[Equest-users] Utility Meters and SubMeters in eQuest

Seun Odukomaiya SOdukomaiya at lacquis.com
Mon Jul 18 06:39:24 PDT 2011


Nick,
Thanks for taking a look at this. I followed your steps and observed the same behavior. This gives me confidence that the "EM1" Meter is in fact accounting for all submeters. I guess my confusion came from not completely understanding what exactly was being reported in the BEPU report. I now have what I need to respond to a USGBC comment about why there are discrepancies in the reports. Again, thanks for all the help!

Seun Odukomaiya, EIT, LEED AP | Mechanical Engineer | L'Acquis Consulting Engineers |(317) 706-2075 Ext. 255 | www.lacquis.com<http://www.laceindy.com/> | To transmit large files, please use:  http://lacquis.leapfile.net<http://lacquis.leapfile.net/>

From: Nick Caton [mailto:ncaton at smithboucher.com]
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2011 9:18 AM
To: Seun Odukomaiya; equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: RE: [Equest-users] Utility Meters and SubMeters in eQuest

Hi Seun - I'm sharing my response for others' benefit to understand how sub-meters are documented, I hope you don't mind!

Here are some select excerpts for illustration from your project:

>From BEPU:

                         TASK     MISC    SPACE    SPACE     HEAT    PUMPS     VENT    REFRIG  HT PUMP   DOMEST    EXT

               LIGHTS   LIGHTS   EQUIP   HEATING  COOLING   REJECT   & AUX     FANS   DISPLAY  SUPPLEM  HOT WTR   USAGE    TOTAL

              -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  --------



EM1  ELECTRICITY

    KWH        86385.       0.  167249.   37739.   57318.       0.   15880.   71310.       0.       0.   26146.    5761.   467786.

>From PS-B:

                 JAN      FEB      MAR      APR      MAY      JUN      JUL      AUG      SEP      OCT      NOV      DEC     TOTAL

               -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  --------



EM1  ELECTRICITY

KWH             40806.   38821.   39184.   39124.   33028.   37465.   40334.   42471.   41722.   37863.   35728.   41242.   467786.

MAX KW           130.3    129.7    143.6    147.2    160.4    144.7    145.1    193.5    179.5    162.2    150.2    129.3     193.5

DAY/HR           16/11    18/11    16/13    17/13     8/13    22/15    22/17    17/13    22/13    13/12     2/13     4/11      8/17



ELEV ELECTRICITY

KWH              2653.    2495.    2868.    2868.    2653.    2868.    2868.    2777.    2744.    2777.    2495.    2868.    32934.

MAX KW            15.4     15.4     15.4     15.4     15.4     15.4     15.4     15.4     15.4     15.4     15.4     15.4      15.4

DAY/HR            2/ 9     2/ 9     2/ 9     1/ 9     1/ 9     1/ 9     1/ 9     3/ 9     1/ 9     1/ 9     2/ 9     1/ 9      1/ 2

>From PS-E, "all electric meters:"

                         TASK     MISC    SPACE    SPACE     HEAT    PUMPS     VENT    REFRIG  HT PUMP   DOMEST    EXT

               LIGHTS   LIGHTS   EQUIP   HEATING  COOLING   REJECT   & AUX     FANS   DISPLAY  SUPPLEM  HOT WTR   USAGE    TOTAL

              -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  -------  --------



KWH            86385.       0.  167249.   37739.   57318.       0.   15880.   71310.       0.       0.   26146.    5761.   467786.

MAX KW         28.689    0.000   68.391   17.727   67.449    0.000    5.817   25.761    0.000    0.000    5.208    1.315   193.501

MON/DY           1/ 2     0/ 0     1/ 8     2/ 4     8/17     0/ 0     8/17     8/17     0/ 0     0/ 0     1/ 2     1/ 1      8/17

PEAK ENDUSE    21.709    0.000   68.391    0.000   66.883    0.000    5.817   25.493    0.000    0.000    5.208    0.000

PEAK PCT         11.2      0.0     35.3      0.0     34.6      0.0      3.0     13.2      0.0      0.0      2.7      0.0

This all looks pretty normal to me!   Page 127/160 of the "Help --> Tutorials and Reference --> Detailed Simulation Reports Summary.pdf"  explains the BEPU report only shows one row for each utility meter.  Sub-meters should not show up on that report, if that's what you're getting at.

