Conducting techno-economic analyses of early-stage designs for net-zero water and energy affordable homes

Abstract 

Purpose: This study aims to provide and illustrate the application of a framework for conducting techno-economic analyses (TEA) of early-stage designs for net-zero water and energy, single-family homes that meet affordable housing criteria in diverse locations. 

Design/methodology/approach: The framework is developed and applied in a case example of a TEA of four designs for achieving net zero-water and energy in an affordable home in Saint Lucie County, Florida. 

Findings: Homes built and sold at current market prices, using combinations of well versus rainwater harvesting (RWH) systems and grid-tied versus hybrid solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, can meet affordable housing criteria for moderate-income families, when 30-year fixed-rate mortgages are at 2%–3%. As rates rise to 6%, unless battery costs drop by 40% and 60%, respectively, homes using hybrid solar PV systems combined with well versus RWH systems cease to meet affordable housing criteria. For studied water and electricity usage and 6% interest rates, only well and grid-tied solar PV systems provide water and electricity at costs below current public supply prices. 

Originality/value: This article provides a highly adaptable framework for conducting TEAs in diverse locations for designs of individual net-zero water and energy affordable homes and whole subdivisions of such homes. The framework includes a new technique for sizing storage tanks for residential RWH systems and provides a foundation for future research at the intersection of affordable housing development and residential net-zero water and energy systems design.

...

The total cost for a home with well and septic systems, when connected to the public electricity grid rather than having a solar PV system, is taken as $230,000. This cost was determined as the average sales price, per county property appraiser records, for newly constructed, model and spec homes of 1,100–1,400 ft2 in size (the size of the proposed affordable home ± 12%), that include onsite well and septic systems and the other passive design features identified in the present research, sold in 2020 and 2021 in Saint Lucie County, FL .

It is assumed that the only differences in costs using a well versus RWH system to achieve net-zero water are the differences in the costs associated with drilling and installing the casing for the well versus purchasing and installing the aboveground galvanized steel storage tank for the RWH system. It is assumed the costs for piping, filtering, disinfection and pumping in the two designs are the same.

Well drilling and casing costs in the state of Florida are estimated to be between $26 and $58 per foot (CVFPB, 2022). Using the highest figure and assuming a well depth of 200 feet provide an estimated cost for well drilling and casing of $11,600. A review of prices for water storage tanks offered by multiple manufacturers indicates that a reasonable cost for a 30,000-gallon (113.56 m³) aboveground galvanized steel water storage tank is $28,600 [5]. Thus, the total cost for a home with RWH and septic systems, when connected to the public electricity grid rather than having a solar PV system, is $230,000–$11,600 + $28,600 = $247,000.

An Analysis of U.S. Multi-Family Housing, Eco-Certifications, & Walkability

Abstract:

This paper examines the persistence of differentiated pricing in the multi-family housing related to eco-certification. In examining a sample of market rents for non-specialty, multi-family properties both across the U.S., as well as those areas that enjoy the highest concentrations of LEED certified apartments, Jeremy Gabe, Karen McGrath, Spenser Robinson and Andrew Sanderford find rental premiums of 10.2% and 14.7%, respectively for those properties with LEED certification. The addition of the continuous Walk Score, to control for variations in urban form, results in premiums of 7.4% and 9.6%, respectively. These findings are directionally consistent with those found in earlier studies, and demonstrate a persistence in rental premiums for certified properties over time, and with increased LEED adoption.

https://tinyurl.com/2o4r3tp2

by Jeremy Gabe,Karen McGrath,Spenser Robinson &Andrew Sanderford

Article: 2162515; Published online: 17 Jan 2023

https://doi.org/10.1080/19498276.2022.2162515

The New Economics of Electrifying Buildings - An Analysis of Seven Cities - All-Electric New Homes: A Win for the Climate and the Economy

As states and cities across the United States work to cut carbon emissions from every sector, they’re starting to tackle a crucial transition: eliminating fossil fuels in buildings. Burning fossil fuels, primarily gas, to heat space and water and cook food poses a risk to climate goals and public health. Thus, spurring the shift to modern, electric appliances like heat pumps becomes critical.

...

Buildings are quickly becoming a cornerstone of ambitious climate policy, as policymakers recognize they can’t achieve the necessary science-based emissions reductions without tackling this stubborn sector. This means states and cities across the country won’t meet their climate goals if new buildings in their jurisdiction include fossil fuel systems that lock in carbon emissions over the 50 to 100-year building lifetime.

