FEMP Re-tuning Challenge Informational Webinar

CAROLYN GOODMAN: You are good to go  

NAEL NMAIR: Yeah. Good afternoon, everyone. We will wait another minute to allow for others to join before we get started.  

OK. I think we'll go ahead and get started. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the February tuning challenge webinar. Let me—next slide.  

Let me start by talking about your speakers. My name is Nael Nmair. I'm the Supervisor for the Facility—Supervisor for the Facility and Fleet Optimization Pillar within FEMP. And I manage everything within the facilities. I have 30 plus years of experience with design and construction and O&M really throughout the world.  

With me today will be Varun Sood and Carolyn Goodman. They're mechanical engineers at the Pacific Northwest National Lab, PNNL, and they will be speaking with you here shortly. Next slide.  

In today's agenda, we will talk a little bit about the—we will introduce the re-tuning challenge to you, then we will have a live demo of the screening questionnaire on the website, then we will have a Q&A at the end of the presentation to answer any questions you may have. Next slide.  

I know we will cover this a little bit more but overall what is the re-tuning challenge? It's really a free regional workshop. It's a two-day workshop to look at your building automation system and how to optimize it. It does offer some CEUs for that training.  

The following day, which is really just an out-brief to your management, basically identifies what strategies that we came up on the savings and present those to your senior management at your site to make informed decisions. It is a classroom and hands-on so there'll be some classroom portion of the training, and then you walk through the facility and identify ECMs.  

The idea is we don't leave you hanging after the workshop. Once you come back, once we're done with the workshop and we come back, we're still available. We will have reach-back support to you to help you—to help answer any questions. And the idea behind this is not just we return one facility typically but the idea is the replication, doing other facilities, and that's where you get the biggest bang for your effort. So again, really the key is replication. Next slide.

So what are some of the key drivers? I'm sure many of you have heard of the EISA, the Energy Independence and Security Act, which requires that agencies must evaluate all their cover facilities once every four years. And many agencies do it as 25% per year so at the end of year four, they've covered all of their—they evaluated all of their covered facilities.  

And—excuse me. Energy Act came out in 2020 and amended the Energy Security Act and said, well not only do you have to evaluate, but you must execute all cost effective ECMs within two years from the evaluation. And by the way, 50% of those ECMs must be accomplished through performance contracting.  

Executive order came out and then the climate smart building initiative and the federal building performance standard, all of them dealt with decarbonization and electrification and provided several goals. So re-tuning really covers this whole list of statute in one way or the other.  

A new statute that's coming out I think next week will be the clean energy rule. And then the clean energy rule also is another requirement that you must for all your new construction and major renovations over $3.8 million in today's dollars will have to abide by eliminating all fossil fuel combustion at your site by the year 2030. More details will come out on that clean energy rule. At the end of the day, you have several statutes that the re-tuning challenge will support. Slide.  

So with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Varun to cover the next few slides.  

VARUN SOOD: All right. Thanks, Nael. So as Nael mentioned, my name is Varun Sood. I've been with PNNL for a little over five years. And I support the O&M program under which the re-tuning challenge training is nested. So real quick, just we wanted to make sure for those who are not familiar the definition for re-tuning.  

So re-tuning is a subset of existing building commissioning and it's a data-driven process of improving control of existing building systems primarily through the building automation system. So the idea here is that we'll apply the four key principles of re-tuning. Turn it off where you turn off your systems when they're not needed at all. Turn it down where if you have variable operation and your services are not needed at full load during part load conditions that you're able to turn it down to consume as little energy as possible.  

Mitigate the simultaneous heating and cooling to avoid instances where a conditioned air is treated multiple times and has improper control. And finally, reducing infiltration and outside air by addressing the excessive or improper control of your exhaust system, your outside air dampers, and possibly leveraging demand control ventilation if you have that capability.  

So our goal with the re-tuning is to leverage your existing building automation system, apply the principles, identify energy savings, emission savings, and, of course, possible O&M issues to make your buildings operate better than they are currently. Next slide, please.  

So quickly want to talk about the value of re-tuning. It's a low cost activity. We say low cost or no cost because the primary cost driver for actually implementing re-tuning is really the time it takes to sit in front of the BAS system and identify the issues and actually implement and program the re-tuning measures.  

The program has tremendous benefits. We've seen anywhere from 5% to 25% in savings. With all of the projects we've done, the simple payback has been under 3 and 1/2 years. So very good program with some easy and quick payback opportunities to help meet your goals. And I've already talked about compliance with the existing statutes.  

