Laboratories: Best Practices

Laboratory Design Guide: The Design Guide for Energy-Efficient Research Laboratories Version 4.0 - is intended to assist facility owners, architects, engineers, designers, facility managers, and utility demand-side management specialists in identifying and applying advanced energy-efficiency features in laboratory-type environments. The Guide focuses comprehensively on laboratory energy design issues with a "systems" design approach. Although a laboratory-type facility includes many sub-system designs, e.g., the heating system, we believe that a comprehensive design approach should view the entire building as the essential "system." This means the larger, macro energy-efficiency considerations during architectural programming come before the smaller, micro component selection such as an energy-efficient fan.

Best Practices Guides - Here is a sampling of the more recent ones. A full directory of publications (written by LBNL researchers and others) can be found at the Labs21 site.

• Optimizing Laboratory Ventilation Rates: The objective of this Best Practice Guide is to help users optimize ventilation airflow and reduce associated energy use while maintaining or improving safety. While this guide highlights best-practice strategies focused on reducing energy use, it does not specify how to set a ventilation rate. Note that the terms “good” and “better practices” are used to describe options that improve standard practices.

• Laboratory Guidelines Using ASHRAE 90.1 – 2007, Appendix G: This guideline is for energy modeling of laboratory spaces in a building in accordance with ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007 Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, Appendix G.  The intent of this guideline is to clarify and modify the requirements of ASHRAE 90.1, in order to improve its applicability to laboratories.
• Aerosol Ductwork Sealing in Laboratory Facilities: Aerosol-based ductwork sealing (ADS) technology seals duct leaks from within the ductwork, by pressurizing the duct system with a fog of sealant-laden air.

• Modular Boiler Systems for Laboratory Facilities: Energy savings can be realized in the production of heating hot water by modularizing the boiler system. Equipment in modular, or multiple, boiler systems (MBS) are designed to operate singly or together to meet heating hot water loads.
• Metrics And Benchmarks For Energy Efficiency In Laboratories: Guidance is provided on how to specify and compute energy efficiency metrics and benchmarks for laboratories, at the whole building as well as the system level.

• Measured Peak Equipment Loads in Laboratories: Measured data are presented of equipment loads from 39 different lab spaces in nine different buildings from the following institutions: Duke University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Davis, University of CaliforniaSanta Cruz,and University of Wisconsin Madison.
• Manifolding Laboratory Exhaust Systems: Manifolding laboratory exhaust in laboratory buildings provides substantial energy and first-cost savings opportunities when compared to separately ducted, multiple exhaust fans.

Retro-Commissioning Laboratories for Energy Efficiency: This bulletin highlights unique process steps and energy- performance issues that relate to retro-commissioning laboratories.