The cost of such an ambitious transition is often the first consideration. Thus, to help inform these crucial decisions, Rocky Mountain Institute updated and expanded their 2018 analysis, The Economics of Electrifying Buildings. They examined the economics and carbon emissions impacts of electrifying residential space and water heating, now with seven new cities and additional methodology changes. Today, we are releasing the first set of our findings examining newly constructed single-family homes. In every city we analyzed, a new all-electric, single-family home is less expensive than a new mixed-fuel home that relies on gas for cooking, space heating, and water heating. Net present cost savings over the 15-year period of study are as high as $6,800 in New York City, where the all-electric home also results in 81 percent lower carbon emissions over the mixed-fuel home.

Key Findings

The new all-electric, single-family home has a lower net present cost than the new mixed-fuel home in every city we studied: Austin, TX; Boston, MA; Columbus, OH; Denver, CO; Minneapolis, MN; New York City, NY; and Seattle, WA.

• In most cities, the mixed-fuel home (with gas furnace, water heater, air conditioning, and new gas connection costs) has a higher up-front cost than the all-electric home, which uses a heat pump system for both heating and cooling. This is true in Austin, Boston, Columbus, Denver, New York, and Seattle. The Minneapolis climate requires a higher capacity heat pump than other cities in the study. This comes at a higher cost, outweighing the equipment and labor cost savings seen with heat pump systems in milder climates.
• There are significant energy savings with the heat pump space and water heater over corresponding gas appliances, resulting in a lower annual utility cost for the all-electric home in most cities—up to 9 percent lower in Minneapolis. The two modeled scenarios have nearly equivalent utility bills in Boston and Seattle.
• The all-electric home results in substantial carbon emissions savings over the mixed-fuel home in all cities. The greatest savings are found in Seattle (93 percent) and New York City (81 percent). Minneapolis, Columbus, Boston, and Austin all save more than 50 percent over the lifetime of the equipment compared with the mixed-fuel home.

Context and Methodology

Cities in California, Washington, New York, and Massachusetts have all passed laws or adopted codes mandating or encouraging all-electric new building construction. Regional coalitions across the country are forming to extend lessons learned from these first movers to other states, including in New England and the Midwest.

Thus, we extended our Economics of Electrifying Buildings research to assess the economic case for electrification in a variety of climate zones. Several of these states are actively considering new policies or incentives to spur the transition to all-electric buildings.

In partnership with Group 14, we have updated our methodology from the 2018 report to be more readily replicable in support of building decarbonization policy decisions across the United States, incorporating the following:

• A thorough energy use calibration for each scenario to end-use breakdown, energy use intensity, and gas/electricity fuel split with the latest available Energy Information Administration Residential Energy 
• Consumption Survey data by climate region
• A 15-year greenhouse gas emissions comparison that incorporates data from both the US EPA and NREL’s Regional Energy Deployment System model to project changes in carbon intensity for electricity consumed in each state through 2036
• RSMeans construction costing factors to account for location-specific variability in up-front cost
• Building industry performance standards from ASHRAE for HVAC systems, EnergyStar for household appliances, and WaterSense for potable water fixtures

Policy Implications

Our analysis shows that all-electric new construction is more economical to build than a home with gas appliances, regardless of location. Given these findings, policymakers should embrace policies that incentivize or mandate all-electric residential new construction. In addition, they should prioritize complementary policies that address several obstacles that are impeding widespread adoption of all-electric homes. We suggest the following actions:

• Educate contractors. Our research finds that there is low contractor comfort with heat pump systems for year-round heating in cities with severe winter climates, a notion that persists from an era of older technology. Today, there are cold-climate heat pumps designed to address concerns of low capacity and efficiency in cold temperatures, best practice design guidelines, and case studies proving the efficacy of cold-climate heat pumps.To promote contractor readiness as all-electric building codes come online, policymakers and regulatory agencies should establish contractor trainings on heat pump technologies (see for example, NYSERDA’s Clean Energy Workforce Development program and San Jose’s Educational Program). For high rates of participation, ensure attendees have a reason to attend. Some jurisdictions have considered paying participants for their time. Others have allowed trained participants to be added to a qualified contractors list.
• Educate consumers and developers. Consumers and developers are increasingly knowledgeable about modern, efficient heating and cooking technology like heat pumps and induction stoves. But their comfort with the technologies must be fostered to realize the unprecedented market expansion that is needed in the next 10 years to align the buildings sector with our global climate goals.Policymakers and regulatory agencies should establish education campaigns for residents and building developers about the health, economic, and climate benefits of all-electric homes. Familiarizing consumers with induction cooking is a particularly important issue with a variety of novel solutions (see for example, San Jose’s Induction Cooktop Checkout Program).
• Update gas line extension allowances. Typically, gas utilities offer an allowance to compensate a portion of the cost of a new customer gas service extension, with the remainder paid by the customer or developer of the new property. Our research finds that the allowance is highly variable: it could be as low as $1,000 or higher than $5,000, in some states covering the total cost to connect the gas pipeline to a new home. Gas utility customers bear the cost of this allowance over time, therefore socializing the cost of unnecessary, uneconomic infrastructure that is not aligned with air quality, health, or climate goals. Regulatory agencies should reassess these allowances as a part of their transition planning and management of stranded asset risk.
• Address the split incentive challenge through creative financing. In Boston and Seattle, the all-electric home has a lower cost to build, but a slightly higher cost to operate. To ensure that all consumers benefit from the up-front cost savings for all-electric homes, home mortgages could be amortized in a manner to reduce the monthly payments to compensate for higher bills. Additionally, utility regulators and policymakers should work to make the cost of gas reflect the societal cost of greenhouse gas emissions or health impacts. This can be done through a greenhouse gas emissions tax, an air quality/health impacts adder, or an increase in permitting costs for extraction and transport of fossil fuel.

