Historic Building Reverses Aging with Geothermal Renewable Energy
Energy Reducing Strategies for Aging Structure
Highlights:
- All Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) systems required upgrades as they were failing on a continual basis.
- The Owner selected renewable geothermal energy to pave the way for energy efficiency with the promise of a 10-year payback
- 412 issues were discovered during design review, site inspections, and system testing.
The Problem + Backstory
A 200-year-old aging historical building in Lansing, Michigan required upgrades on all Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) systems as they were failing on a continual basis. The 5-story building with an additional sub-basement level was designated a National Historic Landmark. Due to age and capacity limitations, it was challenging to bring the facility up to desired energy efficiency. Overall comfort for end users fluctuated greatly as air filtration issues made it difficult to keep zones consistent. Air leakage caused heating and cooling problems in various sections of the building. A long-term solution for renewable energy was required to upgrade the building for comfort and reduce energy costs simultaneously, as well as seek LEED Gold status.
A long-term, renewable energy solution was required to upgrade the building for comfort and reduce energy costs simultaneously, as well as seek LEED Gold status.
The Plan
The owner selected geothermal renewable energy to pave the way for energy efficiency with the promise of a 10-year payback. Installing thermal energy as a unique solution included installing 275 geothermal wells which was 52 miles of pipe, not including header and return pipes. In addition to the geothermal wells, the project included a new 10,600 sqft underground Central Utility Plant that would house the new electrical substation, switchgear, geothermal head end manifold, gas-fired condensing boilers, circulation pumps, water heaters, and more. To ensure all MEP assets were operating as designed with this new energy initiative, the Owner brought on Synergy Engineers as the commissioning team to ensure all MEP systems would operate as designed.
Deployment Arrangement
As the renovation was underway, resources had to be prepared at each stage to serve multiple types of equipment during the multiple stages of construction. The Owner requested their data analytics software to be utilized in testing the old heating hot water system in order to validate and verify the building needs were being met with the geothermal systems. They discovered that the old hot water heating systems did not provide enough hot water with the old pumps.
Synergy’s Commissioning Plan is simple. During building commissioning, Synergy works very closely with the owner, facility manager, and design-build project managers to establish benchmarks, create metrics, and follow trusted processes that empower the whole team to meet the desired objectives.
The Commissioning Process included testing the new geothermal pumps, water balancing and heating hot water testing to confirm the temperatures balanced out the comfort levels during the cold and hot seasons. Synergy also made recommendations on balancing the flow rates because the geothermal pumps were vastly different than the old hot water heating system.
At completion, the owner received the much-needed upgrades in MEP improvements. This enabled the facility to operate the new equipment at a low/no cost due to the initiative.
Launching a building renovation initiative based on geothermal renewable energy was expensive with first costs but was projected with sustainable and life-cycle costs.
