Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Streamlining Green Building Design: Developing the Sustainable Design Suite
EPA Contract Number: EPD06078Title: Streamlining Green Building Design: Developing the Sustainable Design Suite
Investigators: Kennedy, John F.
Small Business: Green Building Studio, Inc.
EPA Contact: Richards, April
Phase: II
Project Period: April 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007
Project Amount: $225,000
RFA: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) - Phase II (2006) Recipients Lists
Research Category: Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , SBIR - Green Buildings , Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
Description:
The purpose of this project was to enhance the Green Building Studio Web service, which already provides immediate whole building energy analysis from today’s building information modeling (BIM) tools, with additional analysis features to streamline designing sustainable buildings. Results from the Phase I project, which laid out the feasibility of various features for analyzing the water use in building, the eligibility of the LEED daylight credit, detailed weather data, the renewable energy potential at the building site, the natural ventilation potential of the building, and the carbon emissions of the building, were to be incorporated into the Web service.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
The majority of the features determined to be feasible in Phase I of this project were incorporated into the Web service. There were some features such as the building optimization and advisor that were not fully implemented due to budgetary constraints. We have found significant interest in the 55,000+ locations of highly detailed weather data that is being provided through the service. Our users are amazed that that they can get so many analyses to be conducted in such a short period of time. In approximately the same amount of time that the original Web service took to get a result, about 1-2 minutes, they get additional results that guide their design decisions regarding the water use and savings potential in their building, the renewable energy potential using photovoltaic panels and wind energy, their building’s LEED daylight credit eligibility, their U.S. EPA ENERGY STAR score, the potential savings associated with natural ventilation, and their building design’s potential for achieving carbon neutral operation. Literally in less than a day, our users can determine what they need to do to get their building to a carbon neutral state and if they can provide for all their non-potable water needs using the enhanced Green Building Studio Web service.
Conclusions:
This project has taken a significant leap forward in enhancing the Green Building Studio Web service with features that are designed to assist in and accelerate the critical industry transition to sustainable building designs. Designing buildings that use very little energy and water are in critical need throughout the world. Further, the global climate crisis is causing government bodies to rapidly modify regulations to begin requiring buildings that are reducing their fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions by 50 percent or even becoming carbon neutral. The Web service is designed to address that need as well.
Even with all these enhanced features there are still areas that need additional work. Weather data are still too coarse of a resolution to satisfy the growing need for local weather data at the building site level. We plan to continue to explore developing detailed weather data. Further, water analysis data are poorly lacking and understood by the practitioner.
On the commercialization front, even with the successful implementation of the Owens Corning Commercial Energy Calculator, Green Building Studio’s assets, including the features developed in this project, are being acquired by Autodesk, which is a huge commercial success. Autodesk is the world’s largest CAD vendor and the perfect vehicle to accelerate the adoption of the Green Building Studio Web service throughout the United States and the world. Both firms are very excited about this acquisition and understand the significant potential it has for carbon neutral design.
Lastly, on Earth Day, April 22, 2008, Microsoft announced that the Green Building Studio Web service was awarded their Ingenuity Point Award and will promote the solution globally and produce a $25,000 to $50,000 video highlighting the solution.
Supplemental Keywords:
small business, SBIR, EPA, green building, pollution prevention, green building design, green building components, design optimization, sustainable environment, energy conservation, energy efficiency, environmental conscious construction, environmentally conscious design, waste reduction, treatment/control, sustainable industry/business, scientific discipline, RFA, technology for sustainable environment, sustainable environment, technology, energy, environmental engineering, computer generated alternatives, pollution prevention design, environmental conscious construction, green building design requirements, clean technologies, green design, sustainable development, climate control and illumination building, ecological design, architecture, energy efficiency, water conservation,, RFA, Scientific Discipline, TREATMENT/CONTROL, Sustainable Industry/Business, POLLUTION PREVENTION, Sustainable Environment, Energy, Technology, Technology for Sustainable Environment, Environmental Engineering, energy conservation, green building design requirements, clean technologies, green design, sustainable development, waste reduction, climate control and illumination building, ecological design, environmental conscious construction, green building design, computer generated alternatives, energy efficiency, pollution prevention design, water conservation, architecture, sustainable design suiteSBIR Phase I:
Streamlining Green Building Design: Developing Requirements for the Sustainable Design Suite | Final ReportThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.