Augustalee Energy-Saving Strategies

Augustalee is being designed, with the help of professional engineers, to be as energy-efficient as possible in keeping with cost-effective business practices. Key examples include:

Building Envelopes

• Building envelopes consist of the parts of the buildings such as floors, walls, roof, windows and doors that separate the controlled interior environment from the uncontrolled exterior environment.

• Building envelopes at Augustalee will exceed standard industry requirements to minimize energy loss to the outdoor environment.

Central Plant

• The Augustalee central energy plant both chills and heats water to heat and cool all main buildings through an underground piping network, and is at the core of the project’s energy efficiency measures.

• By implementing a central plant design, the project can achieve higher thermal and emission efficiencies than could several smaller pieces of equipment at different locations.

central energy plant

• The central plant allows for building diversity, which accounts for the fact that it is highly unlikely that every building will be fully loaded at the same time. This allows the central plant to reduce its equipment capacity requirements.

• The central plant also allows for the centralized control of energy efficient design strategies that include energy recovery, and the use of a campus energy management control system.

• The central plant will utilize high-efficiency equipment, which include chillers, boilers, cooling towers, and pumps. Both the chilled water and hot water systems will take advantage of a primary-secondary pumping system, which allows for reduced energy by using variable-frequency drives on the secondary pumps.

Air Distribution Systems

• When possible Augustalee buildings will utilize Variable Air Volume (VAV) air handling units (AHU) with Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) to respond to fluctuating space-loading conditions and increase energy efficiency while maintaining comfort.

• An air-side economizer cycle will be used in each air handling system. This feature allows up to 100% outside air to be used for cooling (free cooling) when conditions are favorable, to reduce or eliminate the need for mechanical cooling at that time.

• When possible, such as in a hotel, the Augustalee campus will also use air-to-air energy recovery units to capture the heat being rejected from the building to pre-condition the air entering the building.

• Because of wide fluctuations in building occupancy, each air handling system will incorporate dynamic outside air control as an energy saving feature. When occupants breathe, they exhale carbon dioxide (CO2) gas. The building automation system will use CO2 monitors located in the return air stream to determine the required minimum outside air quantity required to ventilate the space.

• Exhaust air from the service tunnel will pass through an electronic air cleaner that will send an electrical charge through the air stream, which excites the particulates, causing them to merge together and making it easier to remove them, as well as reducing odors.

eco-underground parking

Garage Exhaust

• A Demand-Controlled ventilation (DCV) provides optimized ventilation for the extensive below-grade parking structures.

parking-garage-with-cars

• DCV uses carbon monoxide sensors to control the ventilation fans only when levels of carbon monoxide approach unacceptable levels.

• A DCV system reduces fan energy consumption during many hours of the day.

Building Control and Energy Management System

• The campus energy management control system consists of an electronic micro-processor control system employing Direct Digital Control (DDC) technology, which will allow the campus to operate at its optimum efficiency.

Commissioning

• Commissioning is a systematic process of ensuring that building systems perform according to the design intent and the owner’s operational needs.

• The central plant will be commissioned to ensure that the systems are all installed properly and receive adequate operational checkout by the installing contractors, which ultimately ensures that the systems are operating at their optimum efficiency from the very beginning