Operations and Maintenance Manual for Energy Management

James E. Piper

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781315503592
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

A complete reference that features a wealth of proven maintenance methods that can reduce energy use in any type of building. Provided are numerous forms and maintenance procedures for reducing energy use, improving system performance, and cutting total maintenance costs.

Section 1

Energy Maintenance in Facilities

Chapter 1

The Energy-Maintenance Connection

When facility managers are asked what they are doing to promote energy management in their facilities, most will speak of investments in extensive and expensive construction and renovation projects. Replacing windows, building cogeneration plants, installing high-efficiency chillers, retrofitting fluorescent fixtures with electronic ballasts, constructing thermal storage systems; all are frequently cited projects being implemented to reduce energy use within facilities. Rarely does the facility manager talk about maintenance activities as a means of reducing energy use. Energy projects, construction, and renovation is where the excitement and attention are. Maintenance is boring.

Unfortunately, many of these facility managers misunderstand the significance of sound maintenance in an energy management program. Successful energy management requires the implementation of a thorough maintenance program. Properly maintaining building components and systems reduces energy requirements for those components and systems. The two are so intertwined that it is impossible to separate activities that promote energy management from those that promote sound maintenance. It is no coincidence that the most successful energy management programs of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s were found in the best managed and maintained facilities. Those facility managers recognized that energy conservation, while important to the economic health of the facility, was only another tool to help manage the operation of the facility. Ignoring maintenance in favor of high-cost energy conservation projects will reduce the impact of other energy management efforts.

For example, a large facility distributed steam from a central plant to approximately 100 buildings through an underground system. While portions of the system had been upgraded as the facility grew over the years, much of it was more than forty years old and in poor condition. Less than 20 percent of the condensate generated was returned to the central plant due to corroded and plugged piping. Pipe insulation was severely deteriorated, or in some cases, nonexistent. Pipe flanges and valve packings leaked. Manholes regularly filled with water, creating large plumes of vapor and allowing water to further deteriorate piping insulation. More than three-fourths of the steam traps serving the distribution system were not working properly; many had failed to open. Tests conducted on the system showed that 30 to 40 percent of the annual steam production from the central plant was lost due to leaks, bad insulation, failed traps, and lack of a condensate return system.

To reduce energy costs, the facility decided to invest heavily in a cogeneration system. The savings produced by the system were expected to recover the capital investment over a period of seven to ten years. While the higher efficiency of the new central, cogeneration equipment reduced energy costs, it did nothing to address the inefficient distribution system. Thirty to 40 percent of the annual steam produced by the new cogeneration system was still lost due to leaks, bad insulation, failed steam traps, and dumped condensate. Adding new, more efficient sources of steam to an inefficient distribution system may save money but it is not energy management.

In contrast, if the facility had implemented a comprehensive steam trap maintenance program, repaired known leaks, taken steps to prevent water damage, and repaired the damaged portions of the condensate return system, they could have achieved comparable savings for only a fraction of the initial investment.

While there is no doubt that energy conservation projects, if properly conceived, planned, and implemented, will help to reduce energy use, so will good maintenance. But unlike energy conservation projects, good maintenance can reduce energy use without requiring a major investment of capital. Surprisingly, the energy conservation payback for maintenance activities is typically measured in months, not in years as is the case for most energy conservation projects.

Why then are maintenance activities so often overlooked or ignored in energy management when the rewards are so great? There are at least three major factors that contribute to the misunderstanding of the relationship between energy management and sound maintenance; the attitude of the organization toward maintenance, the history of energy management, and the nature of maintenance activities.

A TRADITIONAL VIEW TOWARD MAINTENANCE

In spite of the efforts of maintenance managers to educate organizations, maintenance continues to be viewed as a necessary evil, a drain on the resources of the organization that could be better used elsewhere. Even the use of the term maintenance helps to reinforce this belief. Maintenance means keeping things in the existing state. One would be hard-pressed to find other areas within an organization where the goal was to maintain the status quo. Nearly all other areas are funded to change things; investments are made, rates of return are established, acquisitions are made, personnel are hired, the organization is moved forward.

