The path of net zero carbon must be carefully assessed, especially if we are laying out the roadmap for a college campus with historic buildings and aging infrastructure. In this session, we will explain how we developed a net zero carbon campus master plan through discussions between the owner, architect and energy consultants. We will include a case study of three building typologies from the ideal scenario through the factors driving the integrative process to achieve net zero design.

Some of the most efficient building envelope design strategies for reducing operational carbon involve increasing the enclosure assemblies’ thermal performance and requiring highly airtight systems. However, we are only starting to understand the trade-offs between operational and embodied decarbonization. To evaluate the trade-offs, this session will directly compare wall assemblies in a high-performance new construction building and wall assemblies in common existing building typologies.

What will it mean for the grid if we electrify all the things? The attempts to answer this question to date have been rooted in modeling assumptions. We’ll report from our NYSERDA-funded research project measuring the actual electric load profile of today’s electrically-heated high rise multifamily buildings in New York City, providing an empirical dataset that can be used to inform heating and cooling demand forecasting. The use case includes buildings built with electric heating in the 1960s-1980s and three new buildings with heat pumps.