2022 Building EQ (Building Energy Quotient) Competition

This is a student competition open to ASHRAE student members, but there is not required to have a student branch. Teams of 3-5 students are ideal for this competition, but the entire team must be students.  In order to submit the project for approval and then access and print the final report, each team must have one mentor with a Professional designation (PE, P.Eng, or ASHRAE Certified BEAP).  There are no fees for students to register on the Portal.  Industry mentors, ASHRAE YEA members and student branch advisors are excellent resources.  ASHRAE encourages you to work with industry, but they are only contributing as industrial advisors. 

This competition takes theory into practice.  It will give students the hands-on experience with operational settings while working collaboratively with building owners. Building owners will have the benefit of a student audit.  This may also give connections to industry which can help lead to job opportunities.  If nothing else, it looks great on a resume.

Apart from the competition, students will be able to make a difference to the planet by reducing energy consumption.  Once the report is complete it will identify energy efficiency measures that target components with high energy consumption that the owner may upgrade to save operational costs and reducing the carbon footprint.  Building owners can use these measures to make improvements to their buildings, turning those energy, cost, and carbon reductions into reality.

1. Register online in the ASHRAE Student zone under design competitions, and include an industry professional (PE, P.Eng, or BEAP). (https://web.ashrae.org/design_competition/). 

2. Each student and the mentor need to register with Building EQ on the Building EQ Portal.  Information about Building EQ and links to the Building EQ Portal can be found at www.ashrae.org/buildingEQ. 

NOTE: Each team must submit a Building EQ In Operation (IO) project on the Building EQ portal, located at https://buildingeq.ashrae.org/, through the Building EQ account of a registered credentialed user (BEAP or PE), for either one building or one campus (i.e. group of buildings), and obtain a free Building EQ Narrative Audit Report (energy audit report) in a Word document format produced by the portal. Only those teams that register will receive instructions on how to obtain a free Building EQ Narrative Audit Report from the Building EQ portal.

ALL ENERGY AUDIT REPORT SUBMISSIONS ARE TO BE SUBMITTED ELECTRONICALLY via the ASHRAE FTP site. Only those teams that register will get the FTP site information and instructions for uploading entries.

All teams that are registered participants of the 2022 Student Building EQ Competition will receive the FTP upload instructions via email. If your team is not registered, you will NOT receive this information.

3. Select an existing facility to analyze which has been in regular operation for at least 12 months.  (You will use the In-Operation rating assessment).  The building you select will impact the scoring.  Reach out to non-profit organizations, places of worship, food banks, or shelters.  It is preferrable to work with community organizations.  If there are no opportunities with these types of facilities, then reach out to your local ASHRAE chapter members, or you can work with buildings on your local campus where travel is difficult. 

4. Visit the Building EQ  Portal  and create a project for the facility to be analyzed.  Add the students and mentor who have previously registered on the Portal to the project.   In this way, all of the team members will be able to access the project to enter information, and the mentor (i.e., credential user) will be able to submit the project for approval once completed.   The Portal screens will lead the team through the information that is needed for the assessment and level 1 Energy Audit.   Enter the building metrics and other required information collected during your site visit, assessment, and interviews.

Once all building data has been collected and entered, the credentialed user (i.e. the mentor) submits the project for approval.   Once that project is approved, the credential user will be able to print the Narrative Audit Report as per the instructions as noted above.   This report should be customized as needed (see item #5 below) by the team and then made into a PDF file.

5. Complete your report and submit it electronically.  The report is 10 pages max (3 MB file limit including appendices), including the cover page.  Font size shall be 11 pts, utilizing either Arial or Times New Roman. The report shall include:

1. Cover page with students’ names, and a photo of the building.
2. Abstract, and final summary of building
3. Building function, type of use, description of systems.
4. Explanation of how the data was collected.
5. Recommendations to improve the performance, and approximate energy 
6. Appendices (not included in the page count):
   1. The energy audit report submission for the competition must use the Building EQ Narrative Audit Report and be in PDF format only! No separate visual aids will be accepted (PowerPoint, YouTube, etc.). Deliverable presentation should consist of a 50-page maximum audit report in PDF format only. This will include:
      1. One (1) Building EQ In Operation (IO) project submitted on the Building EQ Portal by a BEAP or PE, with student members associated with the IO project; and,
      2. One (1) ASHRAE Standard 211-compliant Level 1 energy audit report, using the Building EQ Narrative Audit Report generated by the Building EQ portal from a submitted IO project.
   2. Optional reference letter from the client or building owner’s representative.

Projects shall be evaluated, at a minimum, according to the following criteria.

• Submission of the Building EQ IO project per the criteria stated on the Building EQ Portal;
• Complete Level 1 energy audit report meeting all the requirements of ASHRAE Standard 211 (using Building EQ Narrative Audit Report);
• The complexity of the building and systems that were audited;
• Use of ASHRAE Standards, Guidelines, and publications; and
• The depth, thoroughness, and comprehensiveness of the audit as reflected in the audit report.

A better Building EQ score will not make a project more favorable. Rather, it is the explanation of the score and the rationale for the recommended energy conservation measures (ECMs) that are being scored in the competition.

Completion of all elements identified on the portal as optional will make a project submission more favorable, including, but not limited to the following:

• Energy End Use Breakdown; and
• Optional IEQ Survey Point Measurements.

For items not covered specifically above, judging will be based on the merits of the documentation that best presents and explains the Building EQ score and energy conservation measures (ECMs). Teams are required to provide complete energy audit reports (Narrative Audit Report and Spreadsheets Audit Report), including the citation of industry-approved engineering standards and guidelines and the utilization of currently available technology.

The scoring rubric will be used to evaluate the submissions:

First Place:          Loughborough University

Second Place:     University of Nebraska – Lincoln 

Third Place:         University of Regina

Rising Star:          Montana State University - ChemBio