Recently the Commercial Real Estate Development Association,
which for some weird reason is abbreviated as NAIOP, issued a press release
asserting that increases in buildings’ energy efficiency of 30% or more over energy
codes aren’t economically feasible.
John Jennings of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance has penned a response, which essentially says, “Uh, excuse me? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The NEEA is the parent organization of BetterBricks, which is a sponsor of this site. This post is not intended in any way to act as advertorial, but I felt Jennings’ open letter to the NAIOP is worth passing on, even if it didn't touch upon one my other big real estate pet peeves: capitalizing the word "Realtor".
Here is Jennings' response:
"The recent press release by NAIOP attempts to throw cold water on the growing momentum for sustainable energy efficient buildings.
Those who have been designing, building and promoting high performance buildings for a long time are finding the study very difficult to swallow. But let’s all use it as a learning opportunity.
First of all, just in the Northwest - where electricity rates are lower than those used in the study - there are a lot of buildings that have achieved significant levels of energy efficiency. These buildings range from small offices, to schools, to university buildings and even healthcare facilities. Over 50 buildings in Washington and Oregon alone have achieved levels better than 30% over code.
A recent study of 121 LEED buildings by the National Buildings Institute found that on average these buildings were achieving savings of 28% with one-quarter above 50% and some as high as 75%. NBI’s Getting to Fifty program also contains a register of buildings achieving close to, or better than, 50% savings. For anyone needing more evidence, there is the USDOE High Performance Building Database and the magazine High Perfomance Buildings, that presents detailed case studies every month.
Several Northwest buildings further illustrate what is achievable. These include the Idaho Central Credit Union office in Chubbuck, Idaho; Banner Bank in Boise, Idaho; OHSU Center for Health and Healing in Portland, Oregon. The Idaho Central Credit Union office is a typical small city bank branch with 68,000 square feet built in 2007. It achieved savings of 35%. The 180,000 square foot Banner Bank building built in 2006 appears on the outside to be a fairly conventional mid-height office building. Yet it has received LEED Platinum certification and measured energy savings have been around 48%. According to the developer, Gary Christiansen, these savings were achieved at no incremental cost.
A recent post occupancy evaluation of the OHSU project has found building savings to be close to 45% over ASHRAE 90.1-2004, with an incremental cost for energy efficiency measures of less than 1% of total cost.
What bothers me the most though is the approach NAIOP took to the analysis and the way the results were disseminated. They base their claims on energy simulation modeling of one existing building design rather than research the state of the market. As a result, they lock out many of the key elements designers can manipulate to improve performance. No consideration was given to building orientation, massing, daylighting, shading, or natural ventilation.
The study simply adds a number of conventional efficiency measures to a generally inefficient base building. This obviously has limitations. It is understood by most building scientists and efficiency experts that there is an economic limit for simple additive efficiency measures. Estimates range from savings of 25% to 40%. To achieve higher levels of savings cost effectively requires an integrated design approach where cost efficiencies result from down-sizing or eliminating mechanical and electrical equipment due to synergies between systems (i.e. taking advantage of the interactive effects between heating and cooling and lighting, etc).
The press release uses the study findings to take a stab at policies seeking to set building energy codes to higher levels. Codes set the legal minimum and thus level the playing field. Codes do not set one method for all as stated by the press release. Instead, codes set prescriptive requirements for each climate zone and also provide an optional performance path target to allow designers to find innovative ways to meet those targets.
Now we need to begin working together to figure out how to best achieve the 2030 Challenge targets for all new construction over the next 20 years. This process is beginning with numerous “Net-Zero Building” conferences and articles. We need to broaden the dialogue to include the real estate and development community."
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