There are no comparable developments apparent in the field of facility maintenance. Great sums of money, typically 5 to 15 percent of an organization’s budget, are poured into maintenance every year with little visible results. At best, things are kept as they were. The status quo is maintained. But maintaining the status quo does not generate excitement or support. If a maintenance department is doing its job properly, the work will be transparent to the organization. Perhaps that helps explain why maintenance historically has been the first area to be cut during rough financial times for the organization.

Contributing to the negative attitude toward maintenance is the common belief outside maintenance departments that if something isn’t broken, don’t fix it. That belief leads to the conclusion that if something does not need fixing, the money can be better spent elsewhere. In spite of the understanding by maintenance departments of the value of preventive maintenance, few organizations today have a truly comprehensive preventive maintenance program in place. Unfortunately, what many maintenance managers promote as preventive maintenance is really little more than routine maintenance. For example, in some organizations, the replacement of light bulbs after they have burned out is performed by preventive maintenance crews and recorded as a preventive maintenance activity.

This attitude of not fixing things that aren’t broken is reinforced every time maintenance is deferred. Chances are that unless the system has become severely deteriorated, maintenance can be deferred and the system will keep on running, at least for the short term. The organization sees this, so it simply concludes that maintenance they deferred was not necessary after all, reinforcing the attitude that deferring maintenance is a sound practice. Only when things actually stop working are they willing to accept the need for maintenance. What they do not see is the deterioration that is taking place as the result of aging and deferring maintenance and the impact it is having on system efficiency—deterioration that is only accelerated by a lack of maintenance. And systems that are not operating at their peak efficiency are costing the organization through wasted energy.

When building systems are new, assuming that they have been properly installed and set up, their energy efficiency is at its peak. Heat exchanger surfaces are clean and free of scale. Outside air dampers seal tightly and operate smoothly. Temperature control systems are calibrated and operate within the established limits. Insulation is dry and tightly adhered. Lighting system lamps are new and the diffusers are clear and clean.

With time and normal use, efficiency goes downhill. Scale and dirt accumulate on heat exchanger surfaces. Air damper seals leak and actuators stick. Controllers drift and go out of calibration. Insulation is damaged, becomes wet, or separates from the surfaces it is designed to protect. The light output from fixtures decreases and diffusers become cloudy and dirty. The result is decreased energy efficiency.

This process of slow deterioration in building systems is a natural process resulting from simple aging and use. The rate of deterioration depends on the quality of the systems and components installed, how those systems are operated, and how well those systems are maintained. Although the facility manager has little control over the quality of the installed systems, he or she does have some control over how those systems are operated. Facility managers exercise even greater control over how well those systems are maintained. With good maintenance, the rate of deterioration, particularly in those areas that impact energy performance, will be reduced or halted.

Unless facility managers are constantly reminded of the negative impact of deferred and neglected maintenance, the organization will continue to downgrade or ignore the maintenance aspects of energy management.

THE FOCUS ON ENERGY PROJECTS

The idea that conserving energy was going to cost big money developed almost immediately with the oil embargo of 1973. When prices rapidly rose, organizations immediately implemented a two-phase approach to energy conservation. The first phase consisted of implementation of quick fixes that would start saving energy immediately without requiring a significant investment of capital—turning down thermostats, reducing lighting levels, reducing ventilation rates, and so forth. While the results of these quick fixes produced savings, it was widely believed that a second phase was needed to achieve even greater savings. This second phase consisted of projects that, unlike the quick fixes, required a significant investment of capital to either replace or overhaul the existing inefficient systems installed in buildings. As a result, projects were justified on the basis of simple payback or return on investment.

In the years following 1973, more and more emphasis has been placed on projects as the means of conserving energy. Single glazed windows have been replaced with dual or triple glazed units, some with high-tech coatings to further reduce energy losses. Constant volume, dual duct, and reheat systems have been replaced with variable volume designs. Constant volume heating and cooling pumping stations have been equipped with variable frequency drives and control systems that match system flow rates with the demand being placed on the system. Ice storage systems have been constructed to make use of lower, off-peak utility rates. In all, billions of dollars were spent on projects to reduce energy use.

The emphasis on energy projects as the solution to high energy costs continues today. With the continuing belief that all of the easy, low-cost measures have already been implemented, facility managers continue to push large and costly projects as the only means of advancing energy conservation. Projects continue to grow in size, complexity, and cost. Many have grown so costly that they cannot be implemented without outside assistance in the form of utility rebates or shared energy cost savings.

