• Projects close to achieving LBC certification, but unable, for whatever reason, to complete full certification, or achieve petal recognition, will be able to have their net zero energy performance certified.

• There is a focus on energy performance in buildings, particularly within federal government agencies, leading to an emergence of net zero energy buildings that have no verifiable benchmark to certify under.

• There is confusion in the marketplace about what net zero energy means, with many different definitions available.

According to Amanda Sturgeon, Certification Director of the International Living Future Institute, projects that register for Net Zero Energy Building Certification program will have a simple documentation process based on one-year of occupancy data. Projects are certified by providing their utility bills, and meter readings, and through an on-site audit. The Beauty petal from the Living Building Challenge is also a requirement.

The Living Building Challenge framework is structured as a series of petals, each with one or more imperatives, performance criteria that must be met. A number of these imperatives provide a framework for the net zero certification program.

• Site Petal – Imperative 01- Limits to Growth. Net zero energy certified projects must be built in either greyfield or brownfield developments.

• Energy Petal – Imperative 07 – Net Zero Energy. On an annual basis, all projects must use net zero energy. No combustion equipment or systems is allowed on site. Allowable renewable energy systems are limited to passive solar, photovoltaics, wind turbines, solar thermal, direct geothermal, water powered microturbines, or fuel cells powered by hydrogen generated from renewably powered electrolysis.

• Equity Petal – Imperative 18 – Rights to Nature. Certified projects cannot block access to or diminish the quality of fresh air, sunlight, or natural waterways, for adjacent developments or any other member of society.

• Beauty Petal – Imperative 19 – Beauty + Spirit. Project design must include architectural features intended, by the owner and designers, to delight.

• Beauty Petal – Imperative 20 – Inspiration + Education. Educational materials need to be developed about the project, and the site must commit to being open to the public one day every year.

Amanda Sturgeon explains that a lot of interest in the Beauty Petal has come from project teams wanting to develop buildings that “express endurance in the hearts and minds of the occupants, not just durability”. Each project team develops its own perspective on what beauty means for a particular project and how it is manifest. The education imperative also allows for great variety in ways project teams can both educate others, about how they reached their goals, and articulate pride in their work.

The program is open for registration and can accept buildings that are early in the design process and buildings that have already been in operation. A single fee covers both registration and certification. Once the required post-occupancy documentation is submitted, the certification process will take around four to six weeks.

It is important to note that newly-built projects might need a good bit more time than the first twelve months of operation to document achievement of their net zero goal. Says Sturgeon: “the initial occupancy period is a very important time to evaluate performance and to tune the building”. There have been very different experiences among teams pursuing LBC certification. In one case, the project team found that they had overestimated cooling loads. As a result, cooling equipment never came on and they had invested in significantly more PV capacity than was needed.” Time is required to track and analyze performance and to develop and implement any required adjustments to the design, operating strategies, or occupant behavior.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the release of the third installment in a series of four 50% Advanced Energy Design Guides (AEDGs). This latest guide will help architects, engineers, and contractors design and build highly efficient retail buildings, helping to save energy and cut store operational costs. The 50% AEDG series provides a practical approach for designers and builders of retail stores, and other major commercial building types, to achieve 50 percent energy savings compared to the building energy code used in many parts of the nation. These commercial building guides support President Obama’s goal to reduce energy use in commercial buildings 20 percent by 2020. The Advanced Energy Design Guide for 50 percent energy savings in retail buildings is now available for download.

Beyond helping builders achieve efficiency exceeding the current energy code, the AEDGs also provide climate-specific recommendations to incorporate today’s off-the-shelf energy efficient building products. These recommendations help designers and builders choose advanced building assemblies, highly efficient heating and cooling systems, and incorporate other energy-saving measures such as daylighting and associated control systems. Additionally, efficiency measures found in the guides can be used in the development of future commercial building energy codes.

The 50% Advanced Energy Design Guide series is being developed through a partnership with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), American Institute of Architects (AIA), U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA). The Retail Buildings guide is the third installment in the 50% series, and follows the guides for small and medium office buildings and K-12 schools released in 2011. The final 50% savings guide for major commercial building types — large hospitals — is also in progress

Two significant design workshops were scheduled, very early in the development and design process, to facilitate critical energy performance decisions by the project team:

An owner/user visioning charrette, held prior to the selection of a design team:

• Selected design-build for project delivery
• Set a performance target of 50 percent less energy use than a facility built to meet the then current energy code (ASHRAE 90.1-2001)
• Established Silver as the minimum level of LEED certification

A schematic design charrette, attended by multiple design and construction disciplines, applied an integrated design methodology to:

• Explore climate-responsive design strategies;
• Consider internal loads, daylighting, and visual and thermal comfort as additional space organization and planning criteria;
• Adjust the Energy goal adjusted to 35% better than the updated, more stringent code ASHRAE 90.1 2004; and
• Commit to ongoing analysis of energy performance and LEED-related costs and benefits.

