BETTER BUILDINGS: Although individual building components have gotten more energy efficient, buildings still account for a disproportionate share of U.S. energy use.
Image: DOE
PHILADELPHIA -- When the Allies needed a weapon terrible enough to end World War II, scientists devised the atomic bomb. When the Soviet Union hurled Sputnik into space, American scientists rallied to build the world's top space program.
When Jim Freihaut goes to work each day, he doesn't have to win a war or outfox a Communist foe.
All he has to do is crack a market, a market that has stubbornly resisted the notion of energy-efficient buildings for decades. That might be tough enough.
Freihaut and his team have a five-year charter -- one year already down -- and $122 million from the federal government to meet this challenge: Convince the Philadelphia construction industry to do deep energy retrofits on some 7,000 commercial buildings, by proving it makes good business sense.
The team is called an Energy Innovation Hub, and it's modeled after the teams that cracked crucial scientific challenges in the 20th century. These hubs, designed by the Department of Energy, are based on the thinking that when scientists and engineers are given a clear goal and top talent, they can deliver breakthroughs.
If the team doesn't make headway, it could fall prey to Republican budget-cutters convinced that the federal government's place is basic energy research, and nothing more.
"At the end of a few years here, we're going to have to be able to go around the architectural design and engineering firms in this area and say, 'Are you doing things differently now, or not?'" said Freihau, director for technology and operations at the hub, called the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy-Efficient Buildings, or GPIC. "And if they say, 'We're doing them the same way we did them five years ago,' we've failed."
Pieces that might fit together don't
At the heart of GPIC's mission is a puzzle. Over the past 20 to 30 years, every important building component has improved in energy performance. From air conditioners to lighting to windows, construction crews today have an array of green technologies at their disposal.
Once they're put together, though, the finished building performs no better than its predecessors of two or three decades ago. The parts have gotten better, but not the whole.
That has climate consequences. Buildings account for 40 percent of the country's energy appetite, and roughly half of that is commercial buildings.
Freihaut spent 22 years at a firm known for selling those components: United Technologies Corp. It's where he got a vantage point of the entire construction industry, from the folks making building materials all the way through the folks who manage a finished building.
And he thinks he understands why buildings squander their energy-saving potential.
To construct a building takes a sizable cast of characters. An architect must design it, and a construction team has to build it. Plumbers and electricians must figure out where their systems go. Various engineers must figure out how to make the lights, air conditioning, ventilation and power work.
None of them wants to be responsible for a building that is too hot or stuffy, can't heat its water or is too dim. So when each party gets to his part of the blueprint, he leaves no room for doubt.
A symphony without a conductor
A 100-ton chiller becomes a 150-ton chiller, which will never be maxed out and will always operate below its peak efficiency. As for the windows, they may be three times more energy-efficient than their predecessors. Still, the architect asks for three times more windows than the average building has because it looks sleeker.
All too often, Freihaut said, energy efficiency gets lost in translation.
"By the time you get to the end, everyone will have spent every effort they could to minimize their risk and maximize their profit," he said. "What happens? You wind up with the same building you could have had 20 years ago. And the data indicates that's actually what's happened in the industry."
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13 Comments
Add CommentThey are not going to change until you have a standard building code for every building. If they can give you a five million dollar building for one million; which one do you think they are going to choose?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvery business I've worked in where I had any say at all in energy efficiency has shot down capital improvements that didn't have a very short payback period, say one year or less. And those weren't publicly traded companies trying to placate shareholders, which might be an even tougher sell. I applaud any education effort to replace short-sightedness with value.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you want more innovation, allow more diversity, not less.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"From 1979 to 1986, the average square foot of a commercial building cut its energy use by about a third, according to the Energy Information Administration. But from 1986 to 1999, the last year of published data, the number stayed flat."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe boom in computer and Internet use can explain most of this, if not all. Just imagine how much more electricity all those computers, servers and other equipment added to the averag office in this time period consume, along with the added cooling necessary to cancel out all their waste heat...The fact that energy efficiency measures kept consumption flat is a testament to their efficacy. The fact that efficiency can basically cancel out the added comsumption of the IT Revolution is amazing! Imagine what is possible if we remove the policy and economic barriers to fully utilizing its potential!
The building code only has to state that energy use per sq foot (or square meter for the rational folks in the world...) has to be below a certain level and then allow for a diversity of methods to achieve the standard. I mean, it's in the national interest to lower energy consumption after all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWork has to start with city development. Commuting miles for work and basic needs will never make us an energy efficient society. Cities should be a place bringing people together not set apart.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRidiculous naive article...as usual government funded and 'out there' in la-la land
Building codes are full of energy related requirements. And, building management companies are VERY AWARE of energy costs.
This article is the equivalent of the government telling private enterprise 'to put customers first' as if it hasn't crossed anyone's mind in the last 100 years. Designers, architects, builders already focus on energy savings as it is a major feature in promoting their projects.
The major reason that buildings built between 1979 and 1986 cut usage by one-third is that we insulated them. The 1980's was the beginning of real energy codes in the US. The initial savings were huge with insulation and increased efficiency in U-values for windows.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article suggests, but doesn't actually say, that we need to look at systems performance in our codes and construction. The overall performance of a system includes not just its initial construction but the long term maintenance and operation. The US is married to its long history of prescriptive building codes, which while easy to follow are not capable of dealing with complex systems. Most of Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and others use performance based codes today. Indeed the design of any really large building or high rise relies on system performance on a number of levels, from structural to mechanical. Our low rise prescriptive designed and built buildings suck resources, because cost is associated only with construction.
I totally agree. It comes down to a change in lifestyle and worldview. Live and work within a locally sustainable system. The broader economy is there for what the local cannot provide.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo to save energy consumption in buildings we need universal health care! Make it possible for people to work where they want and not just so that they can have health care. Obviously, just one of the other many 'job killing' regulations that would be required.
The people who build the buildings don't pay the energy bills, the tenants do. The owners of the building usually don't pay the energy bills either. Consequently, the people who can benefit the most from energy efficiency improvements, tenants, have little if any ability to enact efficiency improvements on their landlord's property. At the same time, building owners have little incentive to enact efficiency improvements because they will see little, if any, return on their investment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are other factors at work on the market besides the price signal.
Baloney that construction a building is not energy conservation oriented. Projects are commissioned on their merits which include operating costs (fuel efficiency). This is at EVERY STAGE of construction from the foundation depth to window types to wall construction, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpeaking of the 'USA' is silly. There are tens of thousands of builders all competing in their unique markets and doing their best to meet client needs. Operating costs are front and center.
Any handy place where can I find descriptions of these prescriptive codes in other countries, and the results they are getting?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA good place to start would be the Inter-jurisdictional Regulatory Collaboration Committee (IRCC) from their site you can find links to all countries using performance codes and reports.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswww.irccbuildingregulations.org