1. Tech Session 1: High Performance
Buildings: What are They?
ASHRAE Region VI CRC
Paul A. Torcellini,
Ph.D., PE
May 8, 2009
www.highperformancebuildings.gov
NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC
Building Energy Use
Buildings use Cooking 5% Computers 1%
70% Wash 5% Other 4%
of electricity Electronics 5%
Refrigeration 9%
Industry
Buildings
21% Heating 32%
Cooling 10%
33%
39%
Other 10% Lights 12% Water
Heat
Transportation 13%
18%
28% Lights 28% Residential
Cooking 2%
Computers 3%
Refrigeration 4% Source: 2004 Buildings Energy Databook
with SEDS distributed to all end-uses
Heating
Ventilation 7% Water Heat
7% Cooling
16%
Office Equip 7% Commercial
13%
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2. Trend of Commercial Sector
30 20
S e c to r e n e rg y (q u a d s ) Delivered
25
G D P (trillio n $ )
15 (site) energy
20
10 Total (source)
15 energy
10 5
Gross
5 0 Domestic
Product
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
2025
Commercial Sector Energy Use is Growing at 1.6% per
year
Growth is faster than energy efficiency measures
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Zero Energy Buildings Goal
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Building
Technologies (BT) Program set a goal of creating the
conditions for low- and zero-energy commercial
buildings (LZEBs) to be market viable by 2025.
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3. What is NREL?
A National Laboratory for the United States Department
of Energy dedicated to working on Renewable
Energy and Energy Efficient Technologies
www.nrel.gov
Preface
Remember the overall vision—reduce the
impact of buildings.
Today’s building’s designs mortgage
the energy future of this country.
Every design decision has an energy or
environmental impact.
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4. Definitions
What is a “sustainable” building?
What is a “green” building?
What is an “energy efficient building?”
Do we build energy efficient buildings today?
What is the potential?
Vision
5. Many Pieces—Stressing the 3 year old
!
Many Pieces
So many ways to
assemble the pieces
Design is about
making decisions –
need motivation to
make the right
decisions
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6. Setting Goals
Measurable goals are better
From bad to good…
– I want a green building
– Design a LEED <rating> building
– Design a building to use 30% less energy than
ASHRAE 90.1-2004
– Design a building to use less than 30,000
BTU/sqft
– Design a [NET] ZERO ENERGY BUILDING
Influencing purchasing decision—the owner
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Goal
7. Setting Goals
• Need to establish goals that can be measured
• People will strive to meet goals
• Vague—I want a green building
• Better—I want a building that uses less than X
amount of energy (such as 30,000 BTU/sqft)
• Metrics is about measuring and comparison
• We will never have a perfect system for measuring--
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Design is about making decisions
How do people make decisions?
–What is cost-effective?
–Economic
–Operational reliability and power stability
–Environmental Impact
–Integrated the energy efficiency
and architecture
Every Decision has implications
It is all about the process…
8. Influencing Design Decisions
Integrated Design 100%
Better application of existing
technologies
Design Decisions
nt
ipme
ram
Increased efficiency of
ric
Form
Prog
Equ
Fab
products
Energy usage is very diffuse 0%
Pre-Design Conceptual Design Design Development
Phases in the Design Process
Easier, Cheaper to Make Design
Decisions Early…
Energy Use
Time (Design Decisions)
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9. Stages of Design Process
Pre-design Goal Setting
Conceptual Design Building Form/Fabric
Architectural Design
HVAC/L Design HVAC Trade-offs/Sizing
Code Compliance
Construction
Operation Retrofit
Post Occupancy Evaluation
Defining Scales
90.1-1999 30% AEDG Zero Site
(by default)
Percent Savings from Standard X
Maintaining units—continuous scale
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10. Defining Scales
90.1-1999 30% AEDG Zero Site Max. Potential
“Carnot”
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Advanced Energy Design Guides
Step towards NZEB
Available as free
download from
www.ashrae.org
ASHRAE/IESNA/AIA/
USGBC joint project
Prescriptive approach
for routine energy
savings
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11. Procedure
• Decide on the goals:
– May be new construction targets
– May be tracking and reducing current building
targets
• Establish a long-term plan for measurement
• Find a place to put the data
• Be careful of comparisons
– CBECS
• US National Aggregated data
• Big picture
• Small scale comparisons can be misleading
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DOE Commercial Building Benchmarks
• Standardized prototypical building models
• DOE produced and published
• 16 building types available
• Can be used to represent building stock
• Can be used to create more fine grained analysis
• Best for comparison and trends
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12. What is the Benchmark Project?
