Date: 2024-05-13 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00005943
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
UPGRADING TO NE ZERO
What is the 'Net-Zero: The Actual Net Sum of Zero?'
UPGRADING TO NE ZERO
What is the 'Net-Zero: The Actual Net Sum of Zero?'
Original article: http://blog.greenwizard.com/wp/2013/11/net-zero-the-actual-net-sum-of-zero/
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
by PAUL SPARROW, VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES, GREENWIZARD on NOVEMBER 6, 2013 · in ARCHITECTURE
December 12, 2012 was a most unique date in that it was the last of its kind, at least for the near future. 12-12-12 was a day when three numerals in a date were all the same. We won’t see its kind again for another 88 years. Noteworthy? Perhaps. Groundbreaking? Not so much. It seems that 12-12-12 dawned with a much more highly anticipated and exciting revelation. The international real estate firm, Hines, announced their plans to build the largest net-zero energy commercial office building in the United States. The 13-story, 415,000 square foot La Jolla building was announced with completion projected in 2014.
According to Hines’ press release, “The building will be fully leased and occupied by LPL Financial, LLC.” LPL Financial President and COO Robert Moore was quoted saying, “Our involvement in the most ambitious net-zero office project to date in the U.S. is an indication of the strength of LPL Financial’s commitment to sustainability and will hopefully serve as an inspiration for the global financial industry to follow.”
A “new” day dawns?
Hines’ announcement was greeted with high enthusiasm across the industry, particularly in real estate development circles. In the weeks following Hines’ company press release, which proudly yodeled that the LPL Financial at La Jolla Commons project would produce more energy on site than it used, a kaleidoscope of sighs and groans were released with barbed clarity. Seriously? Unhappiness sprung from such an ambitious project?
This is the future, right? This is what we’re all working towards—a carbon neutral world filled with net-zero buildings in all shapes and sizes. One would assume the civilized world would embrace Hines’ La Jolla project with open arms. But, alas, everyone didn’t.
Who’s not drinking the Kool-Aid?
In a bizarre modern day William Tell sideshow, Hines took a big bite out of the net-zero apple while critics loosed an array of pointy arrows at said target. Just weeks after the project announcement Lloyd Alter, managing editor of TreeHugger, let fly a sharp volley in his January 3, 2013 article titled, “Is Hines La Jolla Project America’s Largest Net-Zero Energy Office Building? Yes, And That’s A Problem.”
“The real question is, what do they mean by net zero?” wrote Alter. “A common definition is: ‘Producing as much energy on an annual basis as one consumes on site, usually with renewable energy sources.’ One usually achieves this by reducing demand for energy and changing the supply to renewable resources. What have they done here?”
Hines President and CEO Jeff Hines stated in the company’s 12-12-12 press release, “First and foremost, we designed a Class A, commercially viable property, then we devised strategies to make it net-zero.” Go Jeff, go.
Not so fast, my friend.
Clearly Alter is less than complimentary of the project. “There is really nothing special on the demand side, it’s just a slightly better than normal modern Class A building.” He further states, “The building uses a TreeHugger favorite, fuel cells from Bloom Energy, to generate the electricity needed to run the building…Bloom boxes promise lower energy costs and clean power. They run on natural gas, which is cheap and abundant these days thanks to fracking. That’s not greener than green.”
Gary Holtzer, a Senior Managing Director and Hines’ Global Sustainability Officer, was enthusiastically quoted among others in the December press release, “Our net-zero project at La Jolla Commons gives us a great foundation for furthering the use of carbon-neutral technologies and fuels.” Alter discerns a different hue, and he pulled no punches from the nose of Hines. But wouldn’t it be fairer to criticize our current day net-zero classification? Isn’t Hines simply working within the parameters of net-zero qualification?
Alter doesn’t see it that way. “Burning gas generated from carbon-neutral sources makes it net-zero-energy? Apparently yes,” he wrote. “Reading the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Net Zero Energy Buildings: A Classification System Based on Renewable Energy Supply Options, one finds that there is a hierarchy of categories and options, the last being purchasing offsite renewable resources.”
NREL/Public Domain
“They have built a slightly better than standard building that runs on natural gas (because that’s what’s coming through the pipe) and basically offset this by buying the equivalent amount of so-called renewable methane. The actual building is no more Net-Zero Energy than my big drafty old house.”
Alter closed his report on the Hines La Jolla Project with this dramatic death stroke. “Calling it Net-Zero energy is a joke.”
Is Hines, as Alter seems to purport, something akin to a bad guy here?
Peter Kelly-Detwiler interviewed Hines’s Holtzer for a January 2013 feature published at Forbes.com, “With Hines La Jolla Project, Net Zero Comes to Larger Office Buildings.” Holtzer stated, “We set out a year ago to take a Class A building and see what it would take to make it net zero. This is where the industry is going and we want to lead by example.”
Can’t we all just get along?
Hines has had their fair share of challenges in the project, critics not withstanding. “The biggest challenge was not technical, but institutional,” states Kelly-Detwiler. “In particular, Hines noted that they underestimated the complexity involved in working through the California state subsidies, with the local utility rules, and dealing with issues related to biogas supply for the fuel cells.”
Ahhh, the fuel cells.
States Kelly-Detwiler, “It’s one thing to design a new building with interactive and state-of-the-art technologies to be net zero. But the existing building stock, far outweighs the relatively small number of new buildings to be constructed in the coming years. If Hines can apply lessons and technologies from La Jolla to its existing buildings, others may be inspired to follow suit. In this case, the net zero movement would go from being an inspiring rarity to a trend worth watching.”
We can only hope so. And yet, one can’t deny the core assertions of Lloyd Alter. So for now, the elephant in the room remains and that equates to another unique set of recurring numbers—Zero-Zero-Zero.