Optimal Lab Safety
Photo courtesy of Ennead
This research lab provides optimal safety for occupants and increased savings for the institution by using airflow optimization strategies.
The successful decarbonization of labs and other critical science environments to increase energy efficiency, occupant safety, and annual savings requires a goal-oriented project team with the cultural mindset to adopt effectual technology/engineering processes, procurement strategies, and incentive-based outcomes. Science and engineering facilities often encounter substantial obstacles, such as cost restraints, safety issues, restrictive regulations, and tight deadlines, when completing the massive energy transition necessary to decarbonize their labs.
Having a multi-disciplinary team in place from start to finish and using best-in-class technology are important steps to achieve decarbonization that maximizes efficiency gains and savings. Using performance-based funding methods, including rebate incentives tied to project outcomes, and avoiding financial penalties by adhering to environmental regulations can also increase savings.
The path to zero carbon emissions often begins with transitioning existing fossil fuel-powered buildings to 100% electrical power by upgrading boilers, HVAC units, and mechanical systems to use renewable energy sources. The dynamic environment in labs requires specific mechanical systems and engineering strategies to address the ventilation needs of occupants in the space at any given time.
In fact, the HVAC load in lab spaces typically accounts for 40-70% of energy usage in a building, showcasing the importance of efficient heating and cooling systems. Institutions sometimes opt for the costly replacement of their central plant to improve the overall functioning of HVAC units. A less expensive and more efficient strategy is airflow optimization—or dynamically controlling the amount of air delivered to each space. Efficient airflow management results in energy optimization with a decrease in energy consumption, carbon emissions, and operating costs. Regulated airflow maintains optimal temperature and humidity in labs, creating a comfortable work environment and preventing fluctuations that could impact research.
Decarbonization involves driving the air changes per hour (ACH) to as low as 2-4 ACH, which can be ramped up to 16 ACH or more if an incident, such as a chemical spill, occurs. A demand-based control system can deliver air where and when it is needed, reducing the airflow when a lab or the vivarium is clean and increasing it when pollutants are detected.
A successful project is not just about the technology. It revolves around the stakeholders, the culture, the process for hiring contractors and subcontractors, program-level engagement at the customer level, and procurement strategies that are critical to decarbonizing buildings.
“The technology is available, and there are good case studies, but we must align internal stakeholders and pay project teams based on outcomes that are achieved, and not just based on their response to specifications,” says Walt King, managing director of Thrive Buildings in Norwood, Mass.
It is also critical that institutions use their IT departments to ensure that building data is located on a platform where it can easily be shared with vendors who are completing the decarbonization. In many existing buildings, the institution’s data is secured on a building management system, typically owned and operated by a third party.
Industry Standards
Recognizing that 70% of its energy usage was driven by lab spaces, the University of California at Irvine (UCI) developed the Smart Labs Initiative 15 years ago to increase energy efficiency across its large research campus, says King. The Smart Labs concept uses occupancy and air-quality sensors, which helped UCI reduce its energy usage in labs by 60% and improve its safety record, which resulted in lower insurance premiums.
“Lab buildings are particularly complex to decarbonize because their energy use is tied to occupant safety outcomes,” says King. “High ventilation rates are needed to remove potential chemical exposures, and high ventilation rates lead to buildings that use five to 10 times what a typical office uses. UCI’s approach is powerful because it shows a way to reduce energy use by 50-70%, while increasing safety outcomes.”
Despite the positive results produced by UCI, King says less than 5% of the market has followed its example by implementing similar programs. He attributes this poor adoption rate to a lack of strong executive leadership from clients. In addition to the challenge of getting all stakeholders on the same page is the need to rethink the way they procure the projects—by prioritizing programmatic results-driven business relationships with vendors rather than strictly thinking about project specifications and the initial cost.
Many building owners believe implementing energy-improving projects requires too much work, money, data collection, stakeholder alignment, and ongoing maintenance, says King. Vendors typically prefer new construction instead of retrofitting, have a limited ability to work across constituent groups, and do not want their payment to be linked to the project’s outcome/performance.
“Compared to the traditional design-bid-build model, which puts all of the risk on the client, we recommend a design-build approach, where the project team is at the table from day one, works with the client to develop the desired scope, and then implements that scope,” he says. “This approach allows the client to pass some of the risk to the vendor. For example, if the vendor says you will save 1 million kilowatt hours of electricity, payment can be linked to achieving that outcome. This approach also leads to dramatically fewer change orders, as it is outcome-based.”
This financial alignment represents a shift in how project teams are awarded as part of an institution’s procurement strategy. The key objectives of decarbonizing buildings—saving energy and reducing the carbon footprint—are easy to measure, and institutions can set key performance indicators that vendors must meet in order to get paid.