Project Goal:
– Produce a set of building models and weighting factors that
represent ~ 70% of the commercial building stock for use in
DOE building research
– Realistic building models
• Look, construction, systems, operation
“Benchmark” Defined
– Standard definition that represents “typical” buildings
suitable for whole building energy simulations
Joint Project: DOE, NREL, PNNL, and LBNL
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Can We Build Low Energy Buildings?
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13. Where we are today
Where we are if all buildings were built to code
Assessment potential
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96
Percent savings needed to reach ZEB goal
90 91
90 80
77
73
67 64
70 62
59 58
53 54
50 43 44 43
32
30
10 6 5
-10
n
es
er
al
ing
All
y
bl y
ce
hip
t
ing
ce
et y
nt)
)
ent
se
can
)
atio
t or
ted
on
a ll
Oth
s al
rv i
rvi
ou
dg
em
a tie
urs
s af
o rs
gm
a ti
ora
ss i
Va
era
uc
Se
Se
reh
Lo
od
ass
I np
dn
sw
utp
nd
of e
Need a 60 to 70 percent decrease on the
Ed
Lab
f rig
din
od
Fo
Wa
ra
ille
iou
e (o
re
blic
/pr
clu
Fo
nre
Ca
rd e
Energy Consumption in commercial
Sk
te d
ic e
lig
c ar
(e x
Pu
(no
alth
co
Re
era
Off
tail
alth
buildings.
use
bli
frig
He
Re
Pu
He
o
Re
reh
Wa
Subsector
Percent savings from efficiency needed to reach ZEB
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14. EE vs. RE
Typically less energy transfers, the better
Best to use energy produced on-site, rather
than exporting to another building
Roughly 60-70 percent savings from EE with
30ish percent RE
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Base EUI
45 58 kBtu/ft2-yr
% Savings
Net
64% 97%
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15. The Path to a Net Zero Building
2,500
cash flow
2,000 Lease Costs (or Finance Costs)
utility bills
Total Annual Costs ($/year)
1,500
1
1,000
500 Typical 90.1 Compliant Building
0
0% 100%
Source Energy Savings (%)
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The Path to a Net Zero Building
cash flow
Lease Costs (or Finance Costs)
utility bills
Total Annual Costs ($/year)
1
2
0
0% 100%
Source Energy Savings (%)
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16. The Path to a Net Zero Building
cash flow
Lease Costs (or Finance Costs)
utility bills
Total Annual Costs ($/year)
1
3
2
0
0% 100%
Source Energy Savings (%)
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The Path to a Net Zero Building
cash flow 4
Lease Costs (or Finance Costs)
utility bills
Total Annual Costs ($/year)
1
3
2
0
0% 100%
Source Energy Savings (%)
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17. Parametrics / Optimization
2600 Zero Net Energy
Energy + Lease Costs
2340
Mortgage + Energy Costs ($/year)
2080
1820
1560 ~ 750,000 pts.
1300 (parametrics)
1040
Cross-Over Point
780
Energy ~ 750 pts. On-Site Power
520
Efficiency(optimization) (PV)
260
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Source Energy Savings (%)
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Optimization Curve
ZEB Not
Possible
Maximum
Energy Savings
Starting Point
Cost Neutral Point
Minimum
Cost Point
~3,000 Simulations
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