Re-Assessing Green Building Performance: A Post Occupancy Evaluation of 22 GSA Buildings

Abstract

Thank you to these and all others that contributed to this research effort.v Executive SummaryThe General Services Administration (GSA) sustainably designed buildings investigated under this study use less energy and water, cost less to maintain, and have occupants that are satisfied when compared to typical buildings. Additional findings from the building performance analysis include: Aggregate operations costs are 19% lower than industry average  Carbon dioxide equivalent emissions are 34% lower than typical buildings  U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold rated buildings generally perform better when compared to industry baselines. Figure S1 represents the energy, water, and aggregate maintenance for each of the 22 buildings investigated. All of the Energy Star Portfolio Manager values were better than or equal to the industry baseline. Two-thirds of the water use intensity values (WUI, water use per gross square foot) and aggregate maintenance costs were better than the industry baseline. The buildings performing the best in all categories are located in the top right quadrant and have lighter colored circles. Figure S1. Energy performance is better than or equal to the baseline for all of the buildings, water performance and maintenance costs are better for two-thirds of the buildings. This whole building performance measurement study uses the data collected for Assessing Green Building Performance: A Post Occupancy Evaluation of 12 GSA Buildings, includes 10 additional buildings, and includes updated data for the original buildings set, resulting in measured building performance data for twenty-two GSA buildings, located in seven of its national regions ( Figure S2). The intent of the analysis is to inform GSA on how its sustainably designed buildings are performing in comparison to industry and GSA baselines of typically designed buildings for energy, water, maintenance and operations, waste, recycling, occupant commute, and occupant satisfaction. Thirteen of the buildings are LEED-certified, three are LEED-registered, one won the International Facility Managers Award for Sustainable Design and Energy Efficiency, while another five buildings emphasized energy efficiency during design. Figure S2. Twenty-two sustainably designed buildings from seven of the GSA regions are analyzed in this study.As of the winter of 2009, GSA had 40 LEED-certified buildings. Many of these buildings are newly constructed and thus did not have performance data available for participation in the study. Although this study involved a small number of buildings, especially when considering the size of the GSA portfolio, it includes approximately one-third of GSA's LEED-certified buildings. LEED certification levels and Energy Star scores are shown in Table S1. If a building had received an official Energy Star rating, the score is in parentheses in the Certification Level column. The Energy Star Score column has unofficial scores vii calculated from the data provided by the sites. ...

Do LEED-certified buildings save energy? Yes, but…

“…The authors recommended that a comprehensive collection and publication of modelled vs. actual energy use data was needed, allowing for a closing of the gap between design simulation and as-built performance. Fowler & Rauch [2008] analysed multi-dimensional performance data for 12 US federal government commercial buildings, all of these buildings had been designed with energy efficiency goals, and some were LEED certified. All buildings had measured energy use below their modelled baselines, and energy use per floor area was 25-30% lower, on average, than the US commercial building stock.…”

Spatio - Temporal Context Anomaly Detection for Residential Power Consumption

“…According to the U.S. Green Building Council [1], buildings account for 39% of CO2 emission, which most of this emission is caused by electricity consumption. The World Energy Outlook report states that residential and commercial buildings have the most undiscovered energy efficiency possibility [2].…”

Hybrid Ventilation Potential Investigation for Small and Medium Office Building in Different US Climates Under Uncertainties

“…Air conditioning is utilized at the lower floors of the building while upper floors are cross ventilated. Nevertheless, despite its excellent expected performance, the building suffers from large amount of complains ranging from thermal comfort to acoustics [2].…”