WASHINGTON, D.C.--(ENEWSPF)--November 30, 2010. During a live online chat at the White House earlier today, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that 24 projects are receiving a total of $21 million in technical assistance to dramatically reduce the energy used in their commercial buildings. This initiative, supported with funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will connect commercial building owners and operators with multidisciplinary teams including researchers at DOE's National Laboratories and private sector building experts. The teams will design, construct, measure, and test low-energy building plans, and will help accelerate the deployment of cost-effective energy-saving measures in commercial buildings across the United States.
"These Recovery Act projects are bringing together experts from our National Laboratories and the private sector to help businesses and organizations reduce the energy they use in their facilities, saving them money on their energy bills and making them more competitive economically," said Secretary Chu. "This initiative will also demonstrate to other commercial building operators that cost-effective, energy-efficient technologies exist today that will help lower the operating and energy costs of their buildings."
Through DOE's Commercial Building Partnerships, teams comprised of private sector technical experts and personnel from National Laboratories will help guide projects to achieve 30 percent measured energy savings in existing buildings and 50 percent energy savings in new construction projects. About half of the two dozen projects focus on energy efficiency upgrades for existing buildings. The three-year projects will provide comprehensive business and technical case studies for broad publication, including actual energy performance data from the completed projects, to help spur wider adoption of energy-efficient building practices across the industry.
The projects are funded with a public/private cost-sharing agreement, where the building owners and operators contribute at least 20 percent. Building owners and operators do not receive direct funding through the project, but instead get access to state-of-the-art technical guidance to implement energy efficiency technologies throughout the design, construction, and evaluation phases of their building and retrofit projects. This technical expertise includes energy modeling and energy performance verification by laboratory researchers and private sector experts.
The selected building owners and operators benefit by learning about measures they can apply across their extensive building portfolios. The use of private sector consultants and National Laboratory experts helps ensure that the energy efficiency measures and lessons learned in the projects will be quickly adopted by the marketplace.
Three DOE National Laboratories-Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)-will manage the effort and provide technical assistance for the selected projects. The aggressive energy efficiency design goals for each project include reasonable returns on investment and must meet other business criteria established in collaboration with the partners.
Each project will receive technical assistance valued at between $200,000 and $1.2 million, depending on the scope and nature of the plan. The following is a list of the selected projects:
* Cascadia Center for Sustainable Design and Construction; The Bullitt Foundation; Seattle, Washington
* Center for Alternative, Renewable Energy, Technology and Training; Clark Atlanta University; Atlanta, Georgia
* The College of Architecture + Planning at the University of Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah
* The Defense Commissary Agency; Lackland Air Force Base; San Antonio, Texas
* Grand Valley State University; Allendale, Michigan
* Hines; Somerset, New Jersey
* The Home Depot; Rocklin, California
* Living City Block; Denver, Colorado
* The LOOP at the University of California; Mesa Lane Partners; Santa Barbara, California
* Long Beach Gas and Oil; Long Beach, California
* Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Cambridge, Massachusetts
* Oregon Built Environment & Sustainable Technologies Center; Portland, Oregon
* Shy Brothers Farm; Westport, Massachusetts
* Sierra Nevada Job Corps; Reno, Nevada
* Smart Grid Development; North Kingstown, Rhode Island
* Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation; Los Angeles, California
* University of California Merced; Merced, California
* University of South Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina
* U.S. Army; Fort Bragg, North Carolina
* U.S. General Services Administration; Portsmouth, New Hampshire
* U.S. General Services Administration; Region 9 locations
* U.S. General Services Administration; San Francisco
* Walmart; two locations to be determined
During the selection process, each building owner or operator submitted plans for designing a new building or upgrading existing buildings and committed to working with National Laboratories and technical experts. Project selection criteria included the likelihood of achieving significant energy savings, the probability of success, widespread deployment potential, contribution to a diverse DOE portfolio of energy-saving solutions, and the organizations' commitment to improving energy efficiency.