This is the first release of in the new Economics of Electrifying Buildings series. Later this year, we will release findings for single-family retrofits. In early 2021, we plan to provide a detailed technoeconomic analysis for multifamily buildings, examining the case for all-electric new construction and retrofits in all seven cities.

Austin: Single-Family Homes

RMI analyzed the costs of a new all-electric home versus a new mixed-fuel home that relies on gas for cooking, space heating, and water heating. In Austin, the all-electric home saves $4,400 in net present costs and 15 tons of CO2 emissions over a 15-year period.

Key Findings
The new all-electric home has a lower net present cost than the new mixed-fuel home, presenting savings on both up-front costs and utility bills.
• A mixed fuel home (with gas furnace, water heater, air conditioning, and new gas connection costs) has a higher up-front cost than the all-electric home, which uses the heat pump system for both heating and cooling.
• The all-electric home has 7% lower annual utility costs. There are significant energy savings with a heat pump space and water heater over corresponding gas appliances, even though electricity is significantly more expensive than gas per unit energy in Austin.
• Carbon emissions from heating, water heating, and cooking are 65% lower over the appliance lifetime in the all-electric home, due to more efficient appliances and increasingly low-carbon electricity.

Boston: Single Family Home
RMI analyzed the costs of a new all-electric home versus a new mixed-fuel home that relies on gas for cooking, space heating, and water heating. In Boston, the all-electric home saves nearly $1,600 in costs and 51 tons of CO2 emissions over a 15-year period.

Building Performance Standards: Lessons from Carbon Policy

Summary:

This paper reviews the relevant design elements of carbon and environmental markets and explores how they could influence the design of Building Performance Standards (BPS) programs. Carbon and environmental markets have existed for more than three decades, giving policymakers experience with scope and target setting and the design of flexibility provisions. The paper also sketches out how the sector-specific BPS programs overlap and interact with existing cross-sectoral programs—state-level clean energy and renewable portfolio standards (RPS), the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), electricity markets, and transport electrification.

...

Discussion

BPS programs can use several design options pioneered in the carbon markets— multiyear compliance periods, absolute or benchmarked targets, and various flexibility mechanisms—to provide flexibility, help balance environmental goals and compliance costs, and even generate revenues to fund related building efficiency programs. Initially focusing on the largest buildings or largest emitters allows a program to capture the bulk of the relevant emissions or energy consumption while lowering the administrative burden. Because BPS programs have a small geographic scope, leakage is a risk: the highest emitters, notably data centers and industrial sites, would have an incentive to exit the city if compliance costs become significant. This risk can be mitigated with tailored baselines, special allocation provisions, or a broader geographic scope—all strategies that have been used in carbon markets.

Understanding how trading of compliance obligations affects building owners’ retrofit decisions, compliance costs, and savings opportunities requires knowledge of the building sector’s abatement options and costs. Including tradable markets in a BPS design increases compliance flexibility, both across entities and across time when allowance banking is permitted. However, for a market to work effectively, building owners must have a clear understanding of the cost and the energy or emissions savings of various retrofit packages for their properties. The benefits of trading within a corporate bubble versus across all covered entities is difficult to gauge without an indepth understanding of the ownership structure of the city’s covered building stock.

BPS policies target both electricity and energy consumption and thus interact with other environmental programs. These interactions can take different forms, which are not always intuitive:

• The environmental benefits can be additive. For example, the New York City BPS should create demand for local renewable energy that is supplemental to the state’s Clean Energy Standard since New York State RECs can be sold only to compliance entities.

• Program-related emissions reductions could be offsetting. That might be the case with RGGI if emissions reductions tied to a BPS reduce the compliance burden for RGGI generators but not the RGGI cap.

• Buildings might be subject to conflicting measures if, for example, the state RPS drives emissions reductions that are not fully factored into a city BPS program’s algorithms used to calculate emissions, or if electric car charging stations increase electricity consumption covered by the program.

