Energy and Atmosphere & Embodied Energy

We had our first energy & lighting team meeting this morning, after a 3 or 4 week break to allow team members to do some research and analysis on the various strategies we're considering as we work towards LEED CI Platinum Certification.

Aleka Pappas from Group 14 Engineering (formerly know as Enermodal) came with the preliminary results of her energy model, an effort that was helped by a building system tour with the landlord a couple of weeks ago. Based on her preliminary analysis, the top three issues we have to deal with are heating, cooling, and interior lighting - which is no surprise.

We have already been brainstorming for a couple of months about potential heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting strategies, and the energy model is providing us with invaluable information as we start to identify preferred strategies based on reaching our environmental and education goals. We also continue to mull over the balance between pragmatic and cutting edge systems, first cost and long term financial payback, and of course who we can get to donate specific systems and installation support!

Thanks to Group 14 Engineering, we are also able to contemplate conducting a project embodied energy assessment on at least some elements of our project. This morning we had a preliminary conversation about what this might mean, an interesting dialogue since this takes place more often in new construction using the Athena Calculator, a tool which is focused on the building envelope.

Our project scope is limited to our office space, and so we are doing some creative thinking about how to define the scope of an embodied energy assessment in that context. We're starting to think we'll explore two main questions. The first is the embodied energy savings from moving into a historic existing office space compared to moving into a new building. The second is to look at the embodied energy in specific products and systems, for example the lighting, windows, HVAC system, flooring, furniture, etc. Lastly, there is an interesting question about integrating this assessment into the tenant improvements versus into our ongoing operations.