Some of the other benefits of re-tuning are when we correct these operational issues, we've seen that the life of the equipment can be extended with not having to turn equipment on and off over and over again. And of course, we've seen improvement in occupants' comfort.  

And if you have an energy management program, such as 50001 Ready or something more internal to your agency, re-tuning and O&M and existing building commissioning overall provides a good contributing approach as well. And again, re-tuning has been seen and has been validated to be part of your decarbonization efforts and can be a very good program to have as part of your agency's overall energy and O&M program. Next slide, please.  

So in this graphic we have our approach to re-tuning site visits. And so here the idea here is that once you apply and are selected for the re-tuning challenge and you are the host agency, what are the steps needed to get started? And of course, once the training is completed, FEMP and PNNL does not go away and I'll mention there will be continuous reach-back support. And to get into more details, I'll turn it over to Carolyn Goodman who's our technical lead for the program. Carolyn.  

CAROLYN GOODMAN: Yeah. Thanks, Varun. Hello, everyone. I'm Carolyn Goodman. I'm a mechanical engineer at Pacific Northwest National Lab. I've been here for about 2 and 1/2 years, and I'm the technical lead for the FEMP re-tuning challenge training program. So as we mentioned, this is just a quick overview of the re-tuning challenge process and I'll get into some additional details on the next few slides.  

So the first activity we have is the FEMP team re-tuning site visit. So there's three main activities. This first one includes a re-tuning of one building on the host agency site conducted by re-tuning experts. And so this site visit is executed concurrently with the re-tuning challenge training workshop, which I'll talk about in the next slide, but the re-tuning site visit includes a custom model of the selected building completed in the building re-tuning simulator to estimate energy, cost, and emission savings.  

After measure identification, the site will implement the agreed upon re-tuning measures and FEMP and PNNL will engage with site staff for support throughout measure implementation to make sure that it is a success. The site will also receive a detailed report outlining all the measures, which will be updated after implementation with measurement and verification of savings.  

So the second activity is the re-tuning training. So this training is meant to be a regional event. It's a two-day training event. And it's a regional event to maximize the number of agencies who have the skills to conduct re-tuning. The training includes classroom presentations, group exercises, a review of the building automation system, graphics, and mechanical systems.  

The applicant agency should plan to send representatives who are expected to be involved in the internal re-tuning effort, which I'll get into on the next slide. Although this is an intro to re-tuning class, having a working understanding of HVAC systems and their components is strongly encouraged. So this training is geared towards operations and maintenance staff, engineers, subject matter experts in HVAC or controls, energy managers, and technicians. All attendees will receive training material that they can then leverage when they conduct re-tuning on their own buildings after the training.  

The third and last activity is the internal re-tuning effort. So the host agency will commit to replicating re-tuning best practices in their own facilities after the training. So the re-tuning challenge is a train the trainer program. We want to maximize the number of people with re-tuning knowledge so it can be replicated in the max number of facilities. So attendees of the training are also expected to train additional site personnel on re-tuning best practices.  

FEMP and PNNL will provide reach-back support to answer any technical questions as the host agency is executing the internal re-tuning effort. The key tasks for this internal re-tuning include building selection, so identifying a building to complete re-tuning in; data collection, so collecting all of the required data, which you would learn about during the training; measure formulation, measure recommendation, and then measurement and verification of savings after implementing the re-tuning measures typically with a controls contractor or if you have a controls expert on staff.  

So as mentioned, FEMP and PNNL will provide guidance and support to ensure each re-tuning challenge is successful. However, listed on this slide are the keys to success on the agency side. So leadership and support is important for the challenge to ensure that resources are allocated to executing the necessary steps of the program.  

Next, having a training or energy or site champion who's excited about re-tuning and will push for a successful re-tuning challenge and beyond is also important. Next, identifying a strong candidate building with an operational HVAC system and building automation system with training capability. This is important for the success of the savings potential for the re-tuned facility.  

Next, for the workshop, we aim to have a class size of around 20 to 30 people. So having assistance from the host agency to identify those 20 to 30 attendees between the host agency site and regional agencies will be helpful for the success of the training.  

Next, showing up engaged, ready to learn, and identify savings opportunities at your site and not just at the facility that will be re-tuning during the re-tuning challenge but also during the internal re-tuning effort and making sure that you're excited about incorporating re-tuning into best practices at your agency.  

