Where's The Solar? Part I

One of the most frequently asked questions about the building is: Why aren't you using solar power? Well, I guess we need to provide a little background.

Obviously, the sun's energy provides a tremendous amount of energy even if those of us in Berks County can't remember seeing the sun for a while.

In a building like ours, there are really three ways to capture that energy and use it for our purposes.

The first of these is called "passive solar". Using passive solar is about capturing sunlight in ways that effectively light and heat spaces. The only technology involved is planning and window.

Our building is all about passive solar. The side of the building that faces Court Street is actually canted eleven degrees off the property line. That gives the building a perfect southern exposure, which maximizes the ability to capture the warmest and brightest sunlight. All of this involves trade-offs. That light will provide heat during the winter, but of course, adds to the cooling load in the summer Those tradeoffs, and how to maximize the benefit were an important part of our energy modeling and played a big role in how the building was designed.

But the light capture is an important part of our planned overall 43% savings in energy costs. In fact, the ceilings in some of the offices will actually slant slightly downward, with the high side being the south side. That will force the light to reflect into the workspaces more efficiently. On a clear day, as much as 80% of the light in our workspaces will be sunlight.

Each of the four sides of the building has a different type of light coming into the building. So, with careful computer modeling at their side, the architects specified four different types of glass, each designed to maximize the heat/light tradeoff in the building.

In the next post, Solar Hot Water...and why we're not using it in the building.