The U.S. Green Building Council has released a comprehensive LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Demand Response Pilot Credit. The updated credit establishes new guidelines that will increase a facility’s LEED ratings with the award of additional points when the facility participates in an automated demand response (AutoDR) program.
Commercial facility owners and operators face several challenges when considering implementation of demand response events in their facilities, according to BuildingIQ, an energy management software company. “These include managing the complexity of these events manually, maintaining acceptable occupant comfort levels, and the cost of more automated, custom-engineered solutions. As a result, the adoption of demand response in commercial facilities has been relatively low compared with some other sectors.”
DRIQ, an automated demand response product offered by BuildingIQ, will enable commercial facilities to obtain these additional LEED certification credits.
“DRIQ automates demand response events to ease the complexity of managing through events and increase their LEED rating,” BuildingIQ stated. “In addition, DRIQ optimizes the building around the events to reduce the risk of occupant comfort impact. In previous deployments, DRIQ has reduced peak loads by up to 30 percent without impacting occupant comfort.”
“As the smart grid becomes a reality, AutoDR will be a critical application for high-performing buildings in managing energy performance,” said Ross Malme, a partner at Skipping Stone and one of the architects of the new LEED guidelines.
Industry experts from the Demand Response Research Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other industry stakeholders contributed to the development of the new standard.
