Energy Assets_sm program and the Minnesota design community: trends in co-evolution

Panel: Panel 4: Sustainable Energy Use in Buildings

Authors:
Prasad Vaidya, The Weidt Group
David Eijadi, The Weidt Group
Tom McDougall, The Weidt Group
Jay Johnson, The Weidt Group

Abstract

To create a stronger economy and a cleaner environment for Minnesota, an energy design assistance service was introduced to the community, after piloting at the University of Minnesota, to engineer rapid changes in design and construction practices. The Energy Assets Design Assistance program provides information to owners and designers, early in the design process, combining computer simulation of designs with an implementation-verification process from construction document review through on-site monitoring. For each project, the process evaluates approximately 70 alternative strategies without compromising the original design aesthetics.

Both the program and the community have evolved. Since 1993, the program has been streamlined to match the increased pace of commercial construction and increases in efficiency of construction delivery. The design and client communities have raised their baseline designs to include strategies like daylighting and load responsive operation. The program has addressed 31 million square feet, with an estimated annual savings of $12 millions in operating energy costs and 40 Megawatts compared to an ASHRAE 90.1 1989 base. The Energy Assets process is now standard practice for many firms in the area and the number of buildings that are included in the program has been increasing steadily every year. This poster discusses the co-evolution of Energy Assets and the design community by looking at trends in initial design savings, final savings, incremental costs of selected strategy bundles, as well as feedback from the verification stage, across the first seven years and 128 projects.