Energy uncertainty and rising energy costs have contributed to an increasing interest in sustainable or green technology by a broader spectrum of the general public. Since buildings are responsible for a third of the world’s energy use1, the result is new opportunities for AEC firms in a wide variety of projects. Not surprisingly, the greatest interest comes in the states and cities that offer rebates for renewable energy projects. These rebates are substantial, paying up to 70% of costs for qualified projects!

In the not-so-distant past, affluence was a primary requirement in order to incorporate green technology into a residence or business. Some current green projects show how much that is changing. In Tennessee, the US Deptartment of Energy’s Oakridge Laboratory is attempting to develop “the Volkswagen of net-zero-energy homes”.2 The goal is to create a prototype that will cost the same to build as a conventional home while being 50–70 percent more efficient. The Laboratory recently teamed up with Habitat for Humanity to build low income housing to test new technology, including a few unusual twists - such as capturing heat from water after it goes down the drain and capturing warmth from refrigerator coils.

A 116-home project completed a few years ago in Sylmar, CA with solar panels highlights how much new technology can save - the average monthly utility bill in this project is 1/10 of equivalent conventional homes in the area!

Lest you think green housing is only for the warmer climates, the Michigan Energy Office funded a contest for ‘zero-energy homes’3 last year. The winning designs featured foot thick insulated panels for walls and roof; triple glazed windows oriented to capture winter sun warmth; insulated roll-up window shades; compact fluorescent lighting; a ventilating ‘solar chimney’, a multi-faceted heating and hot water system which could switch between solar collectors, wood stove, or electricity, as well as photovoltaic panels to generate electricity.

While incorporating many facets of the plans would add little to conventional costs, some claim the photovoltaic panels in Northern latitudes are particularly difficult to justify in pure economic terms. One estimate is that the Michigan panels would take 40 years for ROI, but this estimate assumes a relatively flat cost of fossil fuels over the same time period - which is clearly difficult to predict.

Businesses are jumping on the green bandwagon as well. A Toyota 624,000 sq. ft facility, built with similar costs to traditional, has the largest private-building solar panel network in North America. Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceutica Products headquarters in Titusville, NJ uses 2850 solar panels to produce 245 KW of electricity (enough to power about 245 homes!). Though impressive, Toyota’s panels still only produce 20% of the building’s energy needs and Janssens’ provide only about 10% of its annual electricity, pointing out just how high industrial energy needs can be.

In real estate, ROI can come more quickly than simply looking at direct energy savings. A San Antonio based real estate company, USAA Realty, invested $110,000 to improve energy efficiency in an office plaza. When sold one year later, the selling price purportedly increased by $1.5 million because of that investment.4

Green is not just for industrial facilities either. At 1.5 million square foot, the Pittsburgh Convention Center is one of the largest green buildings in North America. It incorporates natural light and ventilation and energy saved equals the electricity consumed by 1900 typical Pittsburgh households and water used by 132 households.5

Schools and Universities across the country are now also specifying sustainable technologies for new buildings. Science buildings under construction at the Peddie School in Hightstown, NJ and at UC Merced in California both use innovative climate control technology to greatly reduce energy usage.
In Chicago, the city renovated a building on an environmentally degraded site as a showcase for green technology - highlighting use of solar energy as well as a ‘green roof’, super insulation, and saving runoff water in cisterns for irrigation use in dry months. Green roofs counter roof heat gain, remove or reduce water runoff into city drains, and extend roofing membrane life by blocking UV rays.

Meanwhile, the EPA has set a goal to achiever LEED Silver certification6 for all new facilities constructed by the year 2005. Its new National Computer Center incorporated many green technologies at a cost of about $150 per square foot, not unlike the cost for a more traditional super-computing facility. Designed to use 40% less energy than conventional, it includes a photovoltaic roof to provide enough energy for lighting, uses building orientation to moderate heating/cooling needs, special roofing material to reduce heat absorption, optimized and automated heating and cooling systems, water efficiency both internally and in the landscape, and recycled materials in all major building materials. Particularly noteworthy to the AEC community: in order to ensure successful compliance with EPA’s environmental goals, GSA issued a single design-build contract for this project.

Quantifying energy savings produced by various technologies and strategies can be difficult. As standards are developed and a track record established, the accuracy of current estimates and claims will be seen. A California government taskforce recently concluded that on average, green buildings cost $3-5 more per sq. ft. than conventional but that savings of more than 10 times the initial investment can be obtained over a 20 year building life, and much more if the building exists longer.
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1 See ASHRAE report on sustainable energy: http://xp20.ashrae.org/about/energy.pdf
2 From an October article in Grist Magazine: www.gristmagazine.com
3 Homes that use no non-renewable fossil fuels for energy.
4 From a July article in National Real Estate Investor: www.nreionline.com
5 From a September 23 article in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: www.post-gazette.com
6 Details about LEED certification can be found at www.usgbc.org

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