Russell Knudson Thesis: Comparison and Verification of Thermal System Performance in High Performance Buildings. Advisors: Sanford Klein, Doug Reindl Mechanical Engineering Hometown: Portales, NM Financial support for this research provided by the John S. Nelson Fellowship through the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at UW-Madison.Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies

Motivation Commercial and laboratory buildings are among the highest in utility energy consumers, therefore providing the highest potential for energy savings. Modern trends in construction, particularly large buildings (~300k ft 2 ), show high interest in energy conscious design methods by way of programs such as USGBC LEED*. However, the investment and implementation of such energy efficient designs and technologies are rarely verified post-construction *United States Green Building Counsel’s “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design” program.

Goals and Objectives The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (WID) building on campus at UW-Madison is a prime example of current industry efforts toward energy efficient design and operation. WID has been outfitted with various data collection systems that enable the monitoring and trending of building performance on an energy basis. This data has been made available to the Solar Energy Lab.

Research Sequence Verification and error analysis will first be conducted for the on-site data collection system(s). Once data is confirmed, an analysis on the performance of two major thermal system components: –Geo-Exchange Heat Pump –Air Energy Recovery (Enthalpy Wheel)