Major energy efficiency opportunities in laboratories—Implications for health and safety

Abstract

Laboratory facilities present a unique challenge for energy efficient design, partly due to their health and safety requirements. Recent experience has shown that there is significant energy efficiency potential in laboratory buildings. However, there is often a misperception in the laboratory community that energy efficiency will inherently compromise safety. In some cases, energy efficiency measures require special provisions to ensure that safety requirements are met. In other cases, efficiency measures actually improve safety. In this paper we present five major, yet under-utilized, energy efficiency strategies for ventilation-intensive laboratories and discuss their implications for health and safety. These include: (a) optimizing ventilation rates; (b) reducing laboratory chemical hood energy use; (c) low-pressure drop HVAC design; (d) right-sizing HVAC systems; and (e) reducing simultaneous heating and cooling. In all cases, the successful design and implementation of these strategies requires active and informed participation by health and safety personnel.

A psychology perspective of energy consumption in organisations: The value of participatory interventions

“…through denial of consequences or personal responsibilities. 43 In the context of non-residential buildings, employees tend to argue that their energy-saving behaviours would not lead to the desired consequences 44 and thus do not ascribe responsibility to their action, ultimately leading to a diffusion of responsibility. 45 In offices, for instance, employees might not turn off the lights when leaving because they think that this will be done by security services.…”

“…Finally, participatory interventions foster discussions among employees, and thus, are a promising learning opportunity for engineers, architects, and energy managers to better understand the perspective of individuals who actually use their buildings, and to find out where energy can best be saved. 44,99 Such conversations can be insightful as to how the building and the architectural space affect individual comfort, energy usage, and working behaviour, or even foster consumer-led innovations regarding the development of new energy conservation tools. 19,99…”

Changing Behavior Through Design: A Lab Fume Hood Closure Experiment

“…When a VAV fume hood is left open when not in use, it can needlessly increase energy use by increasing the electric load from the fan itself, and also by increasing the number of air exchanges per hour (thereby losing heated or cooled air) above what is required, particularly when a space is unoccupied. Depending on the number and type of hoods present, fume hoods can be a principal factor in a laboratory building energy use (Mathew et al, 2007). Each fume hood is estimated to use the equivalent of three to three-and-a-half times the energy as an average U.S. home (Mills and Sartor, 2005).…”

“…In the U.S., ∼40% of primary energy consumption is associated with buildings (U.S. Energy Information Administration, 2019), which makes buildings a frequent target for energy conservation efforts. At universities and other research institutions, laboratory buildings in particular are a focus of energy conservation efforts because of their high energy use stemming from HVAC requirements and other equipment use (Woolliams et al, 2005;Mathew et al, 2007). Laboratory buildings can consume four to five times more energy than commercial buildings of similar size (Woolliams et al, 2005).…”

“…An intervention that more closely approximates a physical design change, experimentation with different hood closure designs, or a comparative study of existing hood closure designs would be a useful extension of this study. The prevailing thought in laboratory energy conservation and fume hood management has been that, "hood installations require a strong sash management plan that includes periodic training and awareness, informational placards, and possibly penalties and rewards for proper use" (Mathew et al, 2007). However, there is an important connection between the design of the hood and lab workers' behavior and the potential for a design change to lessen the need for a labor-intensive management plan for existing hoods has not been thoroughly explored.…”