Last month the U.S. Green Building Council, which oversees the prestigious (albeit sometimes controversial) LEED program, announced that LEED v.3 - the program's latest incarnation - will require buildings seeking certification to report their actual energy usage.
This is great news. As we've argued before, the LEED label risks rendering itself meaninglessness when a LEED certified building - which may count among its "green" credentials a bike rack and a bamboo spice cabinet - can continue to guzzle energy like a Hummer with a gas leak. It appears as if this is about to change, which is a good thing.
But perhaps even more importantly, the reporting of energy usage by buildings seeking LEED certification will lead to a concrete body of data. Data is always good, but it's especially useful when it's publicly accessible. It's our sincere hope that this invaluable resource - the actual energy consumption of nearly every "green" building in the country - will soon become public.
With a nod to Energy Secretary Steven Chu's recent argument that green building design platforms need to be open sourced in order to be widely effective, we believe that public access to the USGBC's data would be a tremendous boon for energy efficiency. As Bomee Jung so eloquently puts it in her insightful piece at Sallan.org, Transparency & Innovation: Open Data for Green Buildings, "Knowledge makes profits, but sharing makes markets." Access to data creates a larger market for efficiency, through more public awareness and greater incentives to make energy efficient building improvements and behavioral adjustments. That, in turn, is a boon for homeowners, businesses, taxpayers, and the planet.
We have another hope as well - that the necessity of reporting data will lead building owners to keep better track of energy consumption on their own. Under the new standard, there are three options for reporting energy usage:1) Re-applying for certification every two years under the LEED For Existing Buildings program (a tedious and expensive process, as SolveClimate points out);
2) Allowing the USGBC direct access to utility data (which could potentially enable the USGBC to gain access to a building's energy use before the building owners - who would remain just as much in the dark as they are now); or
3) Regularly submitting energy usage directly to the USGBC. Only this last option keeps building owners as consistently well-informed as the USGBC and the utility.
2) Allowing the USGBC direct access to utility data (which could potentially enable the USGBC to gain access to a building's energy use before the building owners - who would remain just as much in the dark as they are now); or
3) Regularly submitting energy usage directly to the USGBC. Only this last option keeps building owners as consistently well-informed as the USGBC and the utility.
Our intuition is that, all told, the simple act of reporting data will lead to significantly more efficient building designs and decreased energy consumption in buildings seeking LEED certification. Awareness of a building's energy consumption, starting with real-time monitoring, is one of the most effective ways of reducing it.
The new LEED standards (LEED v.3) (pdf) are imperfect - Chris Cheatham at Green Building Law Update has written a very interesting post on the concept of decertification and its potential complications, and there's an excellent comment stream there by many of the smart folks on this topic - but it's certainly a step in the right direction. As Brendan Owens, USGBC's vice president of LEED technical development, explained: "This data will show us what strategies work - and which don't - so we can evolve the credits and prerequisites informed by lessons learned." If the data is made public, we'll all be able to learn from those lessons.
Comments
Thanks for the link! Everyone needs to remember improving energy efficiency is a good thing but we are going to have some growing pains as we try get there.
Posted by Chris Cheatham on Jul 8, 2009 2:41pmGood post Peter. While public access to usage data would be a great source for further study, performance verification, and other uses, I do not think that it will ever happen. I worked for some years for a major high-performance building program that employs usage guarantees. In evaluating the success of said guarantees, usage data (i.e.. utility bills) are required. The bills either come from the homeowner themselves or from the utility (after written approval from homeowner). I can say that in each case it is problematic. Though owners are told to collect utility bills throughout the year, they often don't. Utilities often are reluctant to give up data on users even after approval.
While this may seem slightly off point, I do not think it is. It is never as seamless as it appears. On the other hand, various companies have come out with software and/or hardware that is capable of reporting usage. These solutions may be the way to go.
To close, a brief thought on using utility data to verify performance. The program I mentioned has been doing so for years (and very successfully I might add). I have learned that occupant behavior has an enormous impact on utility usage. I know, this is so obvious I shouldn't have to mention it but I never cease to be surprised by occupants and what they will do. To obtain true usage data, you for instance should have relative stable thermostat settings. Many occupants are used to managing the shortcomings of their "code house" via their thermostat. Move them to a properly built high-performance home and, in spite of instruction and direction to the contrary, they will often continue the same behavior. Your data will be skewed. So, agree or disagree, what everyone should know is "it ain't as simple as it seems."
Posted by Justin Jones on Jul 8, 2009 3:08pm