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Building New Markets for Energy Efficiency

From the 2007 Research Review.

That clothing store you shop in, the office where you work, and even the garage where you take your car for service—all those buildings, and more, present great opportunities to save energy through improved energy efficiency and the use of clean, renewable energy.

Many of those energy- and money-saving opportunities are available to us today as a result of 30 years of building energy research and development at NREL. Today, engineers and researchers in NREL's Center for Buildings and Thermal Systems continue to share their expertise in advanced technologies with the commercial building industry.

"We have developed the analysis, model simulation and optimization, and field monitoring capabilities that enable us to best answer the industry's questions about the most cost-effective ways to save energy in buildings," says Center Director Ronald Judkoff.

Commercial buildings account for about 17% of all of the energy consumed in the United States and represent great potential for energy and cost savings. More and more businesses are beginning to realize that potential by applying energy-efficient technologies in both their new construction and in current facilities.

In recent years, many organizations have knocked on NREL's door to ask for help in moving advanced building energy technologies into the marketplace. As a result, NREL's technical specialists are now working with energy managers, builders, and marketing staff in some of the nation's largest commercial building organizations.

NREL is now a partner in some exciting projects that are helping DOE achieve its goal of transforming the commercial building industry. We have been assisting in the development of advanced energy guides for schools, hospitals, and retail buildings; helping the U.S. Army deploy energy-saving technologies in Army facilities; working alongside some of the largest retail companies in the country to cut energy costs; and helping distressed communities rebuild in the wake of a natural disaster.

Providing Energy Efficiency Guidance for K-12 Schools

What better place to save money by increasing energy efficiency than in our public schools? Today, fully 16% of the controllable cost of running a school district is spent on energy. Energy-efficient technologies and building practices can mean that a chunk of this money will be put to better use.

NREL engineer Paul Torcellini is helping to define the energy cost savings potential of our schools. He chaired a committee that developed a new publication written specifically for schools that serve students in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). The guide will help design teams plan and construct energy-efficient schools using off-the-shelf technologies that can cut energy use by 30% or more, in comparison to the amount of energy used by buildings meeting minimum energy efficiency requirements.

"Many schools throughout the country have increased energy efficiency, cut costs, and reduced their environmental footprints through energy efficiency measures," says Torcellini. "Many others, however, still spend more money on energy than they do on educational supplies. Just think of all the things a school could do each year with the money it saves on energy: buy more books and computers, increase teachers' salaries, upgrade the media center and gymnasium...the list goes on and on."

The Advanced Energy Design Guide for K-12 School Buildings is published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). It was written in partnership with the American Institute of Architects, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, the U.S. Green Building Council, and DOE. This same collaboration is developing an entire Advanced Design Guide series, which also includes design guides for small retail and office buildings. The series will soon feature a guide that addresses energy efficiency in warehouses.

The guide for schools builds on NREL's extensive experience in developing and advancing the concept of integrated building design. Integrated design consists of looking at a building as a system and then designing and using energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies on a system-wide basis.

"To build a highly energy-efficient building, you've got to focus on early design from a whole-building systems perspective," says NREL engineer Shanti Pless.

The school building guide features easy-to-follow recommendations for various climate zones and a series of case studies of actual school construction projects. It also includes suggestions for garnering green building energy credits, as well as supplemental strategies for achieving advanced energy savings beyond the target of 30% better than code.

To encourage schools to follow the new K-12 design guide, ASHRAE and its partners have sent free printed copies to 16,000 school boards throughout the United States. Following the guide's suggestions will result in more energy-efficient school buildings and help to create safe and comfortable environments that enhance learning.

Teaming with the Army to Boost Energy Efficiency

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has joined the fight to broaden the use of energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies in the Army's facilities worldwide. According to the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 2005, new federal buildings must be 30% more energy-efficient than buildings complying with standard building codes. To meet that goal, the Corps of Engineers is getting help from engineers and analysts at NREL.

NREL engineer Michael Deru is creating models and running simulations for eight different building types used by the Army. The results will help the Army with new construction, and they can be applied to the same types of buildings in other organizations as well as in industry.

"What's exciting is that several of these building prototypes use NREL's optimization methods, which analyze thousands of building variations looking for the best energy solutions," Deru says.

The Corps of Engineers sent NREL specifications for two types of barracks, a dining facility, a vehicle maintenance building, headquarters office buildings for battalion and company personnel, a child development center, and an Army Reserve center. Using NREL-developed software, Deru and other NREL engineers are using the specifications to create models and run thousands of optimization simulations across 15 climate subzones. These simulations allow them to find innovative applications of a series of technologies that meet the EPAct requirements on a broad scale.

Like much of the U.S. commercial building industry, the Army recognizes NREL's analysis and simulation capabilities. These include the publicly available EnergyPlus software program, developed in part by NREL, which can model a wide range of parameters and provide comprehensive analytical results, as well as NREL's in-house software tool, Opti-E-Plus, which is a complex optimization program that will run tens of thousands of simulations to find the optimal energy-saving combination of products and technologies. NREL has also built a powerful distributed computing environment that effectively manages and performs the intricate calculations that create these models and simulations.

