Development of Diagnostic and Measurement and Verification Tools for Commercial Buildings

This research developed new measurement and verification tools and new automated fault detection and diagnosis tools, and deployed them in the Universal Translator. The Universal Translator is a tool, developed by Pacific Gas and Electric, that manages large sets of measured data from building control systems and enables off‐line analysis of building performance. There were four technical projects following the program administration tasks identified as Project 1:

1. Program Administration
2. Methods and Tools to Reduce the Cost of Measurement and Verification.
3. Fault Detection and Diagnostics for Commercial Heating, Ventilating, and Air‐ Conditioning Systems.
4. Test Procedures and Tools to Characterize Fan and Duct System Performance in Large Commercial Buildings.
5. Universal Translator Development: Integration of Application Programming Interface.

Project 1 consisted of administrative tasks related to the project.

Project 2 addressed the need for less expensive measurement and verification tools to determine the costs and benefits of retrofits and retro‐commissioning at both the individual building level and the utility program level.

Project 3 extended previous work on fault detection and diagnosis to additional systems and subsystems, including dual duct heating, ventilating and air‐conditioning systems and fan‐coil terminal units.

Project 4 combined previous work on duct leakage and fan modeling to develop a performance assessment method for existing fan/duct systems that could also be used in the analysis of retrofit measures identified by the tools in Projects 2 and 3 using the EnergyPlus simulation program to help select the most cost‐effective package of improvements.

Some of the diagnostic methods and tools developed in projects 2 through 4 were incorporated in the Universal Translator via a new application programming interface that was specified, developed and tested in Project 5. Combined, these tools support analyses of energy savings produced by new construction commissioning, retro‐commissioning, improved routine operations and code compliance. The new application programming interface could also facilitate future development, testing and deployment of new diagnostic tools.