And then finally, the goal of the training is to set you up with the skills to conduct re-tuning on your own. And that would be the ultimate success is replicating that across your portfolio of facilities.  

So here is a testimonial from a re-tuning challenge event we completed last year in Huntsville, Alabama at Redstone Arsenal. They are actively working on identifying additional facilities to re-tune and see the value across their portfolio. The Don Henderson is the energy manager at Redstone Arsenal and we are in consistent communication with him regarding the progress of implementing the re-tuning measures and the internal re-tuning effort.  

Another success story is at Arraj Courthouse. So during the re-tuning challenge at Arraj Courthouse, the FEMP and PNNL team identified 15 ECMs. This equated to an 18.2% validated annual energy savings reduction. They also saw a 16% reduction in GHG emissions in FY 2020 and then a further 42% reduction in GHG emissions in FY '21, which shows the persistence of savings and is indicative of a successful re-tuning. And we've completed seven re-tuning challenges to date.  

So the expectations for the host agency before the training include, once the agency has been selected, would be helping identify a candidate building for re-tuning and that would [INAUDIBLE] from FEMP and PNNL. Collecting required data re-tuning process. This will be outlined in a document provided from FEMP and PNNL so it will be clear what's required.  

Also participating in pre- and post-engagement meetings as needed to make sure that the training goes well and that we're all prepared for both the training event and for the site re-tuning executed by experts. Supporting event logistics, so reserving a workshop room, site access, training material, shipping, et cetera.  

And then finally, hosting other agency staff for on-site re-tuning training. So that's up to 30 people, as I previously mentioned, being able to accommodate other agency staff external to your own agency at your site.  

So just a couple details about building selection for re-tuning. So the ideal candidate building. The building type is either healthcare, office type building, education, research, lab, museum. We like to look at larger—there's more success in larger facilities, so greater than 50,000 square feet typically. Variable air volume systems, central heating and cooling with variable speed equipment so we can execute the turn it down measures.  

Having a building automation system that was installed after 2000 with the majority of equipment integrated. This one's important to make—because re-tuning is executed through the building automation system. So having a working building automation system is critical for the success of re-tuning implementation.  

Having updated data: mechanical drawing sequences of operations, interval metered data, trend data, and utility billing data. And then finally having calibrated sensors, operational controls, and newer equipment. And all of these details are outlined on FEMP's re-tuning candidate checklists that help identify the best candidate buildings for re-tuning where you will realize the most savings.  

So what are the host agency expectations after the training? They are expected to aid in the development of promotional materials. This includes testimonials or assisting with case studies. Next, implementation of the agreed list of routine measures within six months of the FEMP team re-tuning site visit. And following that, the host agency will attempt to re-tune a different facility during the internal re-tuning effort within one year of the re-tuning challenge training. They will also provide ongoing updates to FEMP and PNNL on the implementation progress.  

All right. So now moving into how do you participate? So we'll have office hours for question and answer on April 24 and May 8 and those calendar invites will be sent out shortly. A submission deadline for a agency to host a re-tuning challenge is May 17. We'll complete a preliminary review and contacts will be made to follow up with asking for additional information by May 31. And then the selection announcement will be on June 14. The first site visits will be between September and November of 2024.  

And with that, I'm going to transition to just doing a quick walkthrough of where to find the screening questionnaire. It is on the link on the slides. Once you pass the screening questionnaire, we may ask a applicant agency to complete an evaluation questionnaire just to make sure we have all the required information to make a appropriate selection for the facilities.  

All right. Let me transition. OK. So here we are at the re-tuning challenge—FEMP's re-tuning challenge website. So we'll—to find the screening questionnaire and apply for the challenge, you'll scroll down to—slightly down the page right next to Objectives, there's Interested in the Challenge. And then you would go to fill out the screening questionnaire and click on that link.  

So in the screening questionnaire—apologies—there are red stars next to most of the questions, making them required. If you don't know the answer to some questions, you can note that in the question so that you're able to submit the questionnaire, but we want to get as complete information as possible from each applicant agency.  

The questions require you to select a preliminary building for re-tuning using that building re-tuning candidate checklist to answer the questions, but FEMP and PNNL will work with sites that are good candidates to make sure that the preliminary building selected is a good choice.  

The first part of the questionnaire asks about the site and questions about the preliminary building that you've selected for re-tuning and covers questions such as the building automation system vendor, if the availability of different data sources, energy utilities that are used at the facility, et cetera.  

