Tim Dwyer, head of the Department of Engineering Systems at London South Bank University, was elected to the board of ASHRAE as director-at-large, representing the large overseas membership. ASHRAE, which was founded in 1894, is an international technical body with 55,000 members. It states its mission as: 'Advancing heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration to serve humanity and promote a sustainable world through research, standards writing, publishing and continuing education.'
GEORGE Bush might not like it, but US buildings will soon be subject to tough new energy targets. Tim Dwyer reports from the ASHRAE Winter Meeting in New York.

US building owners and developers will soon be subject to some of the strictest energy consumption targets in the world, according to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).

Things were not looking good back in December when the US government performed a last minute U-turn and decided not to make mandatory 30% cuts in building energy use part of the Energy Bill signed by President Bush.

However, during January's ASHRAE meeting in New York, the Society promised that these much needed energy savings would happen with or without the support of Federal Government.

'It will happen because we will make it happen,' Society president Kent Peterson said. 'The 30% reduction is being written into the 2010 version of our Standard 90.1 (Energy Standard for Buildings) and this is what the whole industry will work to.

'It would have been a nice gesture for the administration to make, but ultimately it will not stop us setting a more energy efficient baseline for the entire nation,' said Peterson.
Buildings are responsible for 40% of the entire energy used in the US with heating, air conditioning, refrigeration and water heating responsible for between 65% and 75% of that total. On average, each American citizen is responsible for 20tonnes of carbon emissions every year.

'Today's building designs mortgage the energy future of the world,' said Peterson. 'Buildings designed today will have an impact on energy use decades from now and we cannot act soon enough.'

There were several sessions during the meeting dedicated to designing net zero energy buildings and Peterson claimed this was an achievable target by 2020. He pointed out that several US states had unilaterally set their own energy targets.

California, for example, wants all new residential buildings to be net zero energy by 2020 with commercial buildings meeting the same target by 2030.

'We will not be satisfied until we can achieve these aims,' said Peterson. 'We are at a pivotal point in the history of the hvacr industry.'

Some 17 states had already set their own greenhouse gas reduction targets in defiance of Washington and, at the same time as the ASHRAE meeting, a further eight stated they would cap emissions and promote energy efficiency and renewables.

ASHRAE also announced that 14,000 schools throughout the US would receive free copies of the Society's latest Advanced Energy Design Guide. This publication provides detailed information on reducing energy consumption in 'K12' (secondary) school buildings. ASHRAE is producing a series of low energy guides for various types of buildings illustrating how they can reduce energy consumption by 30% and work is about to begin on the next series looking at 50% reductions.

Freely available

The society is also making energy performance data freely available for download from its website including case studies of more than 300 low energy buildings and lifecycle data for 38,000 separate pieces of hvac equipment.

It also published the new version of its 90.1 Standard, which is produced in partnership with the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), during the New York meeting. ASHRAE was keen to point out that this creates a basic minimum performance level and should only be regarded as the starting point on the journey towards net zero energy buildings.

Steve Skalko, vice-chair of the committee charged with updating the standard, said engineers could only achieve a limited amount of savings with individual pieces of heating and cooling equipment.

'At some point you will reach the point of diminishing returns,' he said. 'Then you need to look at a more integrated approach to building design and operation, which involves a more holistic approach and greater teamwork. This is how we will reach our goal of a 30% improvement in energy consumption in the 2010 version of the sandard.'

The 2007 version provides minimum requirements for the energy-efficient design of buildings except low-rise residential buildings. The standard contains changes made through 47 addenda to the 2004 standard.

'One of the best ways to reduce building energy consumption is to reduce, or eliminate, the cooling or heating loads,' said Mick Schwedler, chair of the Standard 90.1 committee. 'By doing so, the systems installed in buildings become smaller and use less energy. For example, on a hot, sunny day, having more insulation in the roof and better glass on the southern and western façades of a building reduce the air conditioning necessary as well as its resultant energy use.'

The New York meeting was attended by almost 3,000 delegates and the AHR Expo, which was held at the same time in the nearby Javits Convention Centre, had more than 1,800 exhibitors occupying over 363,000ft2 of space.

These included 385 companies representing 39 countries outside the US.