Wright-Patterson Air Force Base – Energy/MACT
Size 354 Buildings 13.5 Million SF
HEAPY provided a Facility Conditions and Energy Retrofit Study encompassing the energy services for 354 facilities (13.5 Million SF) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. This project analyzed the central coal-fired heating plants and steam/HTHW distribution systems to determine the lowest life cycle cost method of providing heating and hot water use for the facilities served
The scope of the walk-thru assessments of nearly 30% of the building stock on the Base (including the Central Plants – approximately 100 buildings) addressed: a thorough review of existing systems for future service life. The following additional scope was included, evaluating:
- Whether to maintain and upgrade existing systems
- Install decentralized or point source heat sources (individual building systems)
- Using readily available fuel sources and including alternative fuels
Once completed, the top cost-effective and energy- and water-efficient options were recommended in a summary Report.
(The Report compared three alternative options, ranging from $30 million to $125 million in capital cost improvements)
Principal Elements and Features
HEAPY utilized energy modeling software to calculate building energy use for 2.9 million SF of buildings
Thermography cameras were used to calculate system losses for 13 miles of High Temperature Hot Water and Steam exterior distribution systems
Complexity of Job, Challenges Faced, and Actions Taken/Results of Actions
The fast schedule and large effort of estimating the heating energy use of all buildings (354 buildings covering approximately 13.5 million SF) of WPAFB required strategies of grouping like buildings into categories where modeling was performed. Comparison of actual energy use to calculated building models was then analyzed to provide an overall system energy matrix used to determine the capital cost impacts and life cycle cost impacts of the multiple scenarios required for the study.
