The
EM
ENERGY MANAGER
ENERGY STAT: IF REGULATED COAL POWER PLANTS ACHIEVE A 6% REDUCTION IN FUEL
USE, THEY WOULD SAVE ABOUT 1 QUADRILLION BTU PER YEAR AND REDUCE ANNUAL
CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS BY NEARLY 100 MILLION METRIC TONS, THE EPA ESTIMATES.
Ten years after the first LEED
certification was issued, there’s
no doubt that sustainability has
become entrenched in building design.
But questions linger about how much
green initiatives impact energy efficiency.
An analysis coordinated by the ACEEE
examines credits in energy efficiency
across successive LEED for New Construction (NC) rating versions. The findings confirm that the latest NC designs
are 29% more efficient than ASHRAE
90.1-2007.
The LEED NC v2.1, v2.2, and v2009
rating systems account for 9,026 certi-
LEED Drives Energy Efficiency
➙fied commercial projects totaling over 851 million square feet in the U.S. Each of
these included the Energy & Atmosphere
category, which awards points on a sliding
scale by the percentage documented efficiency improvements over the ASHRAE
90.1 baseline.
Results showed credit achievement in
the Energy & Atmosphere category has
increased over time – the mean LEED EA
category credit achievement in 2006-2008
was 6. 4 points and increased to 7.0 points
during 2009-2011.
LEED NC v2009 projects demonstrate
an average improvement of 29% over 90.1-
2007, which is a significant advance in
design efficiency compared to the roughly
20% savings seen in NC v2.2 using the
90.1-2004 standard.
The 2009 version now requires
projects to demonstrate a 10% design
improvement over the newly updated
ASHRAE 90.1-2007 before achieving points for energy efficiency under
the EAc1 credit, which will spurn even
greater efficiency gains.
Learn more in The LEED Plaque Un-
packed: What a Decade of LEED Project
Data Reveals about the Green Building
Market at accee.org.
hold in the next five years. Building automation was the most cited choice, with efficient lighting and data center improvements coming in closely behind.
The most common energy management
practices that organizations adopted in
the past year were tracking and analyzing
data and regular energy audits, with 29%
reporting at least one being performed in
the past 12 months. Also significant was
the 41% of respondents who mentioned
tax credits or incentives as the policy that
has the most impact on improving their
organization’s efficiency portfolio.
According to a recent survey of
leaders in energy efficiency from
business and government sectors
conducted by Schneider Electric, up to
56% of decision-makers expect to spend
more on energy efficiency than they did
last year. While 63% of respondents had
invested in energy efficiency projects,
64% reported that real cost savings was
the driving force behind the investment
decision.
The survey also asked for respondents’
thoughts on the most popular energy
management approaches that will take
Energy Efficiency Investment Projected to Increase
➙
A
CEEE
INDUSTRY LEADERS plan to spend more on efficiency in the future, including more data tracking
and energy audits.
A
nn
u
al
Gr
os
s
SF
Certi
fi
ed
%
Bette
rt
h
a
n
AS
HR
A
E9
0.1
- 2
0
07
Certified Silver Gold Platinum Avg E;ciency LEED NC 2009
2010 2011 2012 2013
80,000,000
70,000,000
60,000,000
50,000,000
40,000,000
30,000,000
20,000,000
10,000,000
-
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
ENERGY EFFICIENCY VS. BUILDING CODE with LEED NC V2009 CERTIFICATION