This belief that all of the quick fixes have already been implemented is widely accepted today as fact. Further, it is believed that if organizations are to pursue additional cuts in energy use, even larger and more expensive projects must be implemented. Trade journals, company news letters, and other publications regularly report on energy conservation projects that are being completed by organizations. Those projects typically cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement and involve the use of high technologies or new energy conservation strategies. Mundane maintenance activities that reduce energy use do not get comparable coverage even though the net result is the same. This simply serves to reinforce the belief that energy conservation requires the implementation of big ticket projects.

LACK OF GLAMOUR

For nearly ten years now, energy conservation has been largely ignored by the media, public officials, corporate officers, and the general public. This absence of attention is a result of a lack of long-term energy concerns. Fuel supplies have been ample and prices have remained relatively low. Only during the temporary rise in gas prices during 1996 was any attention paid to energy as an issue, and even then it was treated as a short-term anomaly resulting from a combination of factors that soon went away. Energy conservation has fallen out of favor and has become secondary to other issues.

This lack of focus on energy has changed how organizations approach the issue of energy conservation. During the 1970s and early 1980s, conserving energy was practically a requirement for survival. High costs and limited availability dictated that facility managers do all that they could to reduce energy use. Even though the economy was not good, funds were made available for energy conservation activities as it was understood that the money being spent was an investment—an investment that not only helped ensure the survival of the organization, but also provided a positive rate of return. Economics and survival were the driving forces behind those programs.

Today the situation has changed. While economics is still an important issue, the survival aspects of energy conservation are not. Nobody today believes that they face curtailments or a total shutdown of their operations as the result of an energy supply problem. Energy is abundant and the future looks good because there is no bad news.

Even the economic factors no longer carry the same weight that they once did. Competition for funding has increased with other activities—activities that promise an even higher rate of return. Routine energy conservation activities simply do not capture the attention of corporate officers. Not all of the blame lies at the corporate level; at least a portion of it must be shared by the facility manager. If maintenance activities for energy conservation are to compete for funding, they need an advocate to promote their benefits to the organization. Simply identifying the activities and requesting the funding is insufficient. Maintenance activities for energy conservation must be promoted in exactly the same manner as other programs seeking funding, including identification of costs, benefits, and return on investment. Few maintenance managers have done this.

Without the advocate providing the necessary information to promote energy conservation through maintenance, maintenance does not stand a chance. Therefore, maintenance managers have turned to other means of promoting energy conservation: projects. In the eyes of the corporation, construction projects are more glamorous than maintenance. Maintenance managers soon realized that if they were to get any funding for energy conservation, they would have to pursue the types of activities that the organization was interested in and was willing to support: energy conservation projects. The reality of the situation today is that a facility manager is far more likely to receive approval for a multi-million-dollar ice storage system than for a $10,000 per year chiller maintenance program, even though both will reduce energy costs.

Part of the reluctance to fund maintenance activities is the result of a lack of understanding of how maintenance activities promote energy conservation. Few outside of the maintenance department understand how a systematic maintenance program on a chilled water plant can save energy by such routine activities as purging air from refrigerant systems or cleaning scale from heat exchangers. It is much easier to understand how the ice storage system will reduce costs by shifting the load to off-peak hours.

Lack of understanding is only part of the problem. Realistically, maintenance activities simply do not generate good press. Large, expensive energy projects do. In this age when organizations are very image cons...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• SECTION 1. ENERGY MAINTENANCE IN FACILITIES
• SECTION 2. MECHANICAL SYSTEMS OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE PRACTICES THAT WILL REDUCE ENERGY USE
• SECTION 3. ELECTRICAL SYSTEM OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE PRACTICES TO IMPROVE ENERGY EFFICIENCY
• SECTION 4. HOW TO REDUCE THE IMPACT OF AGING ON THE ENERGY EFFICIENCY OF COMPONENTS OF THE BUILDING ENVELOPE
• SECTION 5. HOW TO ESTABLISH A COMPREHENSIVE AND COST-EFFECTIVE ENERGY MAINTENANCE PROGRAM
• APPENDIX
• Index