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Best Practice Guide |
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Food and Beverage Growers and Processors |
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CommissioningOffice BuildingsOperations and maintenance (O&M) refers to actions and planning related to the upkeep and control of a building and its equipment systems. A recent survey suggests that facility managers spend as much as 28 percent of their time on O&M issues, making it their number one professional responsibility. All too often, however, the focus of O&M is on the repair or replacement of broken equipment, not on upkeep. An effective O&M program can reduce annual utility bills by 5 to 20 percent without any capital investment in equipment upgrades. Energy efficiency and water use efficiency measures undertaken as part of O&M tend to be no-cost or low-cost, and many can be easily implemented by in-house staff. Compared to capital-intensive equipment upgrades, O&M programs offer quick payback on investment and can be adopted with minimal executive oversight. The benefits of O&M are many. Effective O&M programs tend to catch and fix equipment problems before building occupants notice and complain. This, in turn, reduces time facility staff must spend on callbacks. O&M also prolongs the useful life of equipment and minimizes downtime stemming from repair and replacement. Because building systems are optimized, compliance with environmental, health and safety regulations is easier to attain and the risk and liability associated with problems in indoor air quality are diminished. The U.S. Department of Energy has developed a useful list of steps for planning and implementing an O&M program:
There are two important tools for any O&M program that should be mentioned: diagnostics and metering. Diagnostics measure the condition of equipment and equipment systems in a building. Typical predictive diagnostic technologies include thermography, oil analysis, ultra sound analysis, vibration analysis, motor analysis, and trending. Diagnostics can be carried out by qualified in-house staff or by outside contractors. In-house staff should contact the local utility to see what support might be available. The Tool Lending Library at PG&E, for example, offers an inventory of more than 4000 diagnostic measurement tools free-of-charge to assist people with short-term energy efficiency projects. Tools available include data loggers and instantaneous meters to measure power, temperature, relative humidity, lighting and motor run-time, liquid and air flow and pressure, and the combustion efficiency of furnaces and boilers. Metering and submetering provide information about actual energy use in a building. Conventional meters provide only aggregate information for a building or campus. By investing in submetering, building owners and managers can greatly improve the quality and quantity of information, which in turn can lead to economic savings as high as 20 percent, depending on how that information is used. Submetering records total consumption like a conventional meter, but can also track time-of-use, peak demand, load surveys (time-series data), and power outages. This information can alert facility staff to unusual fluctuations that might be due to equipment malfunction or tampering. Submeters allow energy use and costs to be isolated so that a specific area or building system can be tracked independently, useful for dividing actual utility costs between tenants or when conducting diagnostics. Submeters also help facility staff to manage energy use through load scheduling (operating energy-intensive equipment during off-peak hours) or demand-side management load control (reducing the operation of energy-intensive equipment during peak hours). Four Models of Maintenance Programs
Tips for Energy-Efficient Operations
Resources U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Federal Energy Management Program. O&M Best Practices: A Guide to Achieving Operational Efficiency. Release 2.0. July 2004. Northwest Food Processors Association Efficiency Practices website offers useful information and tips for the food processing industry. Portland Energy Conservation, Inc., 15 O&M Best Practices for Commercial Office Buildings. Pacific Gas and Electric, Pacific Energy Center, Tool Lending Library has thousands of measurement tools available for short-term energy projects. Buildings.Com, Survey Reveals Key Functions that are Most Time-Consuming for Real Estate Managers. |