ASHRAE Technology awards highlight outstanding building projects

Designers of systems for a community center, a school, an office building and a governmental building are recognized by ASHRAE for incorporating elements of innovative building design.

Recipients of the ASHRAE Technology Awards were recognized at the Society's 2009 Winter Conference being held this week in Chicago. The recipients have applied ASHRAE standards for effective energy management and indoor air quality.

“ASHRAE Technology Awards are awarded for innovative HVAC&R designs that provide superior energy, economic, air quality and environmental performance through application of new technologies, new design concepts or by applying existing technologies in unusual ways,” Bert Phillips, chair of the judging panel, said. “Innovation involves risk for owners and designers, requiring designers to work outside their comfort zone. Through the Technology Awards, ASHRAE recognizes innovation that works, honors the innovators and shares their design concepts with the broader HVAC&R community.”
Following are summaries of the winning projects.

4200 St. Laurent Office Tower

Kenneth Sonmor, Ecovision Consulting, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, receives first place in the existing commercial buildings category for his retrofit of a 13-floor office tower, 4200 St. Laurent Office Tower, Montreal.

Sonmor made several energy-saving proposals related to energy measurement systems/direct digital controls, mechanical systems and electrical measures as part of a detailed energy audit. Among the most innovative measures was a heat recovery apparatus       that preheats entering fresh air. The system is made up of two different heat recovery units — a patent-pending thermosiphon heat exchanger that uses an environmentally friendly refrigerant to transfer heat from the exhaust air into the fresh air supplied by the fresh air unit.   The second unit transfers the heat of the warm water from the fan-coil condensers into the fresh air supplied by fresh air unit.

The natural gas savings are estimated at 62 percent, with electrical savings estimated at 16 percent of original electrical consumption and a reduction of 700 tons of CO2. With estimated annual savings of around $158,000, the project will pay itself back in a little over two years.

Centre Communautaire de Mistissini

Laurier Nichols, P.E., Dessau, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, receives first place in the new public assembly category for Centre Communautaire de Mistissini, Mistissini, Quebec, Canada.

The objective in building the community center was to design a building that would comply with sustainable development principles while providing high energy efficiency. The center houses an ice arena, which traditionally has high energy bills due to simultaneous heating and cooling load and high refrigeration needs. To reduce energy costs, Nichols selected an HVAC system comprised of heat pumps connected to a geothermal loop.   Most arenas use chillers with standard condensers to produce and maintain the ice with extracted heat rejected through air condensers. In this project, rejected heat is reused as much as possible to meet the arena's heating load.

The building reports an energy reduction of 62 percent using geothermal energy, heat recovery and other energy efficient equipment and strategies. The cost savings are some $154,000 a year.   Through use of a life-cycle cost approach, greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by 350 tons a year compared to an equivalent community center built to minimum requirements.

HVAC Renovations — George Washington Carver Elementary School

Thomas H. Durkin, P.E., Durkin and Villalta Partners Engineering, Indianapolis, Indiana, receives first place in the existing institutional buildings category for HVAC renovations at George Washington Carver Elementary School, Indianapolis.
When the school was first built in 1935, an underground stream was inadvertently intercepted. The ground water was seen as a liability due to power outages that disabled sump pumps and flooded the boiler room. In 2005, the school system added cooling to the building and the ground water became an asset, used as a geothermal heating-source and cooling sink. The ground water serves as condenser cooling water for a central chiller when air conditioning operates.   When heat is needed, water flow through the same central chiller is switched with the ground water going to the evaporator and the building loop on the condenser side. The system uses technologies proven to be very effective — the heat recovery chiller and the geothermal heating and cooling.
The new system is cooling for less than half the cost of conventional equipment, with heating about one quarter of the cost of the cold system. Utility bills for 2007-08 with air conditioning were 16 percent less than utility bills for 2005-06 without air conditioning. When corrected for the cost of energy from 2005 to 2008, the savings are 33 percent.

Normand-Maurice Building

Jacques De Grace, Pageau Morel and Associates, Montreal, Quebec Canada, receives first place in the new institutional buildings category for the Normand-Maurice Building, Montreal.

In 2002, Public Works and Government Services Canada ordered construction of a federal multi-occupant building offering offices, classrooms, warehouses, and an indoor firing range for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Navy and two federal departments. The intent was to create a green building prototype that would be at least 40 percent more efficient than building meeting the country's minimum energy code. To achieve these goals, the building features several innovative measures, including underfloor displacement ventilation for improved ventilation effectiveness, a cascade ventilation principle supplying outside air to occupied spaces before transferring to secondary spaces, radiant slabs for improved thermal comfort and energy efficiency, a geothermal heat exchanger to reduce energy consumption, and an innovative solid thermal energy storage system to reduce first costs of the geothermal heat exchanger.

The results show 40 percent more outside air supplied to occupied spaces as compared to ASHRAE Standard 62.1-2004; 51 percent regulated energy cost reduction compared to the 1997 national building code; 600 metric tons in avoided CO2 emissions each year, and 31 percent reduction in potable water use.

Eric Kirkland, P.E., Smithgroup, Phoenix, Ariz., receives second place in the new institutional buildings category for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Science and Technology Facility, Golden, Colo.

ASHRAE, founded in 1894, is an international organization of 55,000 persons. ASHRAE fulfills its mission of advancing heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration to serve humanity and promote a sustainable world through research, standards writing, publishing and continuing education.