RD 2018-Sept-24 
Inside air quality
affects health. Individual tenants and
occupants will experience more or less convenience
as the system components change.
Design choices
matter to life-safety
when electricity
and highway networks are out for several days 
at a time. At building and
at community scale, design resilience
can maintain safe occupancy conditions when
electricity is not available, either from the grid
or out-of-diesel on-site generator.
Building
energy
When designs follow
best efficiency practices, boilers,
chillers, can be smaller, reducing capital
cost. Advanced lighting and motors reduce
electrical demand. As alternative sources, s
Photosynthetically
renewable, the woody biomass is a fuel for
heat and cooling (HVAC), service hot water
and industrial thermal process systems.
Biomass as a modern
option
Real
estate developers and managers avoided using woody
biomass systems; their HVAC engineers and architects could not offer
the necessary assurances.
Conditions have changed
for the better.
Equipment has been further improved. Business
practices now let building developers and owners get
beyond the high capital cost, performance and
reliability concerns and uncertainty about fuel
supply. Wood chip and pellet boiler performance
is reliable and clean, yet the installations use
advanced equipment and control systems which are
operationally complex.
It should make sense that the
people experienced with the equipment and fuel
systems are best suited to build heat supply
contracting (HSC) businesses.
Their knowledge,
training and developed networks for parts and service
limit their risk as owners, receiving a contracted revenue
stream in payment for a metered flow of renewable heat
energy.
Economic success is a near-certainty when projects are "qualified."
Qualification
is simply confirming that the installation
will create a profit as planned and built. The HSC
needs to make that decision and guarantee the result under
conditions that can be accepted by the facility developer,
owner or manager.
Community
Community protection
forestry work is needed in places like Colorado's Front
Range outside Denver, (site of condominium complex,
above).
The wood being processed is
biomass fuel - which in most locations is wasted.
Crews
salvage pest-killed trees or remove
"ladder fuels" so low intensity ground fires are less
likely to develop into "crowning" wildfires.
Why team with RPG?
We can help you realize the
value of well timed good design, safe and comfortable
conditions maintained with mostly renewable heat energy.
Operating cost may be close to the same, but
community and environmental value is far greater.
Important meanings can
be missed in design meetings where heat supply
alternatives are being considered; some having direct effects on owner's value.
Engineers,
foresters and arborists, real estate developers and
renewable heat equipment dealers (solar thermal,
biothermal, geothermal heat pump and more) all use
specialized terms inside their "trades."
RPG's
participation offers more than interpretation of words, or
even their meaning in context.
Design
options in renovation or new-construction
projects change with purpose of the facility,
where it is located, building site factors and
economic conditions. Owners may "want" to use a
particular energy source. The best outcomes
result when both sets of realities are evaluated
together even before the site arrangement plan is
"set."
We can take a leadership role in an early
alternatives review, as we explained the concept in chapter 2 of
ASHRAE's Cold Climate Design
Guide.
The
objective is to avoid expensive failures or
mid-construction re-work. We also urge
consideration of designs that integrate systems to
maximize sustainable day-to-day operations, and add to
the building's capacity to remain "livable" during
unexpected power loss (resilience).
Member:
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and
Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)
Association of Energy Engineers (AEE)
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers
(ASABE)