Trane Oregon leveraged incentive funds to complete a comprehensive HVAC retrofit at the PacWest Center Office Building, which is projected to save the building over $500,000 in the lifetime of the system.
Langley Investment Properties, which manages the PacWest Center Building in Portland, Oregon, enlisted the help of Trane Oregon to perform a deep-dive into the building’s performance to see where they could make improvements and continue to reduce their environmental footprint. Langley believes in enhancing the space from the inside out to bring more value to not only the property, but to their tenants as well.
The PacWest Center office building is a 30-floor office building covering over 500,000 square feet of space in the downtown Portland area. The facility was built in 1983 and is occupied during typical office hours (6am – 8pm) Monday through Friday, with some operation occurring on the weekends. When the Trane Oregon team investigated the building, they found that there was an unsupported central Building Automation System, which used longer HVAC runtimes than needed, had a non-functioning economizer, and a water pump system that ran at constant volume instead of the intended variable flow. All these reasons hindered energy optimization, thus causing excess energy use.
The building mechanical control system, with its numerous limitations, was the focus for improvement, and more specifically, cooling towers sequencing and staging improvements, variable condenser pumping, supply air temp reset strategies, supply air duct static reset strategies, optimal start routine, minimize system startup and night time purge of building, which helps to “pre-cool” the building during warmer months.
With incentives from Energy Trust of Oregon for $197,997, the cost of the project was reduced to $98,925. The project was completed on December 31, 2012 (all energy savings have been reviewed and verified by Noesis Energy). Results show the upgrade reduced the building’s energy costs by $53,474 for a payback of 1.85 years, and a ROI of 54%.
Trane Oregon worked with Noesis Energy as a 3rd party to verify the above case study details and energy savings.As a part of Noesis Premium Solutions- Pro & Financing Services Noesis offers 3rd party project verification services, Noesis Verified Case Studies. Noesis Verified Case Studies are verified for project details and energy savingsbased on leading industry standards. Our process employs industry best practices and standards including IPMVP Option C (whole building comparison), ASHRAE Guideline 14 and ASTM E2797 Building Energy Performance Assessment (BEPA). The steps involved in calculating savings include: Collecting at least 12 months of utility data before and after the project, Creation of a baseline normalized for weather and any other independent variables that impact energy usage, Creation of an savings impact report showing energy usage post project implementation. Learn morehere.
