Commissioning Continues Driving Down Energy Costs

As part of ongoing efforts to reduce energy consumption and make campus more sustainable, NC State Energy Management partners with the Building Maintenance and Operations commissioning team to retro-commission strategic buildings across campus. The commissioning team is composed of in-house technical staff dedicated to optimizing building performance, which results in significant energy and cost savings.

Retro-commissioning (RCx) is a process of fine-tuning building operations, like HVAC controls, to ensure a building is running at its peak performance. Over the course of a building’s lifetime mechanical systems begin to run less efficiently through degradation and modified user input. The commissioning team identifies these shortcomings and boosts optimization.

Since FY20, the NC State commissioning team has been saving the university over $2 million annually in energy costs. Recently retro-commissioned buildings from FY20 include Textiles, BTEC, Partner I, Admin II, SAS, CVM Main, Schaub, Holmes, Joyner, Carmichael Recreation, and ongoing work in Carmichael Gym. The commissioning team saw the largest reduction in energy costs at Schaub where they have achieved over $470,000 in savings since FY22.