About The AIM Report
What is the AIM Report?
The Actionable Insights and Measures (AIM) Report is an automated energy and emissions audit designed specifically for lab buildings. The goal of the AIM Report is to advance laboratory decarbonization by revealing opportunities for specific lab buildings to reduce their energy usage and emissions. The AIM Report aims to achieve its goals in an objective, easy-to-use, quick, and quantitative way.
AIM performs its audits at the screening level, roughly equivalent to ASHRAE Level 1. The opportunities identified are presented alongside estimated financial impacts and other actionable information including next steps and case studies.
Who should use the AIM Report?
AIM is designed to help kick-start the conversation about potential energy and emissions reductions for a building. It can be used by facilities teams, engineering consultants, utility companies, product manufacturers, and others. The results of the AIM Report can stand alone as a high-level initial scoping assessment for savings opportunities, or can be incorporated in other energy studies or assessment programs.
The costs and savings in the AIM Report are high-level estimates for potential projects that may be considered for implementation. These estimates are intended to provide useful guidance on the financial impacts of likely opportunities. Next steps before implementation should include full project assessment and development by qualified personnel, engagement of all relevant stakeholders and vendors, and investigation of any applicable utility incentives.
How does the AIM Report work?
The AIM Report performs custom savings calculations for each building. The software uses the building's data record from the Laboratory Benchmarking Tool (LBT) along with a set of assumptions in order to configure an “energy model” of the facility and its operations. Many of the assumptions can be fine-tuned by the tool user as needed.
AIM contains a library of lab-specific energy saving measures, and the tool screens the building against each of the measures in the library to identify available measures for the facility, i.e. projects that could be implemented in this particular facility given its properties and current operations.
The energy model is then used along with typical weather data for the building's location to calculate the estimated energy savings associated with all applicable measures. These are combined with estimated project implementation costs and displayed to the user.
The user then begins to assemble a “package” of measures to be implemented together. The AIM software takes into account any interactions between measures on the list and always presents the incremental savings and costs of each measure to be added to the package so that the user can make informed decisions in constructing a synergistic package for implementation.
AIM also contains a database of case studies of lab-specific energy and emissions reduction projects. For each package of measures, AIM uses a ranking system to select and display the case studies that are most relevant to the building and its selected measures.
How was the AIM Report developed?
The AIM Report was developed by I2SL with guidance from four volunteer Labs2Zero Technical Advisory Councils (TACs) composed of subject matter experts from across the laboratory industry. These TACs provided expert input on the measures to include, measure narratives, savings calculations, assumptions made by the software, installed costs and their dependence on building properties and locations, and the case study ranking methodology. TAC members also sourced many case studies for inclusion in the database.
About The AIM Report
What’s in the AIM Report Pilot version?
The current version of the AIM Report (the AIM Pilot) focuses on energy savings and on retrofit projects for existing facilities in the U.S. The measure library contains 26 measures in this first version. Later versions will include operational emissions calculations, international compatibility, and a more extensive measure library. Additional planned upgrades include accommodating new construction facilities (the Design2Zero Report) and adding embodied carbon impacts of measures.
How can I participate in the Pilot?
I2SL is currently piloting the AIM Report with a selected group of building owners. Pilot participants must meet the following criteria:
- One or more lab buildings in portfolio
- Building data is already in the LBT (at the time of application)
- Buildings are located within the U.S.
- Participant is familiar with the buildings and their performance
Ideal pilot participants should have access to other studies on the buildings, e.g., existing energy audit reports or other assessment reports.
If you are interested in pilot testing the AIM Report on your lab buildings, please contact us at labs2zero@i2sl.org to check availability of pilot placements.