The case study reviews lessons learned by the project team, including:

• Benefits of design build project delivery
• Success of the collaborative integrated design process
• Daylighting of laboratory, atrium, and office spaces
• The need for additional energy modeling iterations to track and inform evolving design/project team decisions
• The importance of commissioning sophisticated laboratory systems, as well as typical building systems
• Development of measurement and verification processes and procedures that effectively calibrate design assumptions with accurate representation of building, occupancy, and weather during the performance period.

Among the results, the project has received LEED Gold certification, and after two years, energy performance is tracking at 36 percent better than the modeled code baseline. Download the case study here .

• Daytime lighting is provided, primarily, by diffusing skylights and glazed south and north building facades.
• Automated louvers and rooftop turbine ventilators combine to deliver natural ventilation and to eliminate almost all mechanical ductwork. It’s not hard to picture how air flows through building spaces and exits from the five ventilation stacks along the roof peak.
• Thermal mass in concrete floors and shear walls tempers building temperature swings
• Opaque exterior walls are constructed of highly efficient structural insulated panels (“SIPS”), reducing heat transfer and infiltration.
• Ceiling fans are used to increase comfort during warmer months and, in combination with the natural ventilation and thermal mass, allowed the elimination of mechanical cooling systems.
• A rooftop solar array, with a second phase due for completion February 2012, has been sized to meet all expected net energy requirements.

With an integrated design team led by Hennebery Eddy Architects, the 13,500 square foot building, the first constructed on the nearly 16 acre Newberg campus, is one of a very few academic buildings nationally, that can be described as “on the path to net zero”. The first step along that path was for the design team, with Interface Engineering providing essential energy modeling, computational fluid dynamics analysis and mechanical and electrical design services, to work with the college, employing a collaborative integrated design process, to design a facility expected to use roughly one sixth of the energy of a typical academic building. It should be noted that energy performance at this level is highly dependent, not only upon smart design, but upon exacting execution by the contracting team, in this case a team of R&H / Colas Construction.

The Oct 27^th award ceremony took place not too long after initial building occupancy. Achieving net zero energy performance will rely not only on facility design and construction, but will also require adjustments to building operation and occupant behavior. According to Tim Eddy, Hennebery Eddy’s principal-in-charge of the project, the college adjusted some of their occupancy design standards, for example reducing a building standard of eight vending machines to three, and incorporating the use of controls on the machines to reduce their energy consumption. One of the classrooms is a computer lab and the design team worked with the college to substitute more energy efficient laptop computers for the personal computers and monitors that would typically be installed. Operations staff have been educated about the building’s passive systems and how to optimize performance. The staff, in turn, is already using this knowledge to educate both faculty and students, to help ensure that performance meets expectations. The college expects that the building will facilitate the entire PCC Newberg community learning more about green building design, operation and occupancy.

This is not the first recognition that the PCC Newberg Center has received. In October 2010 it was the runner up in the as-designed category at the first ever 2030 Challenge Design Awards hosted by the AIA Portland Committee on the Environment (COTE). See post on this year’s 2030 Awards here.

Project photos and an informative video can be accessed at here.

• Lincoln Hall Renovation, Portland State University – Boora Architects
• Clif Bar & Co. Headquarters – Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Archtiects LLP
• Port of Portland Headquarters – Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects LLP

This is the second year that the unique awards, jointly developed by Architecture 2030 and AIA Portland COTE, recognized design excellence among projects striving to achieve the reduction targets of the 2030 Challenge. These winners were selected from among candidate projects for the AIA Portland 2011 Design Awards, which documented compliance with the 2010 Architecture 2030 threshold of 60 percent less energy use than a typical building of the same size and type. All candidate projects for the Portland AIA Design Awards were required to calculate and submit both project reductions in energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions from operations, compared to a baseline building. Joshua Hatch, a Brightworks Sustainability Advisor, and Chair of the Portland COTE Building Climate Impact Committee, explained the gestation of the awards.

