The M Files

In October of 2009, President Obama issued an executive order to implement a net-zero-energy requirement on federal buildings by the year 2030. This order effectively upped the ante on the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which required federal buildings to reduce energy use by 30% by 2015, from their 2003 baseline condition.

A net-zero-energy building (NZEB) exhibits zero net energy consumption and zero carbon emissions annually, making them completely independent from energy supply infrastructure. Achieving a NZEB requires heavy doses of efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy measures, as illustrated in the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) YouTube video below.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and ASHRAE have jumped on the NZEB bandwagon. A great, feel-good vision, it’s pretty easy to latch onto the NZEB euphoria. But the barriers to achieving NZEBs on a meaningful scale are significant.

The topics of NZEBs and deep energy retrofits were front and center at the annual conference of the National Association of Energy Services Companies (NAESCO) in San Diego, in early November. The observations of those in the NZEB trenches confirmed my thoughts on the subject.  I’ve recorded a podcast to share my professional insights and to accompany my summary below. You can listen to my commentary here:

In Summary

• Three federal agency executives expect to fall short of their intermediate goal of 30% energy reduction across their portfolio of buildings by 2015. This is due to a combination of financial, technical, and contractual difficulties.
• With current technologies, NZEBs will only be achievable with very significant capital investments that go far beyond what most businesses and government entities would consider an acceptable return on investment (ROI).
• The challenge is even more significant in an era of reduced government spending.
• The findings of the federal agencies coincide with McClure Company’s experiences from completing energy retrofits on 32 million square feet of Pennsylvania’s building stock: acceptable ROIs are achievable when reducing energy use by 10% to 30%. Deep energy retrofits of 60% or more savings require large capital contributions.
• Finances aside, an assessment by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that we could achieve the goal of zero energy on only 22% of our building stock with current technologies as of 2005, while 80% of our existing buildings will still be in use in 2030.

So, putting emotions aside in favor of asking difficult but necessary questions:

• How will we pay for our NZEBs?
• Where will the new technologies come from?
• Who will shepherd the process of reaching this goal?
• Are scalable NZEBs an attainable vision or a distracting fad?

I’d love to hear your perspectives.