ASHRAE Guideline 36 Open Source Supervisory Control Technology Development and Demonstration

This project demonstrates a scalable approach to implementing ASHRAE Guideline 36 (G36) sequences of operations for chilled water and hot water plants in existing buildings. G36 establishes industry best practices for standardized HVAC control strategies, enabling improved energy efficiency and system performance and previous studies have shown significant energy savings for airside systems. Expanding on this, the research team deployed G36 sequences in one chilled water plant and two hot water plants across two buildings using a layered architecture that integrates supervisory control platforms, Control Description Language programming, and Brick ontology tagging. The supervisory control layer enabled seamless coordination with existing building automation systems, minimizing infrastructure changes. Control Description Language facilitated transparent and modular implementation aligned with G36 specifications, while Brick ontology tagging created a machine-readable semantic model for scalable integration and diagnostics. Prior to deployment, the team conducted a comprehensive evaluation and retro-commissioning process to correct existing control and equipment issues that could limit performance. Measurement and verification were performed using metered energy data and regression models with typical meteorological year weather data to determine weather-normalized annual energy consumption. The results demonstrated 7 and 11 percent energy savings in the hot water plants and 15 percent savings in the chilled water plant, translating to annual cost reductions ranging from $0.095 to $0.17 per square foot. This project highlights the potential of modular and scalable G36 adoption to enhance energy efficiency across diverse systems while minimizing engineering effort. It also emphasizes the critical role of retro-commissioning in optimizing system performance and ensuring successful implementation in complex environments.