Renewable Energy

creating a net energy-producing building

Funding for renewable energy technologies was made possible through support from the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust.
Modeling WHRC energy use

Fig. 1

Only after having undertaken significant conservation measures does it become reasonable to consider the exclusive use of renewable energy for a building's power and climate control. We worked closely with our architects and engineers to determine what our energy needs would be in an optimized building setup. Using Energy-10 software published by the Passive Solar Industries Council (PSIC, 1996), we modeled the energy demand of the new facility against a Base Case predicated upon ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-1989 - Energy Efficient Design of New Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Building (Figure 1).

We anticipated the energy demand on our site to be approximately 90,000 kWh annually (approx. 16,000 BTU/ft2/yr) which is 19% of the energy demand for the ASHRAE/IES Base Case.

Installing Photovoltaics  

Installing PVs at the Ordway Campus

     

Based on these calculations, and working with the firm Northern Power Systems, we have installed a 26.4kWp (kilowatts peak) rooftop photovoltaic power system estimated to provide approximately 37,000 kWh annually, or 41 percent of the building's power needs, including the power to operate the ground source heat pumps. Funded in part by the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust, the 88 ASE-300-DGF50 modules are manufactured by Massachusetts-based ASE Americas. Each module has an area of 26 square feet and a rated power of 300 Watts.

We have received additional funding from the Renewable Energy Trust to pursue permitting for a 100kW wind turbine which would make up the additional energy deficit for our building operation, allowing us to become a net exporter of energy on an annual basis.