Building Performance Assurance

Despite significant advances in building technology and the promulgation of tighter building codes, buildings consume one third of all energy in the U.S. at an annual cost of $200 billion. Commercial buildings alone consume about 15% of all energy at a cost of $85 billion annually. Half of this consumption is wasted, compared to what is cost-effectively achievable. Assuring achievable building performance should be a priority in an increasingly competitive world. This goal requires a careful examination of the process by which buildings are designed, built, commissioned, and operated. A life-cycle perspective on how information is managed in the building sector provides useful new insights and opportunities for achieving performance potentials.

Building Performance Assurance (BPA) addresses three broad issues: Diagnostics and Commissioning, Performance Metrics and Benchmarking, and Life Cycle Tools. The long-term goal of the these projects is to provide building decision-makers with the information and tools needed to cost-effectively assure the desired performance of buildings, as specified by principal stakeholders, across the complete life cycle of a building project.

Diagnostics and Commissioning

Diagnostics for Building Operation and Commissioning

Directory of Diagnostics Research and Products

Performance Metrics and Benchmarking

Metracker (was Design Intent Tool)
Metracker is intended to support the explicit identification, documentation, and tracking of building performance objectives across the building life cycle. Performance objective metrics established during pre-design planning can be used to guide and evaluate design decisions and can be updated to reflect the intended performance of the final design. These design intent metrics can then be used as benchmarks during commissioning and updated again to act as benchmarks for O&M diagnostics. The history of building performance thus documented can ultimately be used to better plan for, design, and operate future buildings. Such a methodology may also prove to be useful in documenting and tracking compliance with emerging commercial building rating systems.

Life Cycle Tools

Building Life-Cycle Information Support System (BLISS)
BLISS is intended to provide a distributed computing environment for managing, archiving, and providing access to the wide variety of data and information that is generated across the complete life-cycle of a building project. BLISS therefore requires standardization in both a common building database model and in the mechanisms for transferring this information between tools.

Former Projects

Remote Building Monitoring and Operations (RBMO)
Performance Evaluation and Tracking Tool (PETT)
Chiller Commissioning Toolkit