“The AIA Portland Design Awards have a long history and an award for sustainability has been presented for many years. Four years ago, when Ed Mazria was in town to present the 2030 Challenge, AIA Portland committed substantial organizational support. In collaboration with BetterBricks, the chapter offers diverse educational workshops and classes about the 2030 Challenge, measurement and verification, and energy modeling; and is the first chapter, nationally, to integrate the 2030 Challenge into our design awards. Four years ago, as part of the Design Awards process, the AIA asked projects to voluntarily submit calculations of energy savings and emissions reductions associated with each project. Three years ago these submissions became mandatory.

“We initially thought that within five years we might be able to have all projects competing for a Design Award in compliance with 2030 Challenge goals. We were overly optimistic. While we have great projects every year, with many achieving 2030 targets, some even achieving net zero energy goals, setting 2030 targets as a required threshold for the Design Awards has not been possible. So we have collaborated with Architecture 2030 to establish a separate award, which so far  is unique in the nation.”

All projects competing for AIA Portland Design Awards that demonstrate compliance with the 2030 Challenge energy targets are automatically eligible for a 2030 Challenge Design Award. According to Josh Hatch:

“The COTE Building Climate Impact Committee’s principal focus is the Design Awards. We developed and maintain the Building Climate Impact calculator that must be completed by all Award applicants, to document energy performance and emissions reductions, review submittals, coordinate the relationship with Architecture 2030 and BetterBricks, answer questions from local firms, assist with jury selection and help orient the jurors to the performance of projects in the competition

“This year we had a 95 percent participation rate in completing the required 2030 Challenge benchmarking calculations. [BB note: a modest number of projects were exempt from this requirement because they were unconditioned spaces, or for other reasons.] This year the submittals and calculations were more thorough, customized, and thoughtful than prior years–continuing a trend of increased building performance competency.”

“The average project reduction was 42 percent, for a grand total of 51,700 tons of CO2. There were many high performance projects, including some that were over 70, 80, or 90% reductions, including a net zero energy project. 51,700 tons of carbon is equivalent to taking 9,100 cars off the road or eliminating the emissions from 4,300 average Portland residents.”

While the 2030 jurors were clearly interested in energy performance and carbon reduction, they also looked for interesting challenges and how the teams developed energy efficient solutions. The awards are meant to recognize exceptional innovation, since all projects submitted to Architecture 2030 met the 2030 Challenge threshold reduction.

First Prize was awarded to the renovation of Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall, designed by Boora Architects. The 136,000 square foot project, with a predicted Energy Use Index (EUI) of 43 kBTU/sf-year, achieved energy savings of 63 percent when compared to an average US building of the same type and size.

Second Prize was awarded to Zimmer Gunsul Frasca for the Clif Bar & Co, headquarters, a 75,000 square foot retrofit of a former manufacturing facility. This project had a predicted EUI of 46.3 kBTU/sf-year, representing a 71 percent reduction in CO2 emissions from the average, equivalent building.

 
Zimmer Gunsul Frasca was also recognized with an Honorable Mention for the Port of Portland Headquarters. The office space in this 206,000 square foot project was predicted to use only 44 kBTU/sf-year, a 67 percent reduction in energy use over an average U.S. building of the same size and type.

 
The 2030 Challenge Design Awards are much more than a feel-good event, lessons learned by the firms striving to achieve the 2030 Challenge targets need to be widely disseminated. As Hatch points out, the carbon savings recognized by this small group of projects, while significant, are “only equivalent to 0.6% of the total City of Portland’s emissions or about one percent of the emissions from the Boardman plant.” In looking forward to the next few years of work promoting the 2030 Challenge, Hatch hopes that the collaborative efforts of Architecture 2030, AIA Portland, and AIA Portland COTE and BetterBricks will accomplish the following:

• “Have teams consider energy and emissions earlier in the process. The more feedback that designers can give themselves over the course of design, the better.”

• “There are more and more tools available to help designers, but energy models were developed for only 50 percent of candidate projects, roughly the same that the national AIA found from reporting firms for the AIA 2030 Committment. More firms need to take advantage of these resources,

• “A greater percentage of this year’s projects are built projects, but there has been no increase in the number of projects that submitted actual data. Designers need to talk with clients about the performance of their buildings and to maintain a more active role after building hand over, to understand performance.

• “Increase the percent of projects that meet the 2030 targets. There was a drop of compliant projects this year, as the 2030 Challenge threshold was raised. We all need to remain diligent.

