HHI Series: Commissioning and Retro-Commissioning for Hospital Energy Reduction and Occupant Health

Overview

Session Description

Commissioning and retro-commissioning play an integral role in satisfying the energy reduction goals of the Advocate Health Care system. Advocate's Energy Manager will describe this health care system's commissioning and retro-commissioning initiative and present the overall energy-reduction results. A representative from the firm performing much of Advocate's retro-commissioning will provide specific real-world examples of energy conservation measures and HVAC system performance problems identified and acted upon as part of commissioning and retro-commissioning. Attendees will leave this presentation with an understanding of the commissioning/retro-commissioning process as it applies to healthcare environments, a sample of commonly identified hospital HVAC system energy conservation measures and system operational problems, and a summary of the resulting health, safety, and energy reduction benefits of commissioning and retro-commissioning.

Presenter

Jean Gibbons, Grumman/Butkus Associates
Jean Gibbons has been with G/BA since 1989 and has been a Vice President since 1996. Her experience includes an emphasis on design and troubleshooting of HVAC systems serving critical environments such as hospitals, laboratories, and clean rooms. Jean enjoys the challenge of working on indoor environments in which the systems provide for occupant safety and health as well as comfort. She also relishes the opportunity to incorporate energy conserving and other green features into these resource intensive types of building. Jean has been responsible for numerous projects which received ASHRAE Excellence in Engineering Awards.

Jean holds a Bachelor and Masters of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois. While obtaining her master's degree, Jean worked in the BLAST Support office; BLAST was a building energy analysis program that was a predecessor to the current EnergyPlus program. Jean is a licensed professional engineer in Illinois and a LEED accredited professional. Jean served on the Board of Directors of the Illinois Chapter of ASHRAE and was a member of ASHRAE TC1.5 Technical Committee on Computer Applications and is a corresponding member to ASHRAE TC9.10 Technical Committee for Laboratory Systems. She is a member of the Alumni Board for the University of Illinois Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering.