ASHRAE Journal - June 2022 - 10

LETTERS
also better placed to participate in
demand-response type programs
and increase regulator efficiency.
The owner could also benefit from
freed up space, not having to pay for
redundant equipment.
Other examples of this business
model are the Lighting as a Service
installation at Amsterdam Schiphol
airport and SunEdison's solar power
purchase agreements.
This business model has environmental
benefits. Operating
emissions of energy consumption
are reduced because of higher
operating efficiency. Additionally,
embodied carbon and material
waste is reduced because the vendor
is incentivized to install extended
product-life, modular equipment,
which can be reused elsewhere after
the contract has ended. Humanmade
" stuff " now exceeds the
1.1 terratones of natural biomass
on earth, so these considerations
are key to solving the constraints of
finite natural resources for a growing
population.
The bigger point is that first costfocused
transactional relationships
are no longer fit for current
economic and ecological considerations.
HVAC&R professionals need
to evolve business models in view of
the economic conditions of record
debt levels and inflationary pressures
on profit margins.
Some of the inflationary pressures
would result from the energy transition
work of the HVAC&R industry.
The Basel Agency for Sustainable
Energy, a Swiss nonprofit partner
of United Nations Environment,
explicitly identifies as-a-service
businesses to be " a major contributor
to systemic efficiency approach
to decarbonization. "
10
ASHRAE JOURNAL ashrae.o rg
The ability to attract top technical
talent to work on decarbonization
solutions is crucial. So yes, the
industry needs to carefully ensure
that the technical workforce stakeholder
shares the financial benefits
of the energy transition, which are
estimated be as high as $4.5 trillion.
I look forward to your and ASHRAE
Journal readers' critiques, and to continue
this discussion.
Shahid Naeem, P.Eng., Member ASHRAE,
Milton, ON, Canada
The Author Responds
Thank you for raising the question
of provision of cooling as a service,
and for the reference to Erin
McConahey's column. This is a topic
we have discussed in-house quite
regularly. As you point out, there
are many attractions, but in general
we find our customers are not sufficiently
dissatisfied with the current
position and so are unwilling to
implement a radical departure from
the procedure that in their minds
" works well enough. "
In the next breath they will
bemoan their high electricity bill or
yet another machine breakdown,
but fail to connect this poor performance
with the way they have set up
the maintenance contracts.
From our side there is a significant
risk in placing expensive equipment
on site-possibly in a fairly inaccessible
location such as a rooftop or basement
plant room-and then being
unable to recover the asset without
significant capital cost when the
supply agreement comes to an end.
This doesn't mean that it's a bad idea
but needs to be carefully planned
with a robust exit strategy. We have
made significant progress toward the
use of packaged machine rooms-a
concept that has been around since
J U N E 2022
at least the 1980s-where the whole
container of equipment can be lifted
and removed at the end of the contract,
whether that is at full term or it
is terminated early.
This topic is also relevant to the
ASHRAE Journal Podcast number 11
which was aired last month (https://
tinyurl.com/dpsnnwjv). It addresses
one of the key stumbling blocks in
the concept you outline- quantifying
the savings made. More importantly,
it also considers the benefit
of quick reaction when performance
starts to deteriorate, a point most
people are unwilling to consider
and which didn't feature in your
analysis.
For example if a subtle degradation
of performance of your plant
increases the energy use by 5% and
your bill for a year is $100,000, then
this change will cost you $5,000
every year if it goes unnoticed and
uncorrected. If you can be alerted
to it after a week and can take corrective
action then it only cost you
$100-a " savings " of $4,900 in the
first year alone.
This never gets counted as a savings
because the $5,000 wasn't
spent, but it helps explain why some
systems' energy performance is so
much worse than others-it is the
accumulation of lots of these small
" off-design " elements each making
a contribution to overall poor
performance.
In conclusion, I am not sure the
world is ready for " cooling as a service, "
but technology is getting us
closer to that point than we have
ever been before.
Andy Pearson, Ph.D., C.Eng.,
Fellow ASHRAE, Glasgow, UK
https://tinyurl.com/dpsnnwjv https://https://tinyurl.com/dpsnnwjv http://ashrae.org
ASHRAE Journal - June 2022

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