The totals shown for EM1 (467,786 kWh) are inclusive of your Elevator sub-meter.  You can test this by zero-ing out your elevator energy and observing the EM1 totals lowering by approximately 32,934 kWh.   In fact, the sum lowers slightly more than that quantity, presumably because electric components of other conditioning equipment serving adjoining spaces are no longer handling the residual heat from the elevator equipment.

Rest assured, nobody should be expecting your elevator sub-meter to show up explicitly on BEPU.  Its energies are rolled into the EM1 total.  If you need to document the separate metering, PS-B should suffice.  If documenting the sub-metered energies distinct from EM1 for LEED or similar, remember to pull the sub-metered quantities from the inclusive totals for EM1.

I will add that this "inclusive" nature of reporting when you have sub-metering defined was not immediately apparent or intuitive for me when I first encountered it... but maybe that was just me =)!

Hope this helps,

~Nick

[cid:image001.jpg at 01CC452E.946AA150]

NICK CATON, P.E.
SENIOR ENGINEER

Smith & Boucher Engineers
25501 west valley parkway, suite 200
olathe, ks 66061
direct 913.344.0036
fax 913.345.0617
www.smithboucher.com

From: Seun Odukomaiya [mailto:SOdukomaiya at lacquis.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2011 3:49 PM
To: Nick Caton
Subject: RE: [Equest-users] Utility Meters and SubMeters in eQuest

Nick,
Thanks for your reply. I have followed your instructions and still cannot get the BEPU report to show the submetered electricity. I have attached my pd2 and inp files for your review if you have some time. I'm curious to see why my model is behaving differently. Thanks again for all your help!

Seun Odukomaiya, EIT, LEED AP | Mechanical Engineer | L'Acquis Consulting Engineers |(317) 706-2075 Ext. 255 | www.lacquis.com<http://www.laceindy.com/> | To transmit large files, please use:  http://lacquis.leapfile.net<http://lacquis.leapfile.net/>

From: Nick Caton [mailto:ncaton at smithboucher.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 6:47 PM
To: Seun Odukomaiya; equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: RE: [Equest-users] Utility Meters and SubMeters in eQuest

Hi Seun,

Hmm... I checked a previous project with sub-metering and did not find the same discrepancy between BEPU totals and the other reports... EM1's figures appear inclusive (not exclusive) of the sub-metered energies on PS-B.  I could see that being unintuitive the way it's presented, and perhaps that's the root of the issue here?

PS-E and PS-F take the PS-B report further - one of those should show the sum totals for "all electric meters," broken out by energy end-use.  That would seem a good place to start, to ensure all your sub-metered loads are being modeled and are accounted for.  I am seeing BEPU totals that match, so if you see a mis-match it may be a sign that the sub-meters aren't correctly assigned to the utility meter (EM1)?

~Nick

[cid:image001.jpg at 01CC452E.946AA150]

NICK CATON, P.E.
SENIOR ENGINEER

Smith & Boucher Engineers
25501 west valley parkway, suite 200
olathe, ks 66061
direct 913.344.0036
fax 913.345.0617
www.smithboucher.com

From: equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org [mailto:equest-users-bounces at lists.onebuilding.org] On Behalf Of Seun Odukomaiya
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 2:01 PM
To: equest-users at lists.onebuilding.org
Subject: [Equest-users] Utility Meters and SubMeters in eQuest

Hi guys,
In an effort to break out the electric consumption for the elevators in my building, I assigned that load to a submeter which I then assigned to the main utility meter EM1. This seems to have worked because I can see both meters and their respective consumptions in the PS-B report. Additionally, the ES-D report shows me that the total electric consumption for the building is being accounted for and billed according to my input utility rate. This is all fine and well.

When I look at the BEPU report, however, it only reports the energy consumption of the main utility meter, while ignoring the added consumption from the submetered elevator meter. Since my elevator meter is a submeter to the main electric meter EM1, shouldn't the BEPU report for EM1 show the total consumption of both meters? How do I get the BEPU report to show the total electric consumption? Thanks in advance!

Seun Odukomaiya, EIT, LEED AP | Mechanical Engineer | L'Acquis Consulting Engineers |(317) 706-2075 Ext. 255 | www.lacquis.com<http://www.laceindy.com/> | To transmit large files, please use:  http://lacquis.leapfile.net<http://lacquis.leapfile.net/>

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