Learn more about Commercial Building Partnerships and other projects that are part of DOE's Building Technologies Program.
Related Stories
Giants 400 | Feb 6, 2023
2022 Religious Sector Giants: Top architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the U.S. religious facility construction sector
HOK, Parkhill, KPFF, Shawmut Design and Construction, and Wiss, Janney, Elstner head BD+C's rankings of the nation's largest religious facility sector architecture, engineering, and construction firms, as reported in the 2022 Giants 400 Report.
Giants 400 | Feb 6, 2023
2022 Justice Facility Sector Giants: Top architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the U.S. justice facility/public safety sector
Stantec, DLR Group, Turner Construction, STO Building Group, AECOM, and Dewberry top BD+C's rankings of the nation's largest architecture, engineering, and construction firms for justice facility/public safety buildings work, including correctional facilities, fire stations, jails, police stations, and prisons, as reported in the 2022 Giants 400 Report.
Giants 400 | Feb 6, 2023
2022 Parking Structure Giants: Top architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the U.S. parking structure sector
Choate Parking Consultants, Walker Consultants, Kimley-Horn, PCL, and Balfour Beatty top BD+C's rankings of the nation's largest parking structure sector architecture, engineering, and construction firms, as reported in the 2022 Giants 400 Report.
Market Data | Feb 6, 2023
Nonresidential construction spending dips 0.5% in December 2022
National nonresidential construction spending decreased by 0.5% in December, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data published today by the U.S. Census Bureau. On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, nonresidential spending totaled $943.5 billion for the month.
Giants 400 | Feb 3, 2023
Top Workplace/Interior Fitout Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Firms for 2022
Gensler, Interior Architects, AECOM, STO Building Group, and CBRE top the ranking of the nation's largest workplace/interior fitout architecture, engineering, and construction firms, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2022 Giants 400 Report.
Multifamily Housing | Feb 3, 2023
HUD unveils report to help multifamily housing developers overcome barriers to offsite construction
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, in partnership with the National Institute of Building Sciences and MOD X, has released the Offsite Construction for Housing: Research Roadmap, a strategic report that presents the key knowledge gaps and research needs to overcome the barriers and challenges to offsite construction.
Steel Buildings | Feb 3, 2023
Top 10 structural steel building projects for 2023
A Mies van der Rohe-designed art and architecture school at Indiana University and Morphosis Architects' Orange County Museum of Art in Costa Mesa, Calif., are among 10 projects to win IDEAS² Awards from the American Institute of Steel Construction.
Multifamily Housing | Feb 2, 2023
St. Louis’s first transit-oriented multifamily development opens in historic Skinker DeBaliviere neighborhood
St. Louis’s first major transit-oriented, multi-family development recently opened with 287 apartments available for rent. The $71 million Expo at Forest Park project includes a network of pathways to accommodate many modes of transportation including ride share, the region’s Metro Transit system, a trolley line, pedestrian traffic, automobiles, and bike traffic on the 7-mile St. Vincent Greenway Trail.
Giants 400 | Feb 2, 2023
2022 Convention Center Sector Giants: Top architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the U.S. convention and conference facilities sector
Clark Group, EUA, KPFF, Populous, TVS, and Walter P Moore top BD+C's rankings of the nation's largest convention and conference facilities architecture, engineering, and construction firms, as reported in the 2022 Giants 400 Report.
Multifamily Housing | Feb 1, 2023
Step(1) housing: A new approach to sheltering unhoused people in Redwood City, Calif.
A novel solution to homelessness will open soon in Redwood City, Calif. The compact residential campus employs modular units to create individual sleeping units, most with private bathrooms. The 240 units of housing will be accompanied by shared services and community spaces. Instead of the congregate dorm-style shelters found in many U.S. cities, this approach gives each resident a private, lockable, conditioned sleeping space.
