Assisting community partnerships to implement energy-efficient technologies in residential, commercial, and industrial buildings is a primary focus of our efforts. This assistance is provided mainly through involvement in programs of the U.S. Department of Energy like Rebuild America and Partnerships for Affordable Housing.
Links to brief summaries of some of these partnerships, as well as summaries of other project activities are provided below.
Partnerships
- Atlanta Housing Authority
- Chicago Housing Authority
- City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Housing Authority
- Construction Engineering Research Laboratory
- Habitat for Humanity
- Metro Atlanta Task Force
- National Association for Housing Rehabilitation Officials
- Texas State Energy Conservation Office
- U.S. Air Force and Army
- Utah State Energy Office
- Richmond Better Housing Coalition
- Knoxville Affordable Housing Providers
Activities
The Building Design and Performance Program helped establish a partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA). The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between DOE and AHA on December 12, 1995, signified the first partnership agreement formed under DOE's Partnerships for Affordable Housing Program. The primary objective of the Atlanta partnership is to reduce utility costs by 30% in half of AHA's public housing units by the year 2000. AHA paid utility bills in 1994 totaling nearly $19 million to provide electricity, natural gas, water, and waste water services to residents occupying about 14,750 units of public housing.
AHA is actively pursuing energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs) as one means of addressing energy and water deficiencies in their housing units. AHA has established an ESPC to perform capital improvements to their high-rise apartment buildings. The selected contractor has audited the buildings and documented their findings. They are now in the process of writing a proposal for specific capital improvements. AHA is putting into place two additional ESPCs focusing on their townhouse developments and investigating the use of a DOE Performance Contract to purchase energy efficient refrigerators. AHA received training on ESPCs from a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development workshop organized by the Building Design and Performance Program and also used the Energy Performance Contracting for Public and Indian Housing - A Guide for Participants written by the program.
The program performed housing unit energy audits in a sample of homes that identified several maintenance issues significantly impacting energy consumption. AHA temporarily halted billing tenants in several housing developments for gas costs in excess of their monthly allotments until air distribution system leaks and heating system operation problems that were the likely cause of excess use were corrected.
AHA provided additional training for their maintenance staff on gas-fired heating systems and appliances to address some of the maintenance issues found by the group in the energy audits, and is partnering with Georgia Power to provide training to AHA staff on electrical and plumbing maintenance issues. Improved shutdown procedures for vacant units are being implemented at some housing developments to eliminate energy use until new tenants move in.
The program has participated in several engineering reviews of architectural and engineering redevelopment designs for several housing developments to ensure that energy efficiency was being adequately addressed.
DOE has created a partnership with the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) to reduce energy and water use by 30% in half of all CHA housing units by the year 2000. Through this partnership, CHA also expects to use energy efficiency improvements as solutions to other critical associated problems.
For instance, CHA has identified lead hazard abatement and job creation as major concerns of its residents. To address these concerns, CHA is applying a low-cost composite wall system designed jointly by the Building Design and Performance Program and Argonne National Laboratory that increases energy efficiency while encasing lead hazards. Since the wall system requires little carpentry work, it can be installed with minimal training--thus potentially creating job opportunities for CHA residents.
The wall system has been tested at CHA headquarters and units at the Brooks Homes, a public housing development just southeast of Chicago's Loop, are currently undergoing modernization with the system before the next heating season.
City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Housing Authority
DOE, through its Seattle Regional Support Office and Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development, has developed a partnership with the City of Los Angeles to incorporate resource efficiency in the planning, construction, and maintenance of its community. The Building Design and Performance Program and DOE has teamed with and is supporting Global Green USA (GG USA) in its two-year Los Angeles Pilot Project to create a resource-efficient, sustainable community. The goal of the pilot project is to establish several affordable projects as standards, and then create a replicable model to share with other communities.
As a first step in the pilot project, GG USA organized and a Building Design and Performance Program member participated in an interactive, participatory design charrette on April 18-19, 1997, for four affordable housing developers in the community, including the Los Angeles Housing Authority and a local Habitat for Humanity affiliate. A report of the proceedings, recommendations, and plans have been published. GG USA and the program will continue to work with the City of Los Angeles and affordable housing providers in the community over the next two years to implement the concepts and ideas initiated from the design charrette.
Construction Engineering Research Laboratory
The Building Design and Performance Program has written a Design Guide for Military Family Housing: Energy-Efficient Revitalization and New Construction for the U.S. Air Force and Army for the architectural and engineering (A&E) firms developing detailed revitalization and new construction designs and specifications. We worked with the U.S. Army's Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) to computerize the audit forms, and calculation equations and worksheets used in this guide as a first step in standardizing the energy audit and analysis approaches applied to Army housing.
