Great River Enegy recently released a white paper detailing the construction of their Maple Grove, Minn. headquarters, the first building to achieve LEED Platinum in the state. The text of the white paper can be found here.Great River Energy not only built a sophisticated building which scored 56 points but also built a structure which can be used to educate others.
The key features of the Great River headquarters are:
- Uses 50% less energy and 90% less water than a structure built to just state codes
- Utilizes an in lake geothermal HVAC system
- In floor displacement ventilation system
- Daylight harvesting
- 72 kilowatts of on site solar power and a 200 kilowatt wind turbine
- Only cost 10% more than a traditionally built structure
The Great River Energy headquarters is an excellent example of how proper research, communication between all team members, and follow up evaluation and corrective action can create a building that is not only sustainable and efficient but also an excellent educational tool to spread the message that green building does not need to break the bank.
We need to rethink the way we evaluate buildings and energy usage for as the CEO of Green River Energy said: “At Great River Energy, we know the cheapest—and cleanest—kilowatt-hour is the one we don’t have to produce. So conservation and energy efficiency have become our first
fuel.”
Times are tight, credit is hard to come by, and their is a significant surplus of built residential and commercial property sitting idle. Will the current economy hurt the green building movement or is the industry recession proof as a recent string of articles would like us to believe?
In a March, 16th interview with Peter Morris of construction consultancy Davis Langdon, the folks over at Business Week attempted to look into the crystal ball and see what the future holds. The interview raised several interesting issues regarding the value of green building, particularly in light of the current economy and the fallacy of life-cycle cost analysis based on straight line models. As Morris said: ” Trying to prove the value of green just on pure economics always seemed to me not necessarily dishonest, but it was like trying to catch people’s pocketbooks as opposed to their morality” Should we reconsider the manner in which we educate the public about green building and its “value”? I think the answer is clearly yes.
One of the biggest obstacles green building has faced has been proving its value in terms of economic benefits to the owner. Many of the early green buildings were unable to live up to their projected cost savings due either to flawed analysis of features cost saving potential or due to improper operation of the building after occupancy.
I propose the following methods to deal with this problem:
- Make enhanced commissioning and education of building occupants a prerequisite under green building certification schemes.
- Encourage post occupancy efficiency reviews to correct problems with both building systems and occupants habits.
- Emphasize that their are benefits to going green which cannot be measured in simple economic terms.