High-tech buildings - Market transformation project

Facility managers and designers know their buildings are energy intensive yet have few techniques to quantify cleanroom energy performance. Benchmarking identifies the energy end uses in a cleanroom. As expected, besides the process loads, which are often very intense, the mechanical systems are the most energy intensive in these buildings. Benchmarking the mechanical systems and components can provide useful information on system and component performance and provide a basis to identify energy-saving opportunities in cleanrooms. HVAC systems in cleanrooms are dramatically different from their counterparts in commercial buildings in terms of reliability, safety requirements, and scale. The design of cleanroom HVAC systems is a specialty area requiring unique understanding of cleanliness guidelines, airflow quantities, room pressurization, code requirements, specialty equipment, tight control, and many more details. The HVAC systems must also operate reliably and safely. Since recirculation air systems use large amounts of fan power in moving large amounts of conditioned air through HEPA filters, the cleanroom, and return pathways they represent one of the largest energy end uses in a cleanroom. In addition, many processes requiring cleanrooms also have large make-up and exhaust airflow needs requiring huge amounts of energy to move and condition the displaced air. Energy intensity for mechanical systems in cleanrooms ranges between 4 to 100 times that of commercial buildings. There is, however, a lack of comparative data on the performance of cleanroom mechanical systems. To better understand existing cleanroom systems in high technology industries, and to better enable building owners, operators, and designers to compare energy use for a given cleanroom to others, it is necessary to benchmark energy performance in such facilities