Although that list reveals potential policy and market interactions with BPS policies, further quantitative analysis is required to understand the magnitude of these interactions and their effects on emissions. As they develop future policies and modify current designs, municipal officials should recognize these interactions and adapt policy designs as necessary to counter or limit adverse consequences.

...

Scope

The first carbon market design question is, Which entities should be covered? The answer must balance two goals: capturing as much of the sector’s emissions as possible while keeping the number of compliance entities reasonable. Carbon markets therefore do not cover individual homes or vehicles but set the point of compliance at the power plant, refinery, or point of fuel distribution. BPS program designers must choose whether to regulate entities based on their size or based on their consumption or emissions level.

...

Price Formation

Regulatory programs entail compliance costs that can be expressed as cost per unit of emissions or energy consumption reduced. These compliance costs are reasonably transparent in tradable programs, which have transactable prices, and they are implicit in nontrading programs. This section uses a very simple conceptual model to illustrate price formation and trading dynamics in BPS programs.

Our hypothetical program targets energy reductions, which can be translated into carbon reductions. It has five buildings and two owners. All buildings face a 10 percent reduction target in the first phase of compliance. Each building has three abatement options: a lighting retrofit, the addition of window films, and an HVAC retrofit; not all options are available to all buildings (Table 3).

In reality, buildings have many options to reduce consumption and emissions. The Department of Energy’s Scout16 building efficiency software has close to 30 built-in commercial energy efficiency measures. The Tokyo program lists 20 distinct measures that span demand-side management and operational measures, appliance and lighting efficiency, heating and cooling systems, software, and sensors. Organized from lowest to highest cost per unit of avoided consumption or cost per unit of avoided emissions, these measures form the buildings’ marginal abatement cost (MAC) curve. In our conceptual example, lighting retrofits cost $0.90 per square foot for an assumed 12 percent reduction in building consumption. Using average office building consumption data, this represents a cost of $0.10 per Btu reduced: it is the most cost-effective option. Window film abatement costs are $0.13 per Btu, and HVAC upgrades’ cost-effectiveness is $0.44 per Btu. Our example builds an abatement cost curve in units of dollars per thousand Btu reduced; however, it could also be translated into dollars per ton of greenhouse gas reduced, given information on emissions rates and time of use for various energy forms, electricity in particular. The MAC curve is built by aggregating the effectiveness of the available measures over the building stock (Figure 1). For the five buildings at hand, the three measures can reduce consumption by almost 2 mmBtu, which represents 30.2 percent of the total consumption.

Does Energy Star Certification Reduce Energy Use in Commercial Buildings?

A new paper finds evidence that the Energy Star program is likely identifying buildings that are already energy-efficient, rather than persuading building owners to make efficiency upgrades.

Abstract

A number of policies and programs are aimed at reducing energy use in buildings—building energy codes, disclosure laws, energy-use benchmarking, and mandated or subsidized energy audits. In the United States, many of these initiatives are enacted at the state or local level. At the federal level, one of the main programs is Energy Star certification, which provides a label to top energy-performing buildings. In this paper, we evaluate changes in rents and utility expenditures following Energy Star certification using a national sample of over 4,400 office buildings combined with Energy Star data from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We find that building rents increase by 3.7 percent following certification, but that utility expenditures remain unchanged. We provide novel evidence that buildings do not make upgrades or capital investments to obtain a certification, suggesting that the Energy Star program primarily certifies buildings that are already energy-efficient.

Key Findings

Rents per square foot in Energy Star certified office buildings in the United States are 3.7 percent higher, on average, than rents in similar uncertified buildings.

Energy Star certification does not cause a change in building utility expenditures.

We find no evidence that the Energy Star program causes building owners to invest in building upgrades.

Taken together, our results suggest that Energy Star serves an information provision function, allowing building owners to communicate to prospective tenants the energy efficiency of their buildings relative to other, similar buildings

https://phys.org/news/2019-02-green-climate-emergency.html

https://www.rff.org/publications/working-papers/does-energy-star-certification-reduce-energy-use-commercial-buildings/

by Becka Brolinson, Karen Palmer, and Margaret A. Walls

Resources For the Future (RFF) www.RFF.org

Working Paper (20-15)  — Sept. 11, 2020

PNNL: News - Cut U.S. commercial building energy use 29% with widespread controls

along without maintenance being performed on the building controls designed to keep them running smoothly.

And sometimes those controls aren't used to their full potential, similar to a car at high speed in first gear. Instead of an expensive visit to the mechanic, the result for a commercial building is a high power bill.

A new report finds that if commercial buildings fully used controls nationwide, the U.S. could slash its energy consumption by the equivalent of what is currently used by 12 to 15 million Americans.

