What is a LEED Certified Building?

LEED is Leadership in Energy and Environment Design, it’s a program which verifies a build is certified “green.”  To be a LEED-certified building means the structure meets specifications related to LEED design, construction, and operation.

LEED Buildings and Natural Gas Submetering

By monitoring the flow rate and consumption at individual zones, it becomes possible to identify unusual consumption points, promote conservation, and in turn reduce energy costs as well as minimize environmental insult. Common applications include monitoring individual zones at university and college dorms, gymnasiums, classrooms, within each level of a high rise, at every department store in a shopping center, and in each building of a large government facility. Thus, in new construction or renovation of green buildings, extra LEED points can be obtained if submetering is instituted. In addition, submetering helps diagnose aging process equipment, such as old boilers or furnaces, and it also identifies possible leaks in fuel-feed lines.

Thermal Mass Flow Meters for Submetering

Sage Metering provides both easy-to-install insertion thermal mass flow meters, as well as in-line thermal flow meters with built-in flow conditioners that submeter natural gas in individual zones. These direct mass flow meters do not require separate temperature or pressure transmitters, have no moving parts, are highly accurate and repeatable, and have a negligible pressure drop. The Sage Thermal Mass Flow Meters have extraordinary rangeability of at least 100 to 1, which is an important feature given the daily variation in flow rate and consumption of individual zones. In addition to the 4 – 20 mA output of flow rate, the meters also provide pulsed outputs of consumption, in conjunction with fully Modbus compliant RS485 RTU communications, which is ideal for sophisticated building management systems.

The meters also feature bright graphical displays of flow rate, a non-resettable totalizer (often a requirement for environmental reporting), a temperature reading, plus continuous diagnostics. For difficult to reach pipes, or for locations with extreme radiant heat, Sage also offers a remote style flow meter, with up to 1000 feet of lead-length compensated cable – all electronics and powering are done at the transmitter – thus, the probe or flow body simply has a terminal junction box.

Natural gas submetering can be readily accomplished utilizing the Sage Prime Thermal Mass Flow Meter.