Located in the heart of the industrial area of its campus, Fermilab’s Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) consists of 36,000 square feet of heavy assembly, technical, and office space in the existing heavy industrial building with an additional 47,000 square feet of technical, office and educational space in the new State-funded addition. The resulting 83,000 square-foot complex provides space and infrastructure for scientists and engineers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory, local universities and industrial partners to turn new ideas in accelerator technology into viable commercial products.

In addition to office and classroom space, IARC provides areas for test accelerators, cryogenics infrastructure, temperature-controlled work spaces, high-capacity electrical power systems and industrial cooling water. The new Office, Technical and Education Building (OTE) was designed to better facilitate collaborations between IARC users and Fermilab technical experts. The OTE building contains office space for 115 people, four meeting rooms, a 170-seat lecture hall, a 3,600 square-foot technical area and a 50-seat eating area.

Primera’s involvement on the IARC project spans from the early design phases to completion of the warranty phase. Primera services included energy modeling, commissioning, and LEED consulting. The energy model was developed to meet the requirements of the LEED Energy & Atmosphere credits via compliance of ASHRAE 90.1-2007. The energy model was performed using the Trane Trace 700 and included simulation of all envelope, fenestration, HVAC, service water, and lighting.  The Energy model showed a proposed building savings of 44% in comparison to the ASHRAE 90.1-2007 Baseline Model Building, which helped achieve 17 points for the credit. Significant commissioning tasks included: design/equipment submittal reviews, functional performance testing, identification of construction deficiencies and resolution coordination, development of a final report/systems manual, and warranty evaluation. Primera will review a full year of post-occupancy energy data and evaluate the actual consumption compared to the baseline model.