy saving opportunities.

01

Proactive predictive maintenance of potential issues

02

Maintain the energy saving from the initial retro commissioning

03

Data stream gathered would allow more advanced control methodologies

The energy saving from a retro commissioning exercise varies with buildings based on their existing controls, with a typical payback period of 2 years.