“It’s funny to hear them talk about it,” Varner notes. “It was interesting to see that because it’s very low tech in that it just looks like a regular outlet strip, but it’s got a wireless power meter brain to it that can tell you a lot. There’s no existing infrastructure upgrade. It’s all add-on later.”
Equally simple, Varner suggests, are the “low-hanging fruit”, such as light dimming controls that can be easily installed if the fixtures in the space can support dimming or can be retrofitted after hours to allow for it.
Varner also says his firm is employing more sophisticated solutions that are gaining in popularity, such as variable refrigerant flow (VRF) for HVAC equipment. According to Johnson Controls, Milwaukee, VRF systems achieve extremely high efficiencies by modulating the flow of refrigerant according to the exact demands of individual areas. The results can yield an average of up to 39 percent energy savings for some applications compared to conventional HVAC systems.
Additionally, Bigelow says Green Building Services has been looking into a couple of cloud-based monitoring technologies that have the capability of generating accurate data about building performance easily and securely. For example, 38 Zeros is a low-cost data-logging hardware solution combined with cloud services that delivers information from all the systems that keep buildings operating, including utility meters, temperature sensors, gas meters, water meters, boilers, chillers, HVAC systems, compressed air systems, rooftop units and more. Similarly, BuildPulse analytics are cloud-based support tools for buildings. The analytics provide third-party, non-biased verification of operational performance, project performance and implementation.
Dollars and Sense
Ultimately, the decision to make upgrades—large or small—to a building boils down to upfront costs and the time it takes to recoup the investment. Fortunately, many of the noninvasive solutions highlighted here come at a low cost and relatively quick payback.
“Generally speaking, these kind of methodologies reveal something that will pay for itself in less than five years, even when you throw in the engineering and the fees,” Bigelow says.
As an example, Bigelow points to a client located in Portland’s Yeon building for which Green Building Services helped to implement systems and operational changes that cost roughly $10,000 total. The client realized immediate savings, which resulted in a 10-month payback.
“It was very, very quick. That’s not necessarily typical of everything we do but it’s certainly something that’s not all that uncommon,” he observes. “If we find that energy’s being wasted and we stop wasting it, that’s a win-win.”
Still, calculating return on investment is a complicated equation, according to Varner, but he estimates that when considering investment and output, expenses are typically recouped in less than 10 years. Murphy agrees payback is often difficult to determine and varies project-by-project, but costs can also be cut by utilizing existing systems and infrastructure and only making changes where necessary. “What we’ve learned is that if you do a project and you minimize what you touch—again, it’s this whole exercise of what’s good enough that you can keep—every choice you make is replacing only what absolutely makes sense to replace.”
This selective decision-making process makes sense given how infrequently existing buildings come up for renovations.
“In the client’s shoes, they only get maybe once every 10 years a chance to materially affect their asset once it’s leased up. That’s a big deal,” Varner notes. “There’s a lot of hand-wringing that goes on when a major tenant, let’s say, leaves the building. They wonder, ‘How much do we have to put into this building to get the next crop of tenants in that will pay as much or more than the last tenants? How do we protect our asset for the future or prepare for a sale?’ It’s all a fact of value, right?”
The real factor in terms of calculating the cost of retrofits, Varner says, is to determine how long a building will remain vacant when a tenant leaves. If the existing building can’t attract new tenants, the incentive to invest becomes more valuable to the building owner.
“I would say the thing about noninvasive retrofits is, you’ve got to think about it beyond just the energy and the economics,” concludes Bigelow. “These are really opportunities to reposition your building on the market. These types of upgrades that we’re talking about and processes being changed to something a little bit more modern can dramatically change who wants to lease the space and how valuable your property is.”