1. Self-Sustaining Buildings
Resilience – Lethality – Innovation
Energy Summit Huntsville, Alabama
Richard Gilles, REM Fort Devens RFTA
Sain Engineering Associates
Welcome
I'm Rick Gilles – REM at Fort Devens RFTA
This quick talk is about
Why self sustaining buildings are a good idea and how to go about creating one.
Directorate of Public Works
USAG Fort Devens RFTA

2. Resilience – Lethality – Innovation National Defense Strategy - 2018
Net Zero Cash flow
Lower Resource Demand
Lower Environmental Impact
Long Life Cycle Components
Resilient Innovative Technology
LCCA – Long Lasting - Reliable
Model Design Concept
The Living Building ™
Creating Self Sustaining Buildings fits nicely into the 2018 National Defense Strategy.
By reducing operating costs and extending the life of buildings more dollars are potentially available for Soldier Readiness Training and Lethality.
The Living Building concept provides a comprehensive framework to create a self-sustaining building - but there a many possible paths.
Bottom line - self-sustaining buildings have potential to reduce the operating burden for the DoD built environment.
Thus, more resources could be available for soldier readiness training and overall lethality.
Self-Sustaining Buildings
Operating Costs ∝ $ for Soldiers

3. Process Execute Project Fund Project Determine Evaluate Project
Investment Grade Audit (UESC)
Select Contracting Officer
Develop Public Private Partnerships (if applicable)
Determine
Objectives
Approach
Team
Funding Path
Project Program
Evaluate Project
Existing Conditions
Building
Site
Energy -[Big radiator]
Water
Regulations [UFC]
Legal
Political
Command Intentions
White Paper Study
Execute Project
Contract Project
Build project
The process to create a self sustaining building looked something like this: .
Determine – Evaluate – Fund – Execute
This should not be much different from what you do today for any project.
Key elements for us to develop the concept for the Barnes Building as a living building were:
Objectives
Approach
Team
Funding Path
Project Program
Command intentions turned out to be pretty important as we learned later in our project development process.
Control of the Barnes Building in Boston shifted out of our watch at the point we met the requirements for an investment grade audit. So we did not execute.

4. The Living Building™ International Living Future Institute
We chose to use the Living Building as a model design concept because it is fairly comprehensive in addressing the various factors leading to a self-sufficient building.
It is a program founded in design - and uses language that comes from the design community. So somewhat flowery.
It also is not completely compatible with DoD Force Protection requirements. For instance, Windows.
These are the 20 criteria we used on the Barnes Building Project base on original work by architect Bruce Coldham.
We found that we could meet most of the criteria to some degree. More importantly we found the framework of thinking the criteria through very helpful in understanding the scope of our proposed project.
International Living Future Institute

5. Funding path chart developed by
This is a decision tree for determining funding path that I help Pacific Northwest National Labs create.
Selecting a funding path is critical to how you go about developing your project. We chose a UESC in combination with another vehicle such as a PPA so that we could use other peoples money.
Funding path chart developed by
PNNL 2018

6. Our utility Eversource was very motivated to do this project and they brought on Ameresco to be the ESCO in support of the preliminary evaluation of the project.
When powering a self-sustaining building the scale of the project will also have a big impact on how you execute.
In our case the 600,000 sqft Barnes Building had acres of parking and roof top to site solar as well as room inside to house a fuel cell.
There is also enough power to merit an internal microgrid – as much as 14 MW.
Because we chose the UESC as a funding path we were limited to generating 80% of the building demand to avoid creating FERC law compliance issue.
By bringing on a 3rd party investor via a PPA or other agreement it became possible to shift the compliance requirements to this operator and potentially generate an excess of power.

7. Innovative Technology – That’s Proven
Images from
Living Machine™
Website
For a building to be self-sufficient you must address water supply and waste water, power supply, heating and cooling as well as the building itself.
Additionally you need to consider the surrounding buildings and adjacent communities.
In the case of any DoD project Force Protection has to trump any agenda you may think you have.
In our case we determined that we would combine a comprehensive mechanical, HVAC, Electrical, and building skin renovation to get to our goals.
To accomplish this we planned to use a living system to treat and recycle our waste and water, a fuel cell, and a microgrid among other technologies.
We learned that new technologies may sound good but it is very important to study the claims made and study their efficacy before you commit to using them.
Fuel Cell (Northeast Electrochemical Energy Storage Cluster, March, 2018
Fuel Cell [ExtremeTech]

8. Micro-Grids & Resilient Nodes1
Power Grid Network Graph
Power Source
Resilient Node1
The value of creating a self-sustaining building:
Aside from reducing resource use and operating costs, a self sustaining building adds resiliency to the microgrid to which it is attached.
A microgrid composed of self-sustaining buildings is even more resilient
Also, large buildings – like the Barnes Building may incorporate microgrids making them even more resilient
This is a network graph representing the power grid.
Each self-sustaining building and microgrid are resilient nodes within the power network.
As you add more resilient nodes within the network the overall power grid becomes more resilient.
Self-Sustaining Building
Microgrid System (Power Analytics, Inc, August, 2016)
Source: Pixabay
Micro-Grid
1-”Morrissey Channel Project - Financial Implications of Planning for Resiliency and Sustainability in the Redesign of Columbia