The report examines how 34 different energy efficiency measures, most of which rely on various building controls, could affect energy use in commercial buildings such as stores, offices and schools. Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found the measures could cut annual commercial building energy use by an average of 29 percent. This would result in between 4 to 5 quadrillion British Thermal Units in national energy savings, which is about 4 to 5 percent of the energy consumed nationwide.

"Most large commercial buildings are already equipped with building automation systems that deploy controls to manage building energy use," said report co-author and PNNL engineer Srinivas Katipamula. "But those controls often aren't properly programmed and are allowed to deteriorate over time, creating unnecessarily large power bills.

"Our research found significant nationwide energy savings are possible if all U.S. commercial building owners periodically looked for and corrected operational problems such as air-conditioning systems running too long."

An easy, low-cost fix

The report offers the first detailed, national benefit analysis of multiple energy efficiency measures to address building operational problems. Many of these problems can be corrected with very little effort. Unlike other practices that require expensive new technologies, most of the measures evaluated improve energy efficiency by enabling already-installed equipment to work better.

Roughly 20 percent of America's total energy use goes toward powering commercial buildings. And about 15 percent of U.S. commercial buildings have building automation systems that deploy controls, such as sensors that turn on lights or heating a room only when it's occupied. As a result, helping commercial buildings better use their controls could profoundly slash America's overall energy consumption.

Katipamula and his colleagues examined the potential impact of 34 individual energy efficiency measures that can improve commercial building performance, including:

• Fixing broken sensors that read temperatures and other measurements
• Turning off power-using devices like printers and monitors when a room isn't occupied
• Dimming lights in areas with natural lighting

Because combining individual measures can increase energy savings, the researchers also estimated the impacts of packaging energy efficiency measures together. PNNL designed packages of combined measures based on the needs of three different building conditions: buildings already efficient and with little room for improvement, inefficient buildings with a lot of room for improvement, and typical buildings in the middle.

PNNL used computer models of nine prototypical commercial buildings, and extrapolated them to represent five other, similar buildings so it could evaluate energy use in a total of 14 building types. The research team used these prototypical building models with DOE's EnergyPlus building software, which calculated potential energy use given local weather and whichever energy efficiency measures were applied.

Results oriented

Of the individual efficiency measures studied, those with the greatest energy-saving potential nationwide were:

• Lowering daytime temperature setpoints for heating, increasing them for cooling, and lowering nighttime heating setpoints: about 8 percent reduction
• Reducing the minimum rate for air to flow through a variable-air volume boxes: about 7 percent reduction
• Limiting heating and cooling to when building is most likely to be occupied: about 6 percent reduction

Though the study found all commercial buildings across all climates could have an average total energy savings of 29 percent, some building types were found to have the potential to save more, such as:

• Secondary schools: about 49 percent
• Standalone retail stores & auto dealerships: about 41 percent

As expected, researchers found inefficient buildings have the greatest potential to save energy. After estimating how common each building condition is in the U.S., researchers found combined efficiency measure packages have the following potential national energy saving ranges:

• Inefficient buildings: 30 to 59 percent
• Typical buildings: 26 to 56 percent
• Efficient buildings: 4 to 19 percent

The Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy funded this research.

---

Reference: N. Fernandez, S. Katipamula, W. Wang, Y. Xie, M. Zhao, C. Corgin, "Impacts of Commercial Building Controls on Energy Savings and Peak Load Reduction," PNNL report to DOE, May 2017.

https://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4422

Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory https://www.pnnl.gov

Press Release dated June 23, 2017

Amazing low-cost, off-grid Lifehaus homes are made from recycled materials | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building

This amazing home by Lifehaus blends low-cost off-grid appeal with ... luxurious details. The Lebanon-based company started by Nizar Haddad is pioneering energy-neutral dwellings made from locally-sourced and recycled materials. People living in the green homes will also be able to generate their own electricity, and grow their own food. The dwellings don’t simply offer a sustainable option, but address many societal issues in Lebanon, such as the trash crisis that brought Beirut to its knees last year.

Lifehaus homes include a greenhouse for growing food, and solar panels for generating renewable energy. It promotes sustainable water use through rainwater collection and grey water reuse. And all this comes with a price tag of around half the average cost of an unfurnished Lebanese home, which is around $800 per square meter.

...

 “Lebanon’s construction industry is one of the leading factors behind desertification in the country,” Media Representative Nadine Mazloum told Inhabitat. “Entire hills and mountains are being turned into wastelands as demand for conventional buildings continues to rise. Also, with Lebanon being a post-war country, successive governments, since 1990, and up until now have been and continue to be unable to provide many of the country’s citizens with round-the-clock water and electricity – so this got us thinking of going off the grid.”

...

They also allow for composting organic trash for use in the garden as fertilizer.

