Bridging the Gap: Engineering Design Considerations for Energy and Carbon Reduction Recommendations

Round 1: NO. Nothing about this proposal stands out/makes it unique

Round1: Yes: I think this looks like an interesting session that takes some of the knowledge thats been discussed more frequently (how to navigate the changing landscape around these more recent local laws, in this case LL97), and takes it to the next level of analysis regarding the actual feasibility of implementation. I think this more practical side can often get left out of equations when energy engineers or others proposing these measures look at simple cost/benefit analysis of the energy savings, and simple equipment/install costs - and it's often later in end stage design, permitting, that obstacles come up. Bringing perspective of zoning, and building code restrictions that can snag projects, and especially from case studies, sounds like a fresh and valuable take.

Round 1 Discussion:LL97 compliance isn't new, but focus on actual case studies and obstacles is good, good to have a property manager. Could we have a building operator perspective?

If helpful - this session is very similar to session 140. If you want to diversify this panel, you could merge Bright Power case studies (140) with EN-POWER, so both are presenting these very 'practical', incremental retrofit approaches. I love how this session (and 140) compare to sessions 104/109/125...sort of bootstrap/do your best vs. all-in unicorn. We need both, until we have greater innovatoin and cost compression in the latter.

The session is to cover best practices to "close the gap" between early stage engineering/energy feasibility and the actual installation/implementation hurdles. The speakers aim to bring what they've learned from their respective roles in the design and auditing sides and discuss strategies their organization has used to close the loop between the two departments. Enpower is a full service engineering/design firm focused on EE and feasibility audits, working through the full process from audit/recomendations through design, have in house design and audting teams. Jeffs background is in the field as a senior energy auditor, with expertise in audits and field assesments, local law inspections/analysis, IPNA's, project management for large scale ventilation projects. Chris is a property manager for one of the projects (200 central park south) they will discuss as a case study, has spoken at NESEA sessions in the past. He is heavily involved with management of the building, which is mixed use commercial ground floor with multifamily above, ~200k square feet. Runci is a senior design engineer, having moved over to Enpower from a more traditional design company, she aims to contrast the way more traditional engineering firms operate with the way Enpower has developed their processes with a feedback loop of info/best practices back to field team. They plan to highlight disconnects between the early analysis and opportunities identified during audits, the recommendations that come out of these, and the actual implementation of these measures. There are often issues and/or considerations that come up in later phases of engineering design, and/or installation, that make the measures more costly, less energy impactful, or largely impossible. They aim to discuss typical cases of ECM recomendations that lead to additional project cost and/or failure to implement the recomendations altogether; including VFD's, ventilation upgradees, fuel conversions (oil and teams), separate DHW install, electrification, cogen install, terminal unit upgrades. Enpower has deveeloped a number of processes, checklists, educational approaches, that feed this information back to the auditing and early feasibility analysis teams to better inform recommendations to clients, and the information that gets provided to the engineering and desing teams. These include an engineering checklist for use by field staff during ECM surveys, an early phase engineering review before releasing ECM proposals to clients, and discussion into how these were developed. Two of these are feasibilty of separate hot water heater conversion, and feasibility of electrification conversion. These processes have been wrapped into the typical audit process for a range of LL, IPNA, other inspections. They plan to ground this in two case studies, one of which will be one or more projects at the 200 central park south building, with Chris speaking to the impact on his role as a property manager, and experience from that side. One of these case studies has moved forward and they will have cost information, and the other was recommended to not move forward with electrification and some ECM's due to site conditions, and instead alternative ECM's were proposed.

R2 Discussion:2 speakers from the same company: field auditing and engineering. Tools to incorporate engineering feasibility into the audiitng process, to avoid a disconnect later on (in some cases just a checklist). Valuable lessons, applicable to a range of professionals.