Aristotle once said, "The energy of the mind is the essence to life". Too bad for him and us, buildings and modern society as we know it can't survive on the stuff.
Buildings consume about 40% of the energy and 75% of the electricity produced annually in the United States. (usgbc), which means they are the largest demanders for power, heat, air and electric. So, for obvious reasons, these are the most important places to focus our energies (pun intended) in reduction and reuse.
Reduction is probably the more obvious of the two, creating better buildings that don't leak heat and air conditioning, that are so well insulated the heat from the bodies of it's occupants actually warms the building. This will create a lower energy demand to control thermal comfort within the space.
Reuse is the more challenging and yet I'd argue the more exciting way to increase efficiency in a home, building... or wherever. Something like using the wastewater from the toilets to cool the air pipes in the summer. Capturing waste heat from the kitchen for heating the whole building, etc. As time goes on, the technologies continue to grow and become more affordable and more dependable.
For LEED Platinum purposes, a new school building needs 13% of it's energy to come from onsite renewables- which we will get easily. Because the Living Building Challenge requires 100%.
For those wanting technical info: Right now we expect that with kitchen loads, we can get the building's energy footprint to 30 kBTUs per square foot. That means we will need...well a whole lot of solar panels.
The problem with all onsite is not just the cost of panels, and complying with distance/ red list materials to get them here- but actually ensuring we have enough space to put the panels.
To have enough roof space for all the panels to net annually power the new building, we are estimating 8200 square feet of untouched roof space will be needed.
So we have a 20,000 square foot building, no problem. But with such a large portion donated to solar panels, we have eliminated other energy opportunities, like skylight locations which will be reduced. Also, green roof opportunities will be minimal to none.
Green roofs are phenomenal, from 3 inches to 3 feet of soil, you can grow simple grasses to entire corn crops on the roof of a building. The green roof space absorbs storm water, and helps insulate the building for heat and air. But with a large portion of the roof covered in panels, and most likely the rest now in shade, green roofing is not a compatible option.
It's exciting to see how this revolutionary project will power a commercial kitchen, a teaching kitchen, a cafeteria/gym space, 3 classrooms, a science room, an energy lobby, restrooms etc. within the confine of it's own building footprint. Holding my breath!
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