Passive design keeps a Lifehaus cool in the summer and warm in the winter. The homes can be partially buried, with the roofs offering additional food-growing space. This helps them be more earthquake-resistant and minimizes heat loss.... Lifehaus counts Earthship among their sources of inspiration, and creator Michael Reynolds has endorsed the project.

Lifehaus is drawing on ancestral building techniques, such as using mud and clay as opposed to concrete, and treating those materials with linseed oil and lime. Construction on the first 1,722 square foot prototype will begin next month in Baskinta, Lebanon....

FOR FULL STORY GO TO:

http://inhabitat.com/amazing-low-cost-off-grid-lifehaus-homes-are-made-from-recycled-materials/

Inhabit http://inhabitat.com
http://www.lifehausproject.com/

San Francisco International Airport uses insights from Autocase to convert "Triple Bottom Line" from Aspiration to Reality on $2.4B Renovation

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is undergoing a $2.4 billion renovation of Terminal 1 in order to add capacity at one of the busiest U.S. airports and one of the fastest growing in the world. The designs for that renovation are being informed by Autocase®, a brand new software tool that automates "Triple Bottom Line Cost Benefit Analysis (TBL- CBA)" for buildings and sites.

"We have set ambitious goals to excel in passenger experience and health and to meet California's net zero energy requirements," said San Francisco International Airport's Chief Development Officer, Geoff Neumayr. "To do so, we needed to simulate and compare the impacts of possible investments in different building elements, from green roofs to dynamic window glazing to motorized windows to geothermal heat pumps. But I wanted to see those impacts in dollars and cents, and to feel assured we knew how they would affect our 53 million annual passengers and 30,000 employees."

https://www.flysfo.com/about-sfo/airport-development/t1

So SFO required that their Design-Build teams, some of the best in the world like Austin Webcor Joint Venture + HKS/WB/ED2/KYA, evaluate each design element through a "comprehensive business case analysis" inclusive of "costs and benefits for all three bottom lines – financial, social, and environmental." "To begin with, together with the Autocase team, we assessed 6 possible design features for Boarding Area B," said Raphael Sperry of Arup, one of the key consultants on the project. "The green roof had a particularly compelling Triple Bottom Line Cost Benefit Analysis (TBL- CBA) - of $5 million over a 50-year timespan, supporting its inclusion in the project. In contrast, the ROI for the ground source heat pump was negative financially (TBL-CBA of -$5.23 million), and the analysis showed that level of investment was not outweighed by its environmental and social benefits. While ground source is an attractive technology, it's not appropriate for every project, and this allowed us to put our resources where they will have a bigger overall impact."

	Green Roof	Electrochromic  Glazing	Motorized Window Shades	Interior Landscaping	Radiant Heating & Cooling	Ground Source Heat Pump
Lifecycle Financial NPV	-$1.05	-$3.29	-$7.59	-$8.48	-$2.84	-$5.82
Social & Environmental NPV	$6.34	$6.26	$6.26	$11.39	$0.44	$0.59
Triple Bottom Line NPV	$5.29	$2.97	-$1.34	$2.91	-$2.41	-$5.23
All figures in millions of US$

https://autocase.com/reports/Press_Release-SFO_06-2017.pdf

Autocase http://www.autocase.com

Press Release dated June 19, 2017

Better Buildings Showcase Project: Historic Auburn Courthouse

Background:

The Placer County Historic Courthouse, also known as the Auburn Courthouse, was built in 1898 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This grand, three-story Classic Revival structure is topped by a bracketed cornice and simple Renaissance Revival-inspired dome. Over the years, the County made improvements, adding water fountains, fire escapes, and an elevator, which was installed in 1948. In 1990, the building underwent an extensive restoration effort. Since 2010 Placer County has implemented an energy efficiency retrofit to the Courthouse to reduce energy costs and improve occupant comfort.

Solutions:

Energy efficiency upgrades to the historic brick and stone building presented unique challenges due to the complex electrical wiring and the need to integrate new and old energy system components. Further complicating the process was the importance of completing the work while minimizing disruption to Court and museum operations, which continued throughout the upgrades.

From 2010 to 2016, the County upgraded major energy components at the Courthouse. The most significant energy savings retrofit measures, prioritized by energy saved, included:

• Lighting retrofits: Aging and inefficient T-12 fluorescent linear systems were changed out to more efficient T-8 fluorescents, incandescent lamps in historic fixtures were changed to CFL, and interior sconce high-intensity discharge (HID) systems in courtrooms were retrofitted to CFL.
• Central plant retrofits: An antiquated, 80-ton dual-reciprocating compressor chiller (Trane CGWC806RDNJJ432P, located in a separate building adjacent to the Courthouse) was replaced with an 80-ton high-efficiency scroll compressor chiller (York YCWL0084HE). The plant’s chilled water and condenser water pumps (and their associated motors) as well as the cooling tower fan motor were replaced. Variable speed drives were installed on the chilled water pump motors, condenser water pump motors, and the cooling tower fan motor. A water-side economizer was also installed to provide free cooling during periods when the ambient temperature drops below 65 F.
• New high-efficiency boiler: The space-heating boiler at the Courthouse was replaced with a 92 percent efficient boiler. The old boiler was well beyond its remaining useful life. The pumping equipment (motors included) was also replaced and variable speed pump controls were implemented.
• Window sashes, casings, and sills were updated and glazing was replaced with glass/polycarbonate laminate.

