The High Performance Solution:A New Approach to Commercial New Construction

摘要

This paper will discuss a new approach to promoting energy efficiency and indoorenvironmental performance in new commercial buildings. The goal is increased marketplaceknowledge and better practices aimed at designing and constructing high performancecommercial buildings. Such buildings provide superior energy efficiency, systems performance,comfort and highly productive internal environments. Using a building sciences perspective toprovide key technical information, this method addresses construction project managementpractices, building technologies and tools necessary to the successful construction and deliveryof high performance buildings.This approach is designed to be a cost-effective program solution for projects that do notwarrant full-building energy simulation. Medium to large (20,000 to 80,000 square feet) in size,these buildings comprise the largest percentage of new non-residential construction projects.The core of the strategy relies on whole-building "technology" patterns (prescriptiveapproaches), which are pre-defined specifications based on recognized energy efficiencyapproaches. These patterns are applied to a building design during the schematic design stage ofthe project, generating a pre-determined expected energy savings.This paper will provide an overview of the concept, connections that have been made toother efforts, including the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy andEnvironmental Design (LEED?), and current efforts to use this approach in utility commercialnew construction programs. It will discuss the energy and economic benefits of using thisapproach from both the customer and utility perspective. This effort is the first step ofdeveloping new ways to deliver high performance buildings.