The Sustainable Buildings Industry Council (SBIC) has opened the call for entries for the 2011 Beyond Green™ High-Performance Building Awards. The awards recognize buildings, initiatives and products that shape, inform and catalyze the high-performance building market. The award winners will be invitedto present their projects on Capitol Hill as part of an educational briefing for lawmakers and the public. This presentation and poster session gives winners an opportunity to discuss the challenges and opportunities for delivering better buildings with policymakers. Winning projects will also be published on the Whole Building Design Guide website.

To learn more visit the 2011 Beyond Green™ page and download the Call for Entries. This year’s deadline for entries is November 15, 2011. If you have any questions about the program, please contact Kimberly Lowry by phone at (202) 628-7400, extension 200 or by email at: sbic@sbicouncil.org.

Once the building is occupied and performance is tracked, you might feel more like Sisyphus than Atlas. Although you strained and sweated to push the energy performance rock to the top of the hill, your efforts can be easily undone by operating decisions and occupant behavior. And who gets blamed if performance is not as predicted? It’s been hard to find good research investigating the relative impact of design, operations, and tenant behavior on building performance, but a July 2011 New Buildings Institute White Paper goes a long way to help.

Sensitivity Analysis: Comparing the Impact of Design, Operation, and Tenant Behavior of Building Energy Performance, by Jonathan Heller and Morgan Heater of Ecotope and Mark Frankel of New Buildings Institute, compares the relative magnitude of modifications to design, operation and tenant behavior characteristics on the total building energy use of a mid-size office building. Twenty-eight distinct physical and operational building characteristics that affect total building energy use were identified for study purposes, each with a range of performance values representing poor, baseline and good practice with respect to building energy performance. To represent interactive effects (i.e. impacts from interactions between systems such as cooling and lighting), good and poor practice packages of measures were also analyzed. Weather data from 16 different cities represented the range of U.S. climate types.

The authors identify the general perception that “the responsibility for building energy performance is in the hands of architects and engineers and is relatively set once the building is constructed.” They explain why this research should serve an important function and overturn that assumption.

“This perception represents a significant barrier to broad societal goals to substantially improve building energy performance and reflects an extremely inaccurate perception of how buildings work. In fact, a significant percentage of building energy use is driven directly by operational and occupant habits that are completely independent of building design, and in many cases these post-design characteristics can have a larger impact on total energy use than many common variations in the design of the building itself.”

The study deserves a broad, diverse set of readers. As the authors suggest, the implications of their work extend far beyond the interests of the design community:

“While the results of this study are informative to the design community in prioritizing energy strategies for buildings, they have even more significant implications on how buildings are operated and occupied and on how design teams should communicate information about building performance to building owners, operators and occupants. The results of this study can provide a broader perspective on how buildings use energy and on what aspects of building energy performance deserve more attention in design, operation and policy strategies.”

The white paper discusses some of the more significant implications related to energy modeling, energy codes, operation and occupancy assumptions and decision making, and climate responsive design strategies. Extremely useful graphics of the relative impacts will help spread these messages. Download the document here.

This year, the BetterBricks Awards offer seven categories for nominations of standout professionals: Architect, Design Engineer, Advocate, Owner/Developer, Facility Manager/Operator, Service Provider and Property Manager/Broker.  All of these professionals play critical roles in the marketplace to ensure that buildings are designed, constructed and operated as efficiently as possible.

Visit www.BetterBricks.com/Awards/Nominate to download a nomination form. The deadline for all nominations is January 4, 2012. Award event images, videos and additional information is available at  www.BetterBricks.com/Awards.

For questions or further assistance, contact Kyle Stuart, kyle@coateskokes.com or at 503.241.1124.

However, Bendwald goes on to explain that retrofit projects such as what’s slated for Chicago should aim to achieve 30 to 80 percent savings rather than the 15 to 20 percent that’s typically captured in “shallow” retrofit projects.  A  recent report issued by NEEA’s BetterBricks initiative, which the author references, demonstrates how 50 recent existing building retrofits have achieved significant energy savings by undergoing Deep Energy Retrofits – a whole-system approach that bundles efficiency measures to form one integrated building design.  Read Bendwald’s GreenBiz article to learn how existing buildings – and the City of Chicago – can go beyond conventional retrofits to achieve serious energy savings at a comparable ROI.  Also, NEEA is in the process of developing a Deep retrofit program for the region, so stay tuned to the BetterBricks website as tools and resources become available in early 2012.