Location: Auburn, California
Project Size: 25,000 square feet.

Annual Energy Use 
Baseline (2009): 252 kBtu/sq. ft.
Actual (2016): 177 kBtu/sq. ft.
Energy Savings: 30%
Annual Energy Cost
Baseline (2009): $89,000
Actual (2016): $76,000
Cost Savings: $13,000

Energy efficiency and economic value in affordable housing

Highlights

• Dutch affordable housing suppliers recoup sustainability investment by selling dwellings.

• Energy-efficient affordable dwellings sell at a premium.

• A-labeled dwellings are 6.3% – 9,300 euros – more valuable than C-labeled ones.

• The combined value effect of refurbishing an affordable housing dwelling, including improving the energy efficiency, of 20% would more than pay for the retrofit.

Abstract

Strong rental protection in the affordable housing market often prohibits landlords from charging rental premiums for energy-efficient dwellings. This may impede (re)development of energy efficient affordable housing. In the Netherlands, affordable housing institutions regularly sell dwellings from their housing stock to individual households. If they can sell energy efficient dwellings at a premium, this may stimulate investments in the environmental performance of homes.

We analyze the value effects of energy efficiency in the affordable housing market, by using a sample of 17,835 homes sold by Dutch affordable housing institutions in the period between 2008 and 2013. We use Energy Performance Certificates to determine the value of energy efficiency in these transactions. We document that dwellings with high energy efficiency sell for 2.0–6.3% more compared to otherwise similar dwellings with low energy efficiency. This implies a premium of some EUR 3,000 to EUR 9,700 for highly energy efficient affordable housing.

http://www.citymetric.com/politics/amsterdam-most-rents-are-capped-revenge-evictions-illegal-and-affordable-housing-quotas-are

by Andrea Chegut 1, Piet Eichholtz 2 and Rogier Holtermans 2 

1. MIT, Cambridge, MA, United States

2. Maastricht University, Department of Finance, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The NetherlandsThe Netherlands

Energy Policy http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03014215 via Elsevier Science Direct www.ScienceDirect.com

Volume 97, October 2016, Pages 39–49

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516303482

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.06.043

Keywords: Affordable housing; Energy efficiency; Energy performance certificates

A free version of the paper is currently available free of charge via the MIT Centre for Real Estate at http://tinyurl.com/z6gvhhu

Q&A: Autocase and the next generation of triple bottom line analysis

The U.S. Green Building Council USGBC, along with Autodesk and Impact Infrastructure, has unveiled a new platform to identify the triple bottom-line impacts of design alternatives.

This past Greenbuild in October 2016 USGBC joined Autodesk and Impact Infrastructure to unveil a new platform called Autocase for Sustainable Buildings, which provides real insights by identifying the triple bottom-line impacts of design alternatives, measured in both quantities and dollars. USGBC recently introduced a new pilot credit called “Informing Design Using Triple Bottom Line Analysis” that rewards projects one point toward certification for conducting a triple bottom-line benefit-cost analysis on at least six LEED credits. Project teams can use Autocase to determine solutions that create optimal returns.

INTRODUCING AUTOCASE VIDEO

The USGBC caught up with Emma Stewart, head of sustainability solutions at Autodesk, John Williams, CEO of Impact Infrastructure and creator of Autocase, and Theresa Backhus, Sites Technical Specialist at USGBC, to get their insight on how the pilot credit will enhance the certification process and the role of data within design strategy at large.

Tell us about this pilot credit. What went into the decision behind its creation?

Emma: The biggest obstacle to scaling green buildings is the hard dollar cost of investing in greater levels of sustainability. Is it worth the risk? What’s in it for me? Who gains the most? What are the social and environmental impacts to these up-front investments?

Consider that 82 percent of facility executives say “reducing costs” was the top reason they’re bothering to upgrade their buildings to be more energy-efficient (according to the 2016 Johnson Controls Energy Efficiency Indictor Survey). Every single one of those executives needs a life cycle cost analysis to ensure those upgrades are the right ones to do and collectively pay them back many times over.

We know that LEED-certified buildings have been shown to increase rental and resale rates and boost worker productivity. Greener buildings can also have spin-off benefits to neighbors and the global community by prioritizing locations close to transit, capturing and storing rainwater and sourcing materials regionally. But decision makers also need to understand how these benefits can apply to their buildings in a particular location, and just how much those benefits are worth in dollars.

