DOE Awards $15M in Tech Help to Zero-Net Energy Building Program

By GreenerBuildings Staff
Published September 30, 2008

Architecture & Design

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Energy Use

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WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. Department of Energy will provide $15 million in technical assistance to its Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative and has selected 21 firms to work with two national labs to help create prototypes for the program.

The DOE's announcement, made Friday, follows its formation in August of the National Laboratory Collaborative on Building Technologies, which involves five national labs, and the launch of the Zero-Net Energy Commercial Building Initiative. Together the two are to speed development of marketable solutions that enable zero-net energy commercial buildings.

The firms chosen last week to also participate in the program include Best Buy, JCPenney, John Deere, Macy's, SuperValu, Target, Toyota, Whole Foods Market, CB Richard Ellis, Forest City Enterprises, Hines, InterContinental Hotels Group, the Opus Group, ProLogis, Regency Centers, Ryan Companies US, Simon Property Group, Tishman Speyer, the Westfield Group, Bank of America and the PNC Financial Services Group, the DOE said.

"The Net-Zero Commercial Building Initiative is designed to achieve real, substantive change in commercial buildings," DOE Acting Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy John Mizroch said in a statement. "We must work together with the private sector to shape our practices and define cost-effective solutions."

For the current phase of the program, the DOE requested proposals from its national labs and private sector companies to achieve energy savings of 50 percent above the standard set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers for new commercial building designs and a savings of 30 percent for retrofits to existing buildings.

Each firm proposed having a design and facility management team work with DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to design, build and operate at least one new prototype building and to retrofit an existing building to meet the savings parameters, the DOE said. Its funding provides access to the labs' expertise.