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Net-Zero Energy & High Performance Building Presentations, Nov. 10, 2011

October 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Curious about zero net energy and high performance buildings?

Ever wonder how zero net energy is possible?

Interested in net zero/high performance building design and mechanical systems?

Join us November 10th at the Mitsubishi Training Center in Southborough, MA to find out! RSVP HERE.

Our hosts and sponsors Mitsubishi Electric have helped us pull together a fantastic evening.

Registration, networking and hors d’oeuvres begin at 5PM
The talks will begin at 6PM, followed by Q&A

Moderating the evening’s discussion (and also sharing more information about NESEA’s Zero Net Energy Building Award) will be Mike Duclos, a principal and founder of The DEAP Energy Group, LLC, a consultancy providing a wide variety of Deep Energy Retrofit, Zero Net Energy and Passive House related consulting services.

Mike is a HERS Rater with Mass. New Homes with ENERGY STAR program, a Building Science Certified Infrared Thermographer, a Certified Passive House Consultant who certified the second Passive House in Massachusetts, holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from UMass Lowell, and two patents. See more from Mike at the DEAP Energy Group website.

Our speakers are R. Carter Scott, President of Transformations, Inc., a sustainable development and building company in Townsend, MA and William Maclay, founding principal of Maclay Architects in Waitsfield, VT. Both have extensive experience with net zero and high performance building design and the technology that makes net zero possible.

R. Carter Scott will talk about several of his recent zero energy homes built throughout Massachusetts, focusing on how to get to zero on a reasonable budget, including how to get the most out of current incentives for solar electric systems.

Transformations, Inc. specializes in developing and building Zero-Energy communities, building out Zero-Energy communities for other developers, building custom Zero-Energy homes and installing solar electric systems for residential, commercial and building clients. Have a look at his work over on the Transformations, Inc. website!

William (Bill) Maclay will talk about the process for achieving net zero energy in institutional and commercial buildings, sharing his experiences on two of his firm’s recent projects and his approach from design to monitoring will illuminate how to achieve net zero energy and operate at net zero energy.

Maclay Architects is an awards winning architectural practice that specializes in environmental planning, healthy building design, energy conservation and net-zero architecture. Their own offices are solar powered and net-zero, even in central Vermont! Maclay Architects most recent projects can be found on their website.

CEUs are pending through the AIA. AIA accredited sessions are also often eligible for self-reporting for other licenses or certifications.

Here is the essential info:
What: Net-Zero Energy & High Performance Building Presentations, hosted and sponsored by Mitsubishi Electric
 When: November 10th, 2011  - starting 5PM (talks starting at 6PM)
Where: Mitsubishi Training Center, 150 Cordaville Rd., Southborough, MA 01772
How? RSVP HERE or contact 413.774.6051 ext. 20, or rheldt@nesea.org

And yes… it’s free. Get excited.

Filed Under: Events, Green Building, NESEA Members, Renewable Energy, Solar, Sustainable Building, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Reminder: UMass Amherst Lecture Series

October 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

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Great News from the Membership!

September 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Long-time NESEA Members Kuhn Riddle Architects (KRA) based in Amherst, MA  have recently earned LEED Platinum (New Construction) certification, in conjunction with Arrowwood Construction (also of Amherst, MA)  for their work on New England Environmental’s headquarters (NEE.)

According to their press release, a sampling of the building’s energy New England Environmental (Kuhn Riddle Architects)specs include a 39,000 kW photovoltaic array (installed by other long-time NESEA members PV Squared), 12” thick walls (2×6 and 2×4 with a 3” thermal break) filled with 12” cellulose insulation (recycled material), and 24” of cellulose insulation for the ceilings. And for one more additional member shout-out – Solectria Renewables products were used!

While LEED certifications seem to be popping up all over, Andy Grogan of KRA comments,

“[the project] shows how local professionals and an engaged community can create a project that achieves levels of energy efficiency that too often feel out-of-reach for commercial projects without substantial budgets…For this project, the architects (Kuhn Riddle), most consultants, and the contractor/subcontractors were all local.  Many were educated here at UMASS Amherst.  And as the client will tell you, this project did not cost an arm-and-a-leg to construct, but it achieves remarkable levels of energy efficiency.”

Moreover, as John Kuhn (one of the lead architects on the project) noted, the integration of PV into the building was not an afterthought, but rather part of the process all along. Jon Child of PV Squared also mentioned the collaborative design process – for example, that the architects went for a long, rectangular roof  to accommodate the solar panels.

This type of collaboration is a  perfect example of the kinds of conversations that should be happening between builders and designers and renewable energy installers to ensure that all the systems work together seamlessly. Jon Child commented on how essential it is to have the systems in communication with one another, otherwise things fall apart – for example the HVAC needs to be in conversation with the renewables which needs to be in conversation with the overall design. This is, I’m sure, very basic to NESEA member thinking, but it’s always nice to hear about it in practice! I know when I hear about LEED failures, I find myself wondering, “Where was the communication?”

