This question seems to be coming up more and more frequently these days — especially since, inspired by DOE's new Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative, the federal government has endeavored to achieve net zero energy on all its buildings by 2025.
Most agree that there are three steps to a truly net-zero energy building, in order of importance: 1) Energy efficiency. 2) Onsite renewable energy. 3) Purchase of renewable energy in the form of RECs, or green tags. After all, the more energy efficient a building is, the fewer number of kwh have to be generated with solar panels or purchased as green energy. Currently, there's no question that a new net-zero energy building carries a hefty cost compared with a standard code building. And, making an existing building net-zero energy is difficult to the point that hardly anyone is even attempting it. But there are net-zero buildings out there, and more and more are cropping up by the day.
I bring this up now because I'm working on a piece for the February issue of Building Operating Management on net-zero energy commercial buildings. I'm wondering if there are MyFN users out there who have worked on net-zero energy buildings and would be willing to share their expertise. Please comment below — hope to hear from you!
Our local NAPE chapter (National Association of Power Engineers) hosted a presentation by Ed Brzezowski, President and Founder of Noveda Technologies, in December of this past year. Ed's company has some very innovative approaches when it comes to the compilation of energy measurement and validation data and serving it up in a useful format. One of the feathers in Ed's cap, was his development of the very first net-zero electric commercial building in the country. Read about it at this link: noveda.com/.../115.
A very open and entertaining guy, I am sure that Ed would like to hear from you on this.
In addition to the energy efficency, on site renewable energy and purchase of the REC, the building needs an energy management system to manage it's load and participate in the Demand Response programs coming to our SMART GRID. The Continental Automated Building Association www.caba.org has two members now on the NetZero Building Initiative and we would be pleased to provide you with info on how our members building automation and information technology are all part of the solution.
@David, Mark - Thanks for your suggestions. I'll definitely look into both!