Last month, President Obama announced the Better Buildings Initiative, which sets a target to improve commercial buildings energy efficiency by 20 percent over the next decade.
Depending on how they're defined, net-zero-energy buildings may take what Obama envisions one step further. Usually, net-zero refers to buildings that don't use any more energy than they produce. Once the buildings are running, they must meet the energy rules set before construction to stay true to the net-zero claim.
Two reports released last month by the CBC detail ways for new buildings to achieve net-zero-energy status.
The CBC, an umbrella organization that includes more than 430 organizations representing commercial building interests, says no formal definition exists for net-zero. Both reports lay out a "directional goal" to get there. One focuses on technology barriers, while the other looks into market barriers like building codes and standards.
Jeffrey Harris, senior vice president for programs at the Alliance to Save Energy, says that the magnitude people are talking about for net-zero is an 80 percent reduction of energy consumption from today's levels.
A net-zero building should be relatively thin, H-shaped, with courtyards, high ceilings and access to natural light, said Harris, who worked on the reports.
Their small, one-story size gives net-zero buildings plenty of daylight. Mild-weather environments allow them to ease use of air conditioning and heat. It's also hard to put them in urban environments because shading from nearby buildings will affect natural lighting.
'Keep building standards flexible'
One unintended consequence of building many of these with the available technology could lead to a groups of small, low-level buildings spread out in a sprawl. The CBC doesn't want this to happen.
A way to avoid this would be to be flexible about standards. A new 30-story building may need 10 times as much energy as a three-story building, Harris said, but it could still produce as much energy on a square-foot basis. That 30-story building may not be self-sufficient, but it would still save energy.
Harris identifies three immediate areas to help achieve net-zero: integrated design, efficient control systems and lifetime performance assurances. In other words, a building's design process must include input from designers at all levels. Its control systems must work together, and it needs a system to monitor its performance.
Harris describes integrated design as "making sure the new building's team brings in energy efficiency teams to take account of how changes in one system can affect another."
Diana Lin, a program manager with the National Association of State Energy Officials, said the process could include lighting designers, engineers, contractors and other "downstream actors."
"Oftentimes, a building owner comes in with an idea and an architect designs it" and it stays at that, Lin said. What could result is an inability to understand how a building's many different systems work together. Bringing all levels of designers in at an early stage would give them a chance to provide input. It would also help developers understand how a building's different systems interact, Lin said.
The Magnify building, which used a lot of the same building processes later laid out by the CBC reports, is an ambitious venture for a credit union. The investment in it won't pay for itself for maybe 15 years. Santarpia said all the press coverage and attention has led to new customers. But most mid-sized credit unions can't afford to wait that long for money to come back.
Magnify is one of the highest-capital credit unions in its county and has been around for 50 years, Santarpia said, so it can afford something like this. But he hasn't heard much about the building from other banks around the area.
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6 Comments
Add CommentHow sad it is that it "costs" so much money to improve !!! Now if there were a program that would assist with this type of improvement how quickly we could turn this around!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven the increased efficiency of private individuals buildings could benefit if it weren't so expensive!!!
Perhaps if we didn't "give away" so much mney as "aid" to corrupt dictatorships and kept the money for innovation and assistance 'here at home' we could overcome such obsticles!!! I would LOVE t6o have a more efficient home here in northern NY but cannot afford the fenominal cost! And add to this the cost of $10,000 to insulate a 1500 Sq Ft home that the owner and realestate company 'proviede proof' that it was "fully insulated" and cannot be held accountable because they notated it as "as far as we know"!!!
Lovely LIEs !!!!
Ear1911
How sad it is that it "costs" so much money to improve !!! Now if there were a program that would assist with this type of improvement how quickly we could turn this around!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven the increased efficiency of private individuals buildings could benefit if it weren't so expensive!!!
Perhaps if we didn't "give away" so much mney as "aid" to corrupt dictatorships and kept the money for innovation and assistance 'here at home' we could overcome such obsticles!!! I would LOVE to have a more efficient home here in northern NY but cannot afford the phenominal cost! And add to this the cost of $10,000 to insulate a 1500 Sq Ft home that the owner and realestate company 'proviede proof' that it was "fully insulated" and cannot be held accountable because they notated it as "as far as we know"!!!
Lovely LIEs !!!!
Better idea. Instead of taxing me blind to give billions in subsidies to oil companies, how about cutting taxes, eliminating the spending, and then I can afford to install my own solar panels. This is not a job for the government: I want it done well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd why in the world when Sci Am does these stories do they use some stock photo? How hard would it be to get the guy they interviewed at that bank to go out front and take a picture of the Net-Zero building he's so proud of? But no, instead of the small 4,000 sq. foot. building that's the entire subject of the story, we have a stock photo of some anonymous skyscraper. Nice journalism.
Right on all counts. Let's get the government out of the equation, level the playing field, and the rest will work itself out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInstitutions, including government are how we come together as a society. Government is not evil when it consists of "us." Most of the r&d in this country was overtaken by military projects like at DARPA; and corporations have sought to externalize costs for decades. Those externalized costs manifest in government spending and health care costs. Obama is making inroads on improving both equations. Finally, basic research for alternative energy is being conducted both by the military and the private sector, because of his administration. Carbon taxes would help to reduce externalized costs of the fossil fuel industries.The free market has proven itself many times to be the tool of elitists, and the bane of the public (and safety). If you didn't learn that under bush, when 8 million jobs vanished, you probably get your news from entertainment pervayors like limbaugh, hannity, and similar pundits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDistributed power generation has been a long time coming, and overdue. I applaud efforts like net-zero commercial buildings, and hope more residential consumers become net producers. If it takes Obama to grow subsidies that create jobs while creating an alternative energy economy, then I support those efforts.
Regan took the solar panels off the White House that were put up at the end of Carter's admin. to not only kill Carters solar initiative funding, but to kill the message of solar. At that time solar was said to not be competitive until $9/barrel oil reached $30. How far we have come in throwing those subsidies to centralized nuclear instead of making that turn in the 1980's.
Any move towards net-zero buildings is far better than any move towards free markets.
How about we take back the $6B Obama just gave Petrobras to drill for oil to sell back to us (among others) and instead put it into alternative energy R&D here, or even startup funding for companies here in the US.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd I don't mean like the millions the government just gave Phillips towards green energy, just so they could close one of their oldest and most profitable plants in Tennessee to build one overseas where labor is cheaper.