On that note, we complain a great deal within the NESEA community about having LEED buildings without LEED people. But, as it turns out, the people at New England Environmental are LEED people! They have about a year’s worth of data (you can see their PV performance here – as linked to their website), as the construction was complete last year, and they embody how LEED residents  make LEED successful. According to John Kuhn (of KRA), Julie Marcus (of NEE) truly spearheaded the LEED process. As New England Environmental is an environmental consulting firm, they wanted to use their headquarters as a lab for what they do and were instrumental in achieving many of the landscaping site points. Another exciting detail is that this was the first LEED project for John Kuhn and Ann Marshall of KRA and for their contractors. Thanks to their excellent collaboration and support from NEE, this project was successful.

You can view some of the photos and more information at the Kuhn Riddle website here and here, and more detail of the PV installation and array here (also linked above).

Even better, you can visit the building yourself on October 1st, as New England Environmental HQ is part of our Green Buildings Open House event!

Our warmest congratulations (and a high five) to Kuhn Riddle Architects, to everyone who worked on the project (way to go PV Squared!), and to New England Environmental.

Hey Members! Do you also have news to share? Let me know! Highlighting your good work is why we are here. Contact me at 413.774.6051 ext. 20, or rheldt@nesea.org.

…And we’re still accepting host sites for GBOH, so if you have a high-performance or otherwise energy efficient building, contact Michelle Rose at 413.774.6051 ext. 17 or mrose@nesea.org.

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Q & A with Kate Goldstein, NESEA member and Emerging Professional

February 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Kate Goldstein, NESEA member, BE11 Planning Committee Member and current PhD candidate in engineering at MIT

Today we’re talking to Kate Goldstein, a young NESEA member from Providence, RI, and a PhD candidate at MIT, about how she came to be involved with the organization and what NESEA has meant to her professionally and personally. This is part one of a two part conversation with Kate (pictured, right). In part two, she’ll talk about her efforts on behalf of Emerging Professionals at the BuildingEnergy Conference.

As always, we hope these Q & As will provide you with some insights about what you can expect from this year’s conference and the people who are making it happen.

Q: What are you studying at MIT, Kate?
A: Very broadly I study energy in buildings. I am in the Building Technology graduate program which is housed in the architecture department but is essentially a cross between a traditional mechanical engineering and architectural engineering department. Most of my class-work, and the core of my research, is in heat transfer and fluid mechanics.

Q: How did you first come to know about/hear about NESEA?
A: My earliest email concerning NESEA is dated early March of 2008, which was right before the BuildingEnergy Conference during my junior year of college at Brown University. Kurt Teichert introduced me to NESEA, and the NESEA community.

Kurt is a professor at Brown in the Environmental Studies department, and he was the first person to get me passionate about energy in buildings. I am actually quite indebted to him, since when I entered his classroom I wasn’t quite sure where I was going or where I belonged. Kurt always stresses to his students the importance of developing relationships within the field. He strongly encourages networking and grounding oneself in the community around what you do. In my couple of semesters with him at Brown I attended two BuildingEnergy conferences and one Greenbuild conference and met a wide network of local community members in Providence who were really implementing what we talked about it the classroom.

Q: What are you gaining from your association with NESEA?
A: That’s a pretty loaded question and the simplest answer is that NESEA makes me really happy. I am on the planning committee for the BuildingEnergy Conference and I can honestly say that I have not regretted one moment of time I have spent there. I have had the opportunity to meet the best and brightest and funniest and warmest in the field from all over the Northeast. I have been given the great gift of feeling appreciated; whatever I do for NESEA, large or small, I am thanked by a network from NESEA staff to architects, engineers, builders, business people, and so many more. This is one of the most gratifying feelings as my everyday life is fairly stressful, and research is a long road that requires a lot of patience and a lot of tolerance for confusion. I get whatever I give at NESEA. I can’t say that about any other organization for which I’ve worked.

Q: You wrote an article for Northeast Sun recently. What made you decide to write it, and what was it about?
A: I wrote the article because of what I saw personally in the field, and what I heard talked about time and again at NESEA: the great barrier in communication between architects and engineers. At the time, I was living with and dating an architect, and we were thus living the “crossing of the streams”. I thought I could offer an interesting perspective about the importance of giving all you had to making things work. From learning to listen, to learning to be patient, to learning to be able to see the world through someone else’s eyes.

I think the Sun is a great magazine, but I would really love to see more personal essays and articles within it so that the rest of NESEA can be exposed to the amazing people I have the opportunity to work with and talk to every day.

(In part two next Wednesday, Kate talks about Emerging Professionals at the BuildingEnergy Conference.)

Filed Under: Green Building, NESEA, Sustainable Building Tagged With: ,
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