Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Green Building in Canada Wins ASHRAE Award
The first commercial building in Quebec designed to meet the country's standards for high performance building through integrated design has been awarded ASHRAE's Award of Engineering Excellence in the new commercial buildings category.
To meet Canada's C-2000 building certification program, Mountain Equipment Coop had to be at least 50 percent more energy efficiency than a building design following Canada's Model National Energy Code for Buildings. Frederic Genest's design resulted in 68 percent energy savings.
Genest, Eng., was honored during the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers' (ASHRAE) 2005 Winter Meeting held here Feb. 5-9. The award recognizes the most outstanding project receiving a first-place Technology Award.
The ASHRAE Technology Awards recognize outstanding achievements by members who have successfully applied innovative building design in the areas of occupant comfort, indoor air quality (IAQ) and energy conservation. Their designs incorporate ASHRAE standards for effective energy management and IAQ. Performance is proven through one year's actual, verifiable operating data. ...
The building features a geo-exchange system using ground-source heat pumps, radiant slabs for heating and cooling, a combination hybrid ventilation system and dedicated outdoor air unit, a high performance envelope and natural lighting. The building also includes thermal energy storage with night pre-cooling and -heating, heat recovery from exhausted air and rain water harvesting.
"The goal was to design a building incorporating as many green features as possible to serve as an example to the community and other construction professionals," Genest said. "All of these features combined result in high energy efficiency, while maintaining superior indoor air quality and good thermal comfort. The end result is a unique building that will serve as a case study for design professionals in the years to come on the road to sustainable development." ...
This project has many of the same features as the the house in Deep Creek, MD. A 68% savings over the first year is significant for a commercial building. Research and design for projects like this will go a long way to making zero-energy buildings feasible.