News & Events

The event is full house now. Thanks for your support.  

This event is co-organised by Hong Kong Green Building Council Limited (HKGBC) and Building Services Operation and Maintenance Executives Society (BSOMES).

Retro-commissioning (RCx) is a process to improve the energy performance of an existing building. The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department has developed a Technical Guidelines on Retro-commissioning to promote RCx in existing buildings. In view of this, the HKGBC and BSOMES jointly co-organise a seminar with the aims to provide an overview on the development of retro-commissioning in Hong Kong and China. Apart from explaining the general RCx process and energy-saving improvement proposals, case studies and examples on the actual application of RCx in different stages for a diverse type of buildings and systems including commercial complex, hotels and offices, etc., will also be showcased.

This seminar targets to building owners, developers, facility managers and engineers from the building industry. 

Session 1: An introduction of Retro-commissioning and Technical Guidelines (Language: Cantonese)

More than half (55%) of Hong Kong’s total annual energy end-use is in the form of electricity consumption and buildings take up about 90% of our total electricity consumption. It is imperative to reduce the use of electricity in buildings to help us combat climate change. At the same time, Hong Kong has the highest building density in the world, of which around 60% of the buildings are over 25 years old. The saving potential of these buildings would be significant. 

Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) is actively pursuing the cost-effective program of "Retro-commissioning" (RCx) to further encourage energy conservation works in existing buildings. RCx is a cost-effective and systematic process to periodically check an existing building’s performance. Through the use of data tracing, professional analysis and diagnosis, RCx helps to develop a scientific based optimization scheme and make continuous improvement. 

EMSD has developed Technical Guidelines on Retro-commissioning in order to drive the wider spread of RCx in existing buildings.  The paper would introduce the framework of technical guidelines and include some technical approaches from real cases, which explain the general RCx process and focus, and the energy-saving improvement proposals for building owners and the industry.  We hope that both public and private sectors can work together to improve overall energy performance of buildings and towards green infinity. 

Speaker: Ir KONG Ka-wah, Senior Engineer, Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, HKSAR Government

Ir KONG Ka-wah is a senior engineer of EMSD, HKSAR Government. He has over 17 years’ experience in building services design and project management of a wide variety of government premises. Ir KONG has been actively involved in recent years in technically supporting the reviewing of the BEEO, including the serving of the Technical Taskforce (with trade participation) & the guiding of its Working Groups in the viewing, drafting & finalisation of the technical guidelines 2015 edition and the promotion of the BEEO and its codes & guidelines to stakeholders & the public. Ir KONG is now leading a team of engineers tasked to promote retro-commissioning in Hong Kong. 

Session 2: Commissioning in Commercial Buildings and MEP Systems for Energy Efficiency: Challenge with Opportunity in China (Language: English)

There are tremendous challenges on energy and environmental issue in China since today 1/5 of energy globally is consumed in China, consequently, almost 1/4 of Green House Gases (GHGs) worldwide is emitted from China. Among them, around 24% of energy is consumed in operating buildings for HVAC, lighting, appliances, etc. Energy efficiency in buildings is well accepted as a key to sustainability for future especially that China is still on a fast lane of urbanisation.

Since that, concept of green building is also well known and various technology and products labelling with “energy efficiency” are installed in buildings now a days in China. However, the actual performance and operational system efficiency or energy consumption are not as good as expected. People realised that they need a KEY to run their buildings and systems properly rather than to put a Farrari as a furniture in their sitting rooms. Commissioning (Cx) is expected as the KEY. Generally, requirement of Cx can be illustrated as four situations as following:

(A) Cx during operation: the goal of carrying out a Cx is to evaluate actual energy performance during operation and disclosing energy saving potentials. Suggested action plan and estimated savings is definitely favorable as the fruits of Cx.
(B) Continuously Cx afterwards: the goal is to keep evaluating the energy performance of buildings and systems to ensure that they are always working on the proper way with a high efficiency. BMS data and KPI can make continuously Cx effectively.
(C) Test and Cx (T&C) after installation: the goal is to ensure that mistakes in design stage and installation stage will be disclosed and corrected so that buildings and systems can be operated properly with high performance and efficiency from the first day of occupation. T&C should focus on equipment level, system level and BMS level respectively.
(D) Cx from the first day of design: the task of Cx for new building is to set the target of energy consumption and system efficiency of future routine operation, and, to evaluate design, tender criteria, etc. to make sure that the target of energy consumption and system efficiency will be not be abandoned during the whole process of building construction.

Case study and examples of applying Cx in different stages for different type of buildings and systems including commercial complex, hotels, offices, etc. will be presented during the talk and look forward to further discussion on Cx.

Speaker: Dr Qingpeng WEI, Associate Professor, Building Energy Research Center, Tsinghua University, Beijing

As the team leader on energy efficiency in commercial buildings research, Dr WEI established an on-line energy monitoring and benchmarking system of commercial buildings through detailed metering data. By this monitoring and benchmarking system, current situation, characteristics and saving potentials of energy consumption for HVAC, lighting, office appliances in commercial buildings are clearly disclosed with real time energy consumption data. Therefore, Dr WEI develops data-driven model and data mining methodology for energy consumption in commercial buildings.

Dr Qingpeng WEI received his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in building services engineering from Tsinghua University. Dr WEI initiated his research in building energy efficiency (BEE) in 1996. And he was involved in lots of international cooperation projects on BEE, including UNDP-GEF funded CHINA End-use Energy Efficiency Project, World Bank funded CHINA building Energy Efficiency Study etc. Currently, he is leading a research team on energy efficiency in large-scaled commercial buildings which have the highest electricity use intensity among all kinds of buildings in China. Dr WEI and his team have accomplished energy diagnosis and Retro-/ Re-commissioning in more than 300 buildings in China, Hong Kong SAR, USA and Japan. Dr WEI was also invited to visit and investigate energy data of commercial buildings in France, Belgium, Netherland, Germany, etc. In addition, with his effort, low-cost retrofitting techniques including control strategy optimisation, energy efficiency oriented FDD, have been implemented in about 50 commercial buildings which gained more than 30% of energy savings. Meanwhile, he is involving deeply in IEA ECBSC annex 53 as a subtask leader studying on human behavioural impacts on total energy use in office buildings and ISO TC 163/205 JWG for a standard way of presenting energy use data in buildings.