Fort Riley Irwin Army Community Hospital, Replacement Facility

Challenge: The energy model file for this 550,000 square foot hospital, developed by the architecture/engineering firm that designed the building, was very large. The file’s run-time was lengthy, used more computer resources than it should have and was not allowing for the testing of design alternatives. The engineer who created the energy model was also having trouble modeling an optimized chiller plant that includes dedicated heat recovery chillers for space heating and service water heating.

Solution: The firm hired THE ENERGY STUDIO to address the challenges. We reduced the model size, cutting its run-time from 17 minutes to two minutes. We also developed a solution for the optimized chiller plant’s model, consulting with the engineers who are designing the plant and the dedicated heat recovery chiller manufacturer’s representative. THE ENERGY STUDIO’s services were later expanded to include LEED-NC v2.2 documentation for EA Prerequisite 2: Minimum Energy Performance and EA Credit 1: Optimized Energy Performance.