Energy Modeling

One part of our effort to design and build a very energy efficient building is a process called "energy modeling".   This is a complex computer-based system for evaluating all of the energy use of our building.  After all, one of our goals is to create a building that maximizes both the stewardship of our financial resources and the stewardship of our region's environmental resources.

The way that the engineers do this is to compare the expected usage of energy in our building to a "standard construction" building.  The standard construction benchmark is based on a set of standards known as "ASHRAE", which stands for the organization that issues the standards, The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers.  This is essentially the energy that a "regular" building would use.  

The current projection for our building is that it will use 42.3% less energy than a standard building!!  That's an amazing performance, but frankly, a little off what we had hoped.   We had initially hoped to save as much as 50%, but the tradeoffs that were required to hit that number didn't pay off.   

To translate these savings into dollars--something that directly benefits the community--our team put together the following budget comparison:

              Standard Building   Our Building Budget

Electric                                 $16,113                    $11,392

Gas                                        20,344                        9,643

Total Energy Budget            36,457                      21,035

Energy Cost/SqFt                      $2.50                      $  1.44 

This $15,000 a year (every year) savings is money that can go to important programs in the community....and it reflects a benefit to the community in lower energy consumption.  That's cleaner air AND cheaper energy.   A great deal!

The report is pretty technical and probably best understood by engineers.  If anyone would like a copy, just drop me an email and we'll be happy to send it to you.