The second part of the questionnaire focuses on support of FEMP's priority so we ask that the selected agency commits to a list of requirements from FEMP. And so those are outlined on this questionnaire to make sure that any applicant knows upfront what the expectations are.  

Finally we ask for contact information both from the site champion, the one who will be pushing the re-tuning challenge process forward, also contact information for senior leadership because that is a key success item for the re-tuning challenge. And then finally, the contact information for the person that submitted the questionnaire.  

And with that, I will turn it back over to Nael to close out the information about the re-tuning challenge and contact information.  

NAEL NMAIR: Thank you, Carolyn. Now I open it up to any questions. If you have any questions, please either put them in the chat. I'm not sure you're able to unmute yourself, but if you can put it in the chat, that would be great. Bottom line is, we're trying to—while you're typing up your questions, FEMP is trying to get the—when I looked at the re-tuning a couple of years ago when I started this challenge, I just really saw the advantages and the biggest impact with very little upfront investment.  

So we started the re-tuning challenge and sure enough it's proved itself to be very beneficial to agencies who have taken advantage of it. Now FEMP has been doing it for a few years but PNNL has been doing it for many, many years before that. So let's see if we have any questions in the chat. OK. We'll give another minute or two for the questions.  

I want to emphasize that this is really a key for the replication. We do offer the regional workshop. We provide the skills for the attendees on how to do it and we leave the site with recommended strategies. Some of those strategies can be implemented while we're out there. So we will help the—if you have a controls person in attendance, then we can possibly do some of those strategies right there.  

And the good thing about it, if you're working on the base and you can implement that strategy and see the immediate result of, let's say, changing the set point or changing the operating hours or so on. So with that, I want to emphasize one thing. If you have a performance contracting project like an ESPC for that facility, then we try to shy away from it because we want you to take advantage of those savings for your ESPC project. So let's see. I think there's a question here.  

CAROLYN GOODMAN: I can answer the first question I see. So if I have time or if we have time, could we explain a typical example ECM of something you might find. Curious to see what level you dig into details of the BAS. So some example ECMs that we typically recommend, so we do recommend a lot of resets, so supplier temperature reset, static pressure reset, hot water supply temperature reset, chilled water supply temperature reset. We also look at building automation system schedules.  

All of these are informed through the use of building automation system trend data to make sure that that measure is actually applicable for the site. And we also look at the equipment if it has the capability to implement that specific routine measure. Optimal start is another measure. We have essentially like a few dozen list number of typical re-tuning measures that we recommend that are available on a re-tuning checklist that we fill out during the re-tuning challenge training.  

NAEL NMAIR: And if I may add, Carolyn, some of those ECMs would be within the BAS system that you can adjust those either set points or optimum stop, optimum start, that type of thing. However, also as we do the walk through the facility, there might be some capital improvement projects that would stem out of the walk through, changing the lighting, let's say, or whatever other ECM within the HVAC systems and HVAC system or lighting system or even the outside air.  

That's one thing we look at as well, is the infiltration of the outside air. So a lot of times we find that the outside air, especially with COVID, it was increased 100% and it's been like that ever since then and it doesn't need to be. So those are the type of possible ECMs that we look at.  

CAROLYN GOODMAN: Nael, there's a question about a cheat sheet on all of the programs that are available.  

NAEL NMAIR: The two challenges we have, we have the treasure hunt challenge and the re-tuning challenge. And there is a slide that actually compares the difference between, let's say, the treasure hunt and the re-tuning. And let me very quickly—I'll be happy to send you that slide, which talks about re-tuning, treasure hunt, and audit, and the differences between them.  

Very quickly, let me tell you that—let me explain the differences between the re-tuning and the treasure hunt. Treasure hunt is designed to be for—the audience for the treasure hunt is really the entire staff of a facility or of a site. The idea is we want it to have everybody at that site to become part of the energy conservation team for your site. It doesn't go into a lot of technical details like the re-tuning does.  

So an admin person could be part of the treasure hunt and can actually help identify treasure hunt. We look at plug loads, for example. We look at lighting, look at high level HVAC system. We do look at some of the turn it off, turn it down operating hours, that type of thing. That's what a treasure hunt does. It focuses on the very low hanging fruit with very little investment.  

