Experience with the use of commissioning advisers in design: A Danish context

After several years of increasing demands for higher energy performance in Danish buildings, the experience is that there appears to be a large gap between the estimated energy consumption from the design phase and the actual energy consumption experienced during operations. The root of this situation can be traced back to the need for information integration across construction projects and large operating organisations (see also Chapter 11). Finding new approaches to integrating information between construction projects and large operating organisations should be a major priority in Denmark and many other countries, due to increased pressures for energy reduction. In Denmark, what is referred to as commissioning is one of the up-coming methods for handling this problem. Commissioning is a quality assurance (QA) system that is designed as a component of project delivery. The development of the concept of ‘commissioning’, which has taken place in the Danish building industry, is strongly inspired by the well-established ASHRAE 0-2005 guideline from the United States (US) (Ágústsson and Jensen, 2012). This chapter will draw on the Danish experience of adapting and using this QA model.