Showing Retailers the Value of Energy-Efficient Technologies

U.S. retail buildings account for approximately 20% of commercial energy consumption. They range from the small shops on the corner to huge retail stores of more than 200,000 square feet. Whatever the size, the retail industry is in general a highly competitive one characterized by slim profit margins, closely watched costs, and smart marketing.

A successful retail store understands and meets the needs of its customers. Whatever those needs might be, retailers are now seeing that good energy management is a vital part of providing cost-effective, customer-oriented goods and services. Many retailers have been looking at more energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies and coming to NREL for help in using them.

For example, for more than two years NREL has been working with one of the leaders in the construction and operation of large-scale retail outlets—Wal-Mart. Engineers are helping this retail giant find the most effective technologies for reducing its energy costs. They have been monitoring and evaluating more than 50 different technologies that Wal-Mart installed in its experimental "Supercenter" store in Aurora, Colorado. NREL's analyses determine which technologies are the most effective and which are ready to be applied to stores now being either built or retrofitted.

As one result of the monitoring, Wal-Mart recognized that using LED (light-emitting diode) lights in their refrigerated and frozen food cases achieved as much as a 70% energy savings in comparison to the energy consumed by fluorescent lights. LED lights do this by reducing the amount of installed wattage required.

Then, Wal-Mart staff found that adding motion sensors to LEDs allows them to program the lights so they go on only when a customer is standing in front of the door to the refrigerated case. Turning the lights off the rest of the time saves a significant amount of energy. NREL's work showed this technology to be so effective that Wal-Mart is rolling out the LED case lighting to 1,000 stores nationwide.

NREL's work with Wal-Mart and other retail stores has led to a separate, ground-breaking project, the Retailer Energy Alliance. As an outcome of retailers' ever-growing recognition of the value of energy management, NREL and DOE coordinated the formation of this Alliance to aid the retail industry in adopting energy-efficient and renewable energy strategies and technologies. The retailers who joined this Alliance recognize that not one of them is large enough by itself to bring about dramatic changes in the construction and operation of commercial buildings. Together, however, they can have an impact not only on the building industry, but also on the supply stream of materials used in construction.

Remarkably, the 12 companies that initiated the Alliance operate 1.25 billion square feet of retail store space and include some of the largest retail operators in the nation, such as Wal-Mart, Target, Food Lion, Whole Foods, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Best Buy. Large retailers tend to build multiple structures having the same design. Because of the similarities in the design and operation of stores among the companies, the Retailer Energy Alliance has great potential to implement successful technologies quickly and widely.

Helping Stricken Communities Rebuild and Renew

The "renew" part of "renewable" takes on a different meaning when it comes to disaster recovery efforts. To the cities of New Orleans, Louisiana, and Greensburg, Kansas, it means resolving to start over and rebuild with energy efficiency and renewable energy in mind. In both of these cities, NREL has been working with DOE and other federal, state, and local agencies to help people recover and rebuild.

The category 3 Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath began devastating 80% of New Orleans on August 29, 2005, but rebuilding efforts are still going on. For Greensburg, the fateful date was May 4, 2007. That night a level EF5 tornado, the highest level in the National Weather Service classification system, destroyed 95% of the town and changed the lives of its 1,500 residents forever.

Neither of those disasters has escaped the attention of staff at NREL. The laboratory has been providing recovery assistance to New Orleans since the fall of 2007, when Technology Manager Mary Colvin joined DOE officials in visiting the area and then began meeting with state and local officials. NREL has been managing $1 million in DOE funding directed at bringing energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies and expertise to the Gulf Coast rebuilding effort. As part of that effort, two NREL employees, Joe Ryan and Phil Voss, have been placed in New Orleans to provide direct assistance to the community.

In Greensburg, NREL has been involved with local and state officials, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and other federal agencies to provide resources for energy-efficient rebuilding and greater use of renewable energy. The mayor of Greensburg, its city council, and the Kansas governor's office have all pledged to rebuild Greensburg as a green city. They do not just want to rebuild their community to have energy-efficient buildings, however. They also plan to construct a new renewable power generation facility, advance the use of renewable fuels and vehicles, encourage distributed solar and wind power, and establish green industries to bring investment and employment to the community.

In fact, NREL assisted the city in writing an ordinance that requires all buildings in excess of 4,000 square feet to be constructed to meet LEED Platinum certification. LEED is the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy-Efficient Design program, and platinum is its highest rating. Many projects are now reaching for LEED levels on their own.

"A 32-unit townhome project for low-income seniors is going to be LEED Gold certified and very cost-effective," says Lynn Billman, NREL project lead. "Everything NREL is doing is based on cost-effectiveness. We help them understand real-world solid business models for efficiency and renewable energy."

Assistance to Greensburg also includes designing strategies for energy-efficient commercial buildings, a school, a hospital, and homes; evaluating options for renewable power generation and fuels; and developing sustainable community strategies. The NREL team of staff and contractors has provided expertise through a wide range of activities—from identifying big-picture efficiency and renewable opportunities to leading daily on-the-ground rebuilding efforts and offering energy efficiency training to residents, commercial building owners, and builders.

We might say that NREL and its partners are changing the nation's built environment one building at a time—but through its work on new design guides and collaborations with military agencies, retail alliances, and entire cities, NREL is finding efficient ways to be sure those changes happen to as many buildings as possible.