Re-tuning is a little bit different, quite a bit different actually. Re-tuning we're focusing on the building automation system in addition to some of the ECMs, like I mentioned as a capital project. So we go into the building automation system and we look at your strategies, we look at, like Carolyn said, the optimum stop, optimum start, the set points or is there an overlap that causes your heat and cooling low—heating cooling load to be overlapping and coming on at the same—fighting each other basically? So this is the type of thing.  

But the audience for the re-tuning is really controls folks, O&M folks, more technical in nature than the treasure hunt. So you'd want to look at your facility and say, well, this facility is ideal. I'd love to look at the building automation system and go in depth because I know that's where my biggest bang for the buck, for example, for that. And then you would choose re-tuning.  

But if you're looking at your overall energy program and you want to have more comprehensive and changing the mindset of the site populace, then treasure hunt would be the way to go. Now there's nothing that prevents you from applying for both and we can work with you to figure out what is the best one that fits your site. Hopefully, I've answered your question. But again, in the slides that we will send out, I'll include that crosswalk or that comparison slide that we have for the three different programs, I do not have an audit challenge. It's just a re-tuning and a treasure hunt.  

CAROLYN GOODMAN: And Jenna, the slides will be emailed after this presentation.  

NAEL NMAIR: And if you all have specific questions, like Jenna had technical issues, could not get maybe the information, please reach out to us. We'll be happy to go over some of this and walk you through it.  

OK. Now it looks like there was a question about the leave behind and I think Varun answered it. Both with the treasure hunt and the re-tuning, since treasure hunt was brought up, we do have some leave behind to help you replicate your training, plus we have website resources that you can access in addition to our reach-back. You can always call us and we'll be happy to walk you through whatever is on your mind and any issues. OK.  

Again, if you have any questions that you want to handle through the email, here's the contact information. Just email this link right here and we will be happy to answer you.  

The next step in this process is the—I think we have office hours on the 24th, I believe. Then we have the—can we go through them? Yeah. So office hours on the 24th and May the 8th. Please register for those. Or not register, but you can utilize those. Then the submission deadline is May the 17th. OK.  

VARUN SOOD: I'm going to quickly mention that we're really hoping for a lot of agencies to submit applications and get excited about the programs. Right now we anticipate doing these challenges at least once a quarter with the first challenge possibly rolling out in the fall time frame just so we get enough time to do the preliminary data collection.  

But if we get a lot of agencies to submit the questionnaires and they're all—they all pass the evaluation criteria and are good candidates for the regional training events, Nael and I have spoken and we'll have a long range plan into 2025 and possibly 2026 so that there's no break in the training. So if you're an agency that is not 100% sure if you want to host the training yet but want to participate in one, please look out.  

We'll be doing training updates and sending out a lot of information. We have an upcoming one in Quantico in a couple of weeks and then we'll be looking at one in Charleston later this summer, and then, again, we're just hoping for additional agencies to apply and we can schedule them across the country. So really looking forward to having your applications in and hoping that we can have more conversations down the road.  

NAEL NMAIR: Yeah. Let me add a couple of comments to that. These are regional workshops. These are not just for the site. So we encourage people to attend. So let's say your site is not really participating or was not selected. That does not preclude you or your staff or whoever you want to be attending other regional workshops. And we will make an announcement for all the workshops that are coming up so you can plan accordingly.  

You might send some people to a workshop, let's say, in California versus another workshop in South Carolina or whatever the case is. So it doesn't have to be that you send it to only one. It's open to everyone. We work with the sites to try to get you access and provide you the training even if you're not selected. But like Varun said, we would love for you to submit and be on the list for site visits.  

Now Varun said something that I want to clarify that we will have a challenge every quarter. We're not really having a challenge, we're having a site visit. I'm not restarting—this process does not restart till maybe phase three of the challenge, which would be a couple of years from now. We are having site visits. We plan on having site visits once a quarter, possibly more often depending on the funding. Obviously, it costs a little bit of money and I have to make sure I have the funding before I commit to it. But to you all, it's totally free of charge.  

OK. I think that's all the questions. I don't see any more questions. So again, here's the email, the contact information—the contact email. Please send us with any questions you may have. You can always attend the office hours as well and we'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.  

I think with that, we can end this webinar. I want to really thank everybody for attending. Great questions and discussions, and we wish you the best and a great day for today and the rest of the week. Thank you all. Have a wonderful day.  

VARUN SOOD: Thanks, everyone.  

CAROLYN GOODMAN: Thank you.