The Yudelson Associates Blog: What's New
Monday, December 08, 2008
Green Building Growth Continues in 2008
LEED project certifications topped 2,100 and LEED project registrations exceeded 16,000, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Green Building Council. Through November 2008, 113 LEED Platinum projects had been certified, about 5 percent of the total project certifications, a ratio that has been fairly consistent for the past few years. The fastest growing LEED system is Existing Buildings Operations and Maintenance (LEED EBOM), which has nearly tripled the number of registered projects so far this year, compared with year-end 2007, going from 769 registered projects to 2,063. The average size project is now nearly 350,000 sq.ft., up from 285,000 sq.ft., indicating that larger facilities are signing up for certification than ever before. As another indicator of progress, A recent survey by corporate real estate trade group CoreNet Global and real estate advisory firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) found that 70 percent of corporate real estate executives identify sustainability as a “critical business issue,” up more than 20 percent from a year ago. In the residential sector, LEED for Homes continues to gather steam, as builders look for some marketing advantage in a very tough climate, with the number of homes registered for certification at 13,750, up 34 percent this year. There were more than 1,100 LEED certified homes, including 164 (15 percent of the total) at the Platinum level. LEED is alive and well, even if the economy is way down; the green building movement continues!
Posted by Jerry on 12/08/2008 at 03:14 PM
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Saturday, November 29, 2008
Google’s Green Agenda and Real Energy Savings
According to a story last month in the New York Times, Google is “seriously dabbling” in green energy investments. Do you think that a company like Google can produce results through investments in startup companies? Is this a good use of their time and money? Will their lobbying power convince the Obama administration and the Congress to raise the stakes with more than $15 billion annual investment in clean energy technologies? Think how that money could really be used to help the economy. If a cost-effective building energy retrofit would cost $1.50 per square foot, then $15 billion would retrofit 10 billion square feet of U.S. real estate, producing (at $0.50 per sq.ft. annual savings, i.e. a three-year payback) $5 billion a year in real energy savings. 10 billion square feet is roughly equivalent to 2,500 buildings the size of Chicago’s Merchandise Mart, the largest since commercial building in the country. If this government investment were leveraged only 2 to 1, we could retrofit 20 billion square feet per year. In four years we could retrofit all of the US commercial real estate, based on the 72 billion square foot size of the building stock in 2003, according to the Department of Energy. That’s where the money should be going, don’t you think?
Posted by Jerry on 11/29/2008 at 09:06 AM
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Friday, November 28, 2008
First net zero energy commercial green building in the Northeast
Hudson Valley Clean Energy, based in Rhinebeck, New York, up the Hudson River from New York City, claims it ran a surplus in its first year of operations, from July 2007 through July 2008. The trick is a super-insulated building with ENERGY STAR appliances, along with a 160-meter deep geothermal loop heat pump system for year-round heating and air conditioning, plus 850 square feet of solar PV and solar thermal panels. This ain’t rocket science, folks, it’s just a good application of building science. The real key is to cut electricity use with the geothermal heat pump system, so that the solar system can be much smaller than it otherwise would be to handle the A/C load. When the net zero claim is verified, the building will claim a $10,000 prize from the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, as the first net zero commercial building under continuous occupancy (no weekend homes) with a practical power source that is easily replicable. Reportedly, the solar and geothermal system added about $100,000 ($18 per sq.ft.) to the overall project costs.
Posted by Jerry on 11/28/2008 at 09:01 AM
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Thursday, November 27, 2008
Green Building Construction Skills Lacking, Says WSJ
That’s at least what the WSJ story claims and it does make an argument for government help to re-educate the construction industry work force. I think the bigger issue is in the materials and products space, where the temptation is for architects (and some engineers) to specify products and systems that may not be fully proven, or may not be available through normal supply chains. What the story does indicate is that there will be a considerable market for green building education and training for the next several years, especially in the homebuilding industry. I’m pretty much convinced that commercial construction can do the job on its own, but the homebuilding workforce really needs education in designing super energy-efficient and green homes. (I think everyone in homebuilding should be reading my 2008 book for homebuyers, Choosing Green, as the fastest way to get up to speed on the subject.) There is also a crying educational need for everyone associated with the building industry, such as real estate brokers, appraisers, lenders, etc.
Posted by Jerry on 11/27/2008 at 11:23 AM
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