...product-evaluation systems, manufacturers do not pay to be listed. Instead, the project is funded by grants from philanthropic foundations and by users’ $75 annual subscriptions.
Just a few days before the conference began, the document likely to become the nation’s first standard for high-performance buildings moved a step closer to adoption with the end of the fourth round of public comment. The standard, slated for mid-February publication, has a few more hurdles to clear, including a vote by the development committee members followed by approval from the boards of each of the collaborating organizations.
“I feel we are close to publication,” said Kent Peterson, chair of the development committee of the proposed “Standard 189: Standard for the Design of High-Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings.”
The standards-writing effort is a collaboration of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, USGBC and the Illuminating Engineering Society.
Standard 189 defines the minimum requirements for a green building. It addresses energy efficiency, a building’s impact on the atmosphere, sustainable sites, water efficiency, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. The document is written in “normative,” or code-enforceable language, so that municipalities and states can incorporate the criteria into building codes and use them as the basis for awarding tax credits, rebates or other incentives.
While the final energy modeling for the fourth public review will not be completed and reported by the U.S. Dept. of Energy until January, Peterson anticipates the current draft will help cut energy use over the current ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2004 by 27% to 30% and Standard 90.1-2007 by 22% to 24%. The potential savings are based on weighted average across building stock and climate zones, said Peterson, a principal of P2S Engineering Inc., Long Beach, Calif.
He added that the second public-review draft saved approximately 18% over 90.1-2007. “Since then, we have removed the 30% additional ventilation requirement [energy penalty] and increased the renewable energy requirements” for the prescriptive portion of the document, said Peterson.
At the conference, USGBC staff and LEED committee members gave an update on an initiative they hope will help close the gap between buildings’ predicted and actual performance. Key to the effort is a still-evolving plan to gather and analyze performance data from LEED-certified buildings. Projects seeking certification under the latest version of the rating system, launched in April, must comply with a somewhat controversial “minimum program requirement,” which mandates reporting of post-occupancy energy and water use. But some 4,000 already certified projects and another 24,000 in the certification pipeline are not subject to this condition.
Joel Ann Todd, chair of USGBC’s LEED steering committee, asked the audience what the council could do to encourage project teams to volunteer the needed performance information. The suggestions included rewarding participating projects with bonus LEED points, waiving some portion of the certification fee, or providing “coaching” to help owners of underperforming buildings reach the original design goals. A number of attendees made the case for standard tracking and reporting formats. “The metrics and the rules need to be bulletproof,” said one attendee.