“Rather than paying to change a lightbulb, it’s paying for how many kilowatts that lightbulb change actually saves, and the light level it provides,” says King.
Case Study: Addressing the Learning Curve
A retrofit completed at a New York City medical college epitomizes how lessons learned in a pilot project can be applied at later stages to achieve exemplary results. The pilot, which started in 2020, involved retrofitting 26 labs on the eighth floor by installing an indoor air quality (IAQ) platform, integrating it with the building management system, updating the building control sequences, integrating to a building management system, and enabling dynamic airflow optimization. The college initiated the work as a conventional design-bid-build project, hiring an engineer, commissioning agent, and general contractor. The general contractor then hired the building management contractor, who purchased all materials.
Missing from this early phase were a performance risk assessment, an alignment of outcomes, and a strong stakeholder engagement process. While engineering and facilities teams were involved up front, there was no representation from environmental health and safety, animal care, or information technology. As a result, it took two years to correct a data platform issue, because project responsibilities were never clearly defined, so there was confusion about who owned certain scope items, such as the cubic feet per minute (CFM) setpoints for each lab space.
There also was a dangerous misinterpretation of air handling control sequences, which resulted in unsafe ventilation conditions. Some variable air volume (VAV) boxes were programmed to zero, meaning no air was flowing into the labs—an emergency noticed by the college and immediately corrected.
A lack of proper preparation and the assignment of responsibilities resulted in the project taking two years to complete, instead of the originally anticipated nine to 12 months.
“The general contractor was primarily responsible to deliver the project, but they had little experience with energy-efficiency strategies, the utility rebate process, energy modeling, integration, and controls,” says King. “The control sequences were generic, and the IAQ provider was not at the table due to the contract structure. The commissioning agent was not an integral part of the design-build team or the construction team, and that led to items lingering that could have been caught earlier, if there were an integrated commissioning process.”
Implementing Lessons Learned
Thrive Buildings worked with this same medical college to later retrofit 66 labs and 82 vivarium rooms throughout the 13 floors and basement of this nearly 500,000-sf research facility. A design-build team approach employed a contractor, a mechanical/engineering/plumbing firm, and a commissioning agent, who were all responsible for delivering the project. Subcontractors were then hired as part of the outcome-oriented contract structure, where the design-build team anticipated large utility rebates if performance goals were met, and accepted the rebate risk by vowing to deliver the expected results.
“Of the $2 million project cost, the college paid nearly $1.2 million and the remaining $828,000 came directly from the utility companies to us,” explains King. “If we didn’t achieve energy savings, the utility payment would have been reduced. That is where we are financially aligned with the client.”
The LEED gold building was constructed in 2014 with a strong focus on energy efficiency, featuring state-of-the-art air handling units, HVAC system, and central plant, with separation between the labs and vivaria. Although constructed as one of the most efficient lab buildings of its time, it did not meet the standards set forth in Local Law 97, which was passed by New York City Council in 2019 to reduce emissions in the city’s largest buildings by 40% by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2050.
The college had an energy use intensity (EUI)—a measurement of the building’s energy efficiency calculated by dividing the total energy consumption of the facility by its total floor area—of between 100 and 115. Making changes, including implementing airflow optimization and installing new transducers to correctly calculate the amount of airflow being used, reduced the number to between 50 and 65, resulting in an annual energy savings of over $272,000 and a reduction of 730 metric tons of carbon.
The New York City Fire Department’s mechanical code requires every lab building to have 4 ACH in unoccupied spaces and 6 ACH in occupied lab areas to safely manage the flammable and explosive risks associated with lab chemicals. However, an exception can be made if “an engineered ventilation system design will prevent the maximum concentration of contaminants from exceeding that obtainable by the rate of outdoor air ventilation….”
The work done by Thrive and other team members to hire a risk consultant, conduct a detailed chemical analysis, and install the Aircuity demand control ventilation system marks the first time a research building in New York City has met the exception criteria. This permitted the minimum airflow requirements to be safely lowered contingent upon constant monitoring by Aircuity.
Explaining the project to the New York City Fire Department early in the process helped the design team obtain approval for less than the number of air changes mandated by the local code.
Conducting an inventory of all chemicals used in the building and installing a demand control ventilation system were key to achieving this approval.
In addition to a risk consultant, King says it is equally important to add an integration engineer who can perform IT coding. The engineer can write and implement control sequences for the building management system, and perform commissioning functions related to air handling units, terminal units, and exhaust fans. This ensures that the correct airflow is delivered to each space, based on the current conditions in that space.
Real-time air-quality monitoring of the ventilation systems is necessary and can be accurately performed with sensor technology to determine what is happening in a lab space at any given time. If a spill occurs or someone is working on a benchtop when they should be working in a fume hood, sensors can detect these activities and alter the air changes if a contaminant is present.
By Tracy Carbasho
