Designing Low-Energy Buiildings with ENERGY-10

Low-energy building design works best through a process that starts with energy calculations in predesign that identify the best energy-saving opportunities and continues with follow-up calculations as the design proceeds. An example of this process was the design of the Environmental Technology Center for the Sonoma State University in California. The ENERGY-10 design-tool computer programproved to be ideally suited for the purpose, providing critical information quickly and at an early stage. Starting with a goal to reduce energy consumption by 80% below the regulated maximum, ENERGY-10 identified strategies that approached the goal even before design was initiated. This paper tracks the use of ENERGY-10 through the design process. At the end of the schematic design, ENERGY-10calculations confirmed that the goal of 16800 Btu/ft2 had been attained--an extremely low-energy building. Design drawings and simulation results are presented. Construction will start in 1998.