Autocase for Sustainable Buildings aims to answer those questions, automatically and as part of the design process. Once these analyses became democratized (i.e., feasible at 1 percent of the cost of a custom study and by non-experts) we were happy to hear that USGBC wanted to encourage this type of analysis through a LEED pilot credit.

Theresa: The new pilot credit is open to all rating systems (under BD+C, ID+C, O+M, ND and Homes) for both LEED 2009 and v4. Thus, almost all current and future LEED projects can take advantage of it, which is very exciting. This has the potential to impact a lot of buildings.

The latest version of LEED places emphasis on understanding the life cycle impacts, benefits and tradeoffs of different design decisions. How can integrated analysis tools like Autocase benefit LEED users?

John: By using Autocase, LEED project teams can conduct a benefit cost analysis in advance of project completion to determine what design solutions will create optimal returns and produce a business case on the overall design while earning a point toward LEED certification. This allows project teams and buildings owners to cost-justify green design, communicate the value of enhanced designs to stakeholders and fine-tune designs to build more cost-effective and impactful buildings.

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FOR FULL  INTERVIEW GO TO:

http://www.usgbc.org/articles/qa-autocase-and-next-generation-triple-bottom-line-analysis?kui=38CAWmO12q-xMaep_rrlxw

U.S. Green Building Coouncil http://www.usgbc.org

Published on 7 November 2016

Written by Amanda Sawit

Why Investments in Sustainability Pay Off in the Long Run

... A unique study based on compelling data from investment advisory firm Bentall Kennedy reveals surprising reasons why developing sustainable properties is a good investment—including more long-term and happier tenants.

...

Compared to traditional buildings, rents for sustainable properties, also known as green buildings, were on average 3.7 percent higher, the study found. Rents can be even higher for specifically LEED-certified properties. Additionally, occupancy levels for green buildings were 4 percent higher, while tenant renewal probabilities for these buildings were roughly 6 percent higher.

“The research to date well supports a rental rate premium … in the 2 percent to 9 percent range. The offsetting benefits come in decreased expense variance (lower operating risk) and decreased human capital expenses associated with happier and healthier employees. There is also new evidence of increased retail sales in certified space,”...

BP Centre 240 4 Ave SW, Calgary, Alberta http://tinyurl.com/zl5dxth

https://www.cpexecutive.com/post/why-investments-in-sustainability-pay-off-in-the-long-run/

by Alexandra Pacurar

Commercial Property Executive https://www.cpexecutive.com

July 20, 2016

A Press Release at http://www.bentallkennedy.com/news-2015-10-06.php added

The study, which was published in the ... Journal of Portfolio Management, was conducted by Dr. Nils Kok of Maastricht University in The Netherlands and Dr. Avis Devine of the University of Guelph in Canada. The research analyzes 10 years of financial performance data across a Bentall Kennedy-managed office portfolio totaling 58 million square feet, (34 million square feet in the U.S., 24 million square feet in Canada). Overall, the results provide compelling evidence that buildings with sustainable certification outperform similar non-green buildings in terms of rental rates, occupancy levels, tenant satisfaction scores, and the probability of lease renewals.

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"Previous studies have suggested similar correlations but none of these looked at in-depth, diverse metrics across a large portfolio for as long as 10 years," said Giselle Gagnon, Senior Vice President, Strategic Resources Group at Bentall Kennedy. "Investors want evidence to support the economic merits of investing in sustainable buildings, and this new academic research provides exactly that."

Deeper data sets show positive results for sustainable buildings

The study (available here) of nearly 300 office properties across North America included lease-level data such as rents, rent concessions and lease renewal rates, as well as building-level information such as occupancy rates, tenant satisfaction scores, energy and water consumption, and green building certifications.  Highlights ... include:

• Net effective rents, including the cost of tenant incentives, average 3.7 percent higher in LEED certified properties in the U.S. than in similar non-certified buildings.
• Rent concessions, for LEED and BOMA BEST buildings in Canada are on average 4% lower than in similar non-certified buildings.
• Occupancy rates during the period were 18.7 percent higher in Canadian buildings having both LEED and BOMA BEST certification, and 9.5 percent higher in U.S. buildings with ENERGY STAR certification, than in buildings without certifications.
• Tenant renewal rates were 5.6 percent higher in Canadian buildings with BOMA BESt Level 3 certification than in buildings with no BOMA BESt certification.
• Tenant satisfaction scores were 7 percent higher in Canadian buildings with BOMA BESt level 3 and 4 certification than in non-certified buildings.
• Energy consumption per square foot was 14 percent lower in U.S. LEED certified properties than in buildings without certification....