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Northwest Engineering Service President Joseph Helm has been in the commissioning business for many years. He started providing the service before it was called commissioning, when it was merely an HVAC tune-up. Now, he expects demand for commissioning to continue to grow, particularly because of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program.

Proposed 鈥�LEED 2012鈥� monitoring requirements would increase the importance of commissioning because LEED projects would need to meet projected performance goals to retain certification.

That would be another boost for commissioning, which began to gain popularity in the mid-1990s, particularly for buildings’ HVAC systems, Helm said.

鈥淥ver the years there’s been recognition that a building really needs to be tuned up after it’s built in order to make it operate well,鈥� he said.

Commissioning entails monitoring a building’s systems during and after construction to ensure that performance meets expectations for designs and models. The service also can involve making connections with a building’s maintenance staff and tuning systems as necessary.

The hook for commissioning was an emphasis on energy savings, though that is not 鈥渢he whole story,鈥� Helm said.

鈥淚t took a while for people to embrace commissioning and to really overcome the first costs because it was really difficult to calculate a return on investment,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut as energy became more expensive, people really embraced it for that reason, to save energy and to save money.鈥�

LEED green building certification requires commissioning to ensure systems and new, experimental green designs are working the way they are supposed to, and that energy savings are actually occurring.

鈥淐ommissioning is a part of the LEED rating system because its value is understood,鈥� said Katrina Shum Miller, director of Green Building Services.

鈥淎s controls and equipment get more sophisticated, there’s more of a need to make sure the systems are working, and working together,鈥� Helm said.

LEED presently requires commissioning to be incorporated in pre-design, design and construction phases. In these cases, commissioning is used to confirm that systems in place after construction meet project owners’ requirements. Proposed LEED requirements would expand the verification process. As a result, more time and money could be required to attain certification.

Helm said a commissioning authority would be in charge of implementing metering systems that can measure how much energy is being used in different parts of a building. This would expand the commissioning agent’s role beyond the end of a building process.

The proposed LEED update also would require commissioning for the building’s envelope, to ensure it is performing according to expectations.

All of the metering and verification requirements would require the commissioning agent to stay on later in the process. That would mean early involvement as well.

鈥淢ore thought has to go in overall in the programming and design phases to make sure you can satisfy verification requirements later on,鈥� Helm said.

Commissioning would become even more important if the LEED requirements were to go forward as proposed, because if a building didn’t perform close to predictions, it might not earn LEED certification.

鈥淰erification is a must,鈥� said James Meyer, an Opsis Architecture principal. 鈥淗owever, I think the idea of revoking LEED (if a building doesn’t live up to expected performance) is dicey.鈥�

The new requirements could increase commissioning costs, but Meyer agreed with Helm that it should be used throughout the process of designing and constructing a building.

鈥淚 think we could take commissioning on in a way that makes it more efficient so it becomes cost-effective,鈥� he said.

While he isn’t certain whether to support all the proposed LEED changes, Meyer said he’s glad a more rigorous system is being considered.

鈥淭hey’re moving the carrot, if you will, and keeping the criteria alive as opposed to static,鈥� he said.

A new draft of the 鈥淟EED 2012鈥� update is expected to be released in July with opportunities for the public to comment.