DOE's Partnerships for Affordable Housing has established a broad reaching partnership with Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) to support their Environmental Initiative. This partnership is intended to institutionalize the process for making Habitat for Humanity homes built in the United States by its more than 1,300 local affiliates more energy and resource efficient, and to develop linkages that will foster improved efficiency in homes built by other housing providers.
The Building Design and Performance Program is coordinating the support being provided by several research organizations through DOE's Affordable Housing Program as well as other DOE Programs. The program is also working directly with HFHI and local Habitat affiliates on several specific projects.
The program worked with Southface Energy Institute in a number of ways to ensure that the 52 houses built during the 1997 Jimmy Carter Work Project during the week of June 15-21, 1997, were energy efficient: an energy-efficient checklist was developed and printed on a poster for use at each house, installation guidelines for heating and cooling equipment and air distribution systems were developed, and program members served as Green Team members or energy coordinators on-site during the week of construction to ensure that energy-efficient measures were properly installed and to educate house leaders, volunteers, and homeowners. Experiences and lessons learned from the work project are summarized in a separate paper. The program plans on providing even more extensive support as needed for the 1998 Work Project.
The program is providing training to Habitat for Humanity affiliates and other affordable housing providers on energy efficiency issues and construction techniques directly and through the Virginia Housing and Environment Network.
The program is overseeing and participating in the development of a series of technical bulletins for Habitat architects, building supervisors, and volunteers that address how to build houses in an energy- and resource-efficient manner. These materials and associated specifications will form the foundation for revising Habitat construction drawings and developing a Resource Guide to complement the Habitat for Humanity Planbook and provide specific application guidance on how to incorporate energy efficiency into standard Habitat house designs.
The program has also provided design services to Habitat affiliates as requested. In particular, the program has reviewed construction plans for the Washington D.C. Habitat Affiliate for their "House that Congress Built," and for GreenHome for their showcase house being built in the Washington D.C. area. Assistance has included reviewing construction drawings and using computer simulation tools to recommend insulation and other efficiency levels, size heating and cooling equipment, and identify energy-efficiency related design deficiencies and solutions.
The Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless is the central coordinating agency in Atlanta for providing services to homeless people. The Task Force is engaged in a six million dollar restoration of a 100,000 square foot downtown building which will serve as its headquarters, providing a counseling center, 170 bed shelter, cafeteria, and medical clinic for adults and children. The Building Design and Performance Program is working with Southface Energy Institute to provide technical assistance to the Task Force on energy issues during the design process. The goal of the technical assistance is to obtain a minimum 30% improvement in building performance over that of conventional rehabilitation practices with little or no increase in first cost of construction.
National Association for Housing Rehabilitation Officials
DOE and the Building Design and Performance Program has established a partnership with the National Association for Housing Rehabilitation Officials (NAHRO) through the Partnerships for Affordable Housing Program to raise awareness of the benefits of energy efficiency for housing affordability and to define technical and managerial assistance needs of local housing authorities and community development agencies throughout the nation. NAHRO has a membership of over 9,500 housing and community development professionals.
Texas State Energy Conservation Office
The Building Design and Performance Program is working with the Texas State Energy Conservation Office (TSECO) to develop a partnership between TSECO and public housing authorities (PHAs) in the state to increase the energy efficiency in multi-family buildings operated by the PHAs. The program worked with TSECO to hold a workshop on May 8, 1997, to understand PHAs' needs and desires and to discuss possible ways the state could work with the PHAs. The need for information on performance contracting and assistance on building audits were two needs identified from the workshop. We are currently working with TSECO to organize and start-up one or two actual programs.
The Military branches of the United States are required by Congress to reduce their energy consumption by 30% relative to their usage in 1985 by the year 2005. The Building Design and Performance Program is helping the Air Force and the Army develop methods for improving the energy efficiency of military family housing. Our approach started with performing energy inspections of family housing at several Air Force bases and Army forts to gauge the current level of energy efficiency in family housing and to identify how efficiency could be improved. In spite of previous revitalization activities to improve housing quality and energy conservation efforts, we found that a significant potential remains for energy savings in military family housing.
We have written a Design Guide for Military Family Housing: Energy-Efficient Revitalization and New Construction for the architectural and engineering (A&E) firms developing detailed revitalization and new construction designs and specifications. We worked with the U.S. Army's Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) to computerize the audit forms, calculation equations, and worksheets used in this guide.
We have also written a Retrofit Guide for Military Family Housing: Energy-Efficient Weatherization and Improvements to help the services establish an energy retrofit program for housing that are not scheduled for major revitalization.
