Dive Brief:
- ASHRAE will work with U.S. energy service company Noresco to develop a technical guide that seeks to help owners and operators of existing commercial and multifamily buildings cut greenhouse gas emissions.
- The guide offers guidance, case studies and key takeaways that will help building owners and operators “establish robust plans” and “feel confident” in their decarbonization endeavors, according to David Heinzerling, principal at Taylor Engineers and chair of the guide’s working group. Heinzerling noted that the crux of the guide is to provide a process that “makes sense for every situation” and can lead to the selection of appropriate decarbonization strategies for each specific project.
- “For large buildings in particular, decarbonization is not always straightforward,” Heinzerling told Facilities Dive. Heinzerling noted that the guidance will be valuable for building operators to consider different types of equipment, potential differences in control sequences of operation, adjustments to maintenance routines and the impact of decarbonization retrofits on utility bills. In a Feb. 13 news release, Noresco noted that the guide is expected to cover building electrical loads, HVAC systems, distributed energy generation and hot water systems.
Dive Insight:
With many major cities requiring performance-based carbon emissions reductions in their existing building stock and imposing penalties for noncompliance, building owners and operators are increasingly recognizing the environmental and financial imperatives of building decarbonization. However, many are still grappling with the challenge of determining where and how to begin these plans.
The new Building Decarbonization Retrofits for Commercial and Multifamily Buildings Guide will expand on ASHRAE’s position document on Building Decarbonization, released in 2022, to recommend strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in buildings. The document predicts that by 2040, existing buildings will account for up to two-thirds of the global building stock. It sets goals to ensure that the global built environment halves its 2015 GHG emissions by 2030, including net-zero GHG emissions in all new buildings and widespread energy-efficiency retrofits in existing assets.
The forthcoming guide, slated for publication in May, will address how these goals can be achieved, Noresco said in the release. “The guide will be actionable in its presentation and strategies, thereby helping ASHRAE further the goals set out in its position document,” Michael Goodrum, technical director of existing buildings policy at Noresco and primary author and principal investigator of the guide, told Facilities Dive.
The guide presents strategies relevant to different climates and building types. It is organized such that building operators, owners and designers can dive into specific issues they are interested in without having to read the whole guide, Heinzerling noted.
“For example, an owner may decide they want to focus mostly on the financial aspects of decarbonization and go straight to that section. Or an operator may be curious about how certain strategies could impact electrical service sizing or utility bills and can find that strategy or relevant case study directly,” Heinzerling explained.
Heinzerling said ASHRAE evaluated Noresco based on its prior experience with decarbonization projects and selected the company from among five qualified bidders for a request-for-proposal to assist in the guide’s development.
“Measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions are the ultimate decarbonization actions,” said Goodrum. “New decarbonization goals set by governments and industries call for us to communicate even more closely with all stakeholders whom the built environment affects — and who affect the performance of the built environment.”
Noresco, a part of Carrier Global Corporation, says it has previously partnered with ASHRAE to author technical documents, including several iterations of ASHRAE’s 90.1 and 62.1 user manuals. Last year, the company joined forces with a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency laboratory to implement a decarbonization program through an energy savings performance contract that covers $130 million of energy efficiency improvements, critical infrastructure upgrades and operations and maintenance services.
