Smart Building Systems Help Maintain the Sustainable Edge of an Award Winning Laboratory (ST-16-C024)

The paper will be a case study of the New Orleans BioInnovation Center (NOBIC) design, commissioning, controls optimization, and analytic smart building system. NOBIC was awarded the AIA Committee On The Environment (COTE) Top Ten Award at this year's AIA conference for its sustainability features and opeations. In highly sustainable buildings, three main aspects are required. First, the building's design has to support low energy operation. Second, the building must be technically commissioned. Technical commissioning requires testing of all components and sequences with personal verification. Lastly, a highly sustainable building, as with all buildings, will start to drift from optimum operations, and it will start to consume more energy over time. Analytic programs can help maintain operation at optimal levels. Sustainability goals provided the design team with an opportunity to optimize the design without creating major cost additions to the design which would result in cost overruns. Many of the ways the design team lowered energy use was by optimizing systems rather than high inital capital outlays. Technical commissioning verified that the installed systems met the intent of the design team as well as providing a baseline performance of the building that was truly in an optimal condition. Technical commissioning also utilizes the facilities staff in the commissioning process so that they can fully understand the building and design, as well as know how to bring the building back to an optimal state. An analytics/ongoing commissioing program was added to the control system in order to maintain optimal performance. The analytics platform looks at a number of different rules from simple comparisons to complex analysis in order to provide the operators with actionable data to maintain their building. Smart Building Systems go beyond next level software analytics, controls packages, or day one installations. Smart Building Systems require an integrated approach in order to design, commission, and operate highly sustainable buildings long-term.