National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

David Skaggs Research Center

Boulder, Colorado

The David Skaggs Research Center is a 415,000-SF building that primarily houses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS).  The building consists of multiple laboratory spaces, data centers, research offices and general administration areas.

The retro-commissioning of the NOAA building, including the heating/cooling plants and data centers was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and undertaken in an effort to improve operations and energy efficiency of the building's mechanical and electrical systems.

EEI conducted a careful review of facility systems, identifying energy-saving opportunities and estimating potential cost savings.

The following is a sampling of the identified energy conservation measures:

• Installing a small high-efficiency summer boiler
• Installing a flat-plate heat exchanger to handle the winter cooling load
• Retro-fitting the existing chillers with compressor variable frequency drives (VFDs)
• Installing VFDs on the constant volume lab exhaust fans
• Modifying and improving the existing laboratory heat recovery system

EEI also analyzed the benefit of the following major system retrofits:

• Adding an additional chiller and cooling tower for future capacity
• Assuring N+1 cooling capacity for all critical data centers
• Consolidating two separate control systems
• Adding BTU meters to the chilled water system branches to better determine data center cooling usage