Oyster-Adams EDU

Oyster-Adams is a public school located in Washington, D.C. In the Fall of 2022, DC Public Schools initiated a 78,000 square foot modernization project to renovate Oyster-Adams’ historic Adams Campus and incorporate a small addition.

Key goals of this modernization project included qualifying for LEED Platinum and Net Zero emissions certifications, reducing energy and operational costs, and of course, ensuring optimal Indoor Air Quality for students and staff.

Decarbonization goals and green building certifications are typically achieved with a combination of solutions, including geothermal energy wells and solar panels. In the case of the Oyster-Adams modernization project, however, limitations at the site rendered these options insufficient.

But another solution is to reduce ventilation, and with it the energy required to heat and cool the incoming outside air (OA). This can be done using the Indoor Air Quality Procedure (IAQP) described in ASHRAE Standard 62.1-2022, which allows OA to be reduced if IAQ levels can be shown to meet the specified criteria. This solution also avoids the considerable first cost of drilling geothermal wells.

GES Engineering approached Dynamic AQS to research IAQP options for this project. Dynamic’s chemical engineers developed a solution utilizing the V8 Air Cleaning System + EDGE Gas Phase Removal to control particulate and gas phase contaminants. This approach was able to reduce OA by nearly half while exceeding IAQ requirements.

After implementing the Dynamic V8 + EDGE solution, the new Oyster-Adams school building became the first school in the nation to pass LEED IAQP testing using a 100% above-ceiling, non-proprietary filtration system designed to meet ASHRAE Standard 145.2-2022.

The energy, labor, and cost-saving benefits are truly unprecedented and wide-ranging, including:

CERTIFICATIONS

• LEED Platinum (87 points)
• Net-Zero
• The NAFA Clean Air Award

ENERGY SAVINGS

• Energy Usage Intensity (EUI) of 21.5 (less than half of the median expectation for buildings of its size)
• Reduction of required OA from 23,500 to 13,200 CFM
• Reduction of static pressure on filtration by 1.08”

INITIAL COST SAVINGS

• $1.5 million saved by avoiding geothermal
• $220K saved through reduction of DOAS size
• $100K saved through reduction of required ductwork

MAINTENANCE SAVINGS

• 90% less filtration media to purchase, store, and send to landfill vs. passive filtration
• Cleanroom grade air quality for students and staff

As with the Oyster-Adams project, Dynamic can retrofit practically any building, without using custom or proprietary options, and with a much smaller equipment footprint than competitors. There’s no need to redesign buildings to accommodate Dynamic solutions.

Because Dynamic is able to save so much energy by utilizing the IAQP, other energy-saving measures that involve considerable initial costs, like the digging of geothermal wells, can be avoided.

This is in addition to the fan energy savings from Dynamic’s low static pressure drop, and the maintenance savings from media that requires changeouts once every five years or more, rather than once every three months.

Dynamic solutions make it 18% less expensive to achieve LEED certification. Even projects that aren’t pursuing LEED status benefit from the same energy, cost, and labor savings.