SPONSORED BY BR+A CONSULTING ENGINEERS: Communities, campuses and cities are striving to build a carbon neutral future.  Zero Net Energy buildings will play a key role in achieving this goal. Many people are familiar with small ZNE buildings, but we need to rapidly scale up to Medium, Large, and XL. Join us as we demonstrate examples of this ZNE scale-shift, including detailed examples from 4,000 to 400,000 square feet.

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This session will discuss the process of transforming an old masonry building in Newton MA into a PHIUS-certified net-zero office space and educational center for high-performance design and construction. The construction process will be discussed and Passive House features of the building will be described as will challenges and lessons learned from the process.

The invention of the blower door was an important step in minimizing thermal losses from buildings. By depressurizing the envelope and using tracer smoke, we can find the air leaks and seal them. A new method has emerged that seals air leaks using an aerosolized acrylic caulking and pressurization, sealing even hidden leaks. Join us in a discussion about the advantages of both methods, best practices, and real world examples.

This is a tale of two companies on a quest to account for the embodied carbon impacts of energy retrofits, and to incorporate these impacts into the project planning process. How do we decide when embodied emissions are worth longer-term emission reductions? What are the pros and cons of choosing lower embodied carbon materials compared to higher emission ones?

We will present new analyses showing how commercial facilities in Massachusetts (and beyond) can maximize energy savings and resiliency by installing solar + electric storage systems. We will review and explain how to take advantage of a suite of incentives and revenue streams including the SMART solar incentive with storage adder, the new energy efficiency performance incentive, the federal investment tax credit (ITC), demand charge management, and net metering.

The Passive House concept continues to scale up in North America, in both number and size of projects. Passive House buildings benefit from airtight construction, as minimizing winter infiltration directly lowers energy consumed when heating the building. Airtight construction also hinders airborne moisture from escaping through the building skin, thus requiring new thinking about the requirements of the ventilation system.

Transforming existing buildings is especially challenging with public-owned affordable housing buildings that rely on public funding and grants and must continue to house residents during major renovations. This session will share the successes of the Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA), which in 2014 vowed to reduce energy intensity by 20% in a decade.  CHA met that goal in only four years, and continues to improve their portfolio. Speakers will discuss incentives, strategies, priorities and certifications integrated into the design and planning process.

This small New Hampshire town was faced with a host of issues with its 35,000 sf school. Key areas included IAQ problems, lack of temperature control, obsolete HVAC equipment, and high energy bills. A small group of volunteers proposed a radical solution: take one classroom as a prototype, disconnect it from the central plant, super-insulate it, and install a cold climate heat pump and an ERV.

The purpose of this session is three-fold: To educate attendees about what embodied carbon is and how it's different from operational carbon. To discuss why reducing it is significant for global warming mitigation. And third, to describe the programs and policies local governments are considering to spur embodied carbon reduction. You will hear from experts about best practices to measure and reduce embodied carbon in common construction materials. You will learn how municipalities like Seattle and others are using these resources to implement internal and city-wide initiatives.