We have also completed a Housing Energy-Efficiency Inspection: Field Manual to instruct base personnel on how to conduct energy inspections during revitalization or retrofit to ensure that energy efficiency requirements are being followed.
Utah State University with the Utah State Energy Office is planning to construct in 1998 the Utah House 200 at the new Utah Botanical Center in Davis County. The House will be a set of two model homes (one for the move up buyer and one for the first time home buyer) and grounds that will showcase healthy living environments, efficient use of resources, the principles of sustainability, and affordable housing. The intent of the Utah House 2000 is to showcase readily available construction methods and products and to educate people about design strategies, landscaping, and energy-efficient technologies for living in Utah. The Utah House 2000 will be open to the public for tours (especially during the 2002 Winter Olympics), individual consultations, classes, and will serve as an information resource center.
The Building Design and Performance Program will be working with the architect, the architectural team (landscape architect, electrical engineer, and mechanical engineer), and representatives from the Utah House during an interactive design process. The program will provide technical assistance on a variety of energy and sustainable issues, including energy-efficient materials and alternative building technologies that help people save energy and utilize renewable energy sources.
Richmond Better Housing Coalition
The Richmond Better Housing Coalition is performing an $18.5 million renovation of the Park Lee multi-family housing development in Richmond, Virginia. The Building Design and Performance Program is working with the Virginia Housing and Environment Network to improve the energy- and resource-efficiency aspects of the design, allowing Park Lee to serve as a model for other affordable housing developments in the Richmond area.
The improved design exceeds 1995 Model Energy Code requirements and will allow the housing units to meet 5-Star ratings as defined by DOE's and EPA's Energy Star Program. Enhancements from the original design include improved wall insulation through the installation of insulated sheathing, incorporation of an insulated crawlspace approach rather than insulating the floor, and detailed air sealing requirements.
Follow-on activity will include training of subcontractors and inspectors on the energy-efficient design intent and performing quality reviews on the first units constructed.
Knoxville Affordable Housing Providers
The Building Design and Performance Program is developing a new partnership with a group of providers of affordable housing in Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville's Community Development Corporation was recently awarded a $20 million hope VI award from HUD to replace existing public housing with new, single-family, detached housing and to revitalize the surrounding neighborhood by constructing in-fill housing on vacant and dilapidated lots. This project offers an opportunity to demonstrate how energy-efficient and sustainable design features can be incorporated into Hope VI projects.
There are over a dozen other separate organizations in Knoxville that focus on financing, constructing, and/or providing affordable housing. These organizations oversee a large portion of the affordable housing in the area and together represent the heart and soul of affordable housing in Knoxville. A partnership with these organizations will enable us to showcase methods and materials for bringing energy-efficient concepts to such diverse but important groups.
The Building Design and Performance Program is investigating an innovative energy efficiency measure that can reduce air conditioning and heating costs in homes equipped with heat pumps and air conditioners. The measure involves replacing an existing oversized, inefficient compressor in an air conditioner or heat pump with a smaller, more efficient compressor.
Many currently installed residential central air conditioners and heat pumps are oversized for a variety of reasons. Heating, ventilating, and air conditioning contractors often install oversized units. Retrofit measures performed to improve the house envelope and distribution system efficiency also contribute to unit oversizing, as they reduce house heating and cooling loads. Proper sizing of an air conditioner or heat pump allows more efficient operation due to decreased cycling losses. It also provides a more comfortable environment than a highly oversized unit due to improved humidity control during the summer. In the retrofit being studied, the benefits from reduced cycling losses are realized by installing a smaller compressor--one that is sized to match the home's heating and cooling loads.
Older air conditioners and heat pumps are much more inefficient than models that can be purchased today. Efficiency improvements in new units have been achieved by using high-efficiency compressors and designing systems that use heat exchangers with more effective heat transfer area. In the studied retrofit, the new compressors are high-efficiency models, and use of a smaller compressor effectively oversizes the existing heat exchangers which increases their effectiveness.
We worked with Bristol Manufacturing Company to measure in a set of environmental chambers the cooling performance of a 15-year-old, single-packaged heat pump before and after retrofit. Modeling estimated that a retrofit involving a state-of-the-art efficient compressor with about 30% less capacity than the original compressor would increase the system's energy efficiency ratio (EER) at 95°F by 30%, increase the seasonal energy efficiency ratio (SEER) by 34%, and reduce power demand by 39%. These results are presented in detail in an ASHRAE paper.
Work is continuing on this project by estimating the national impact the retrofit may have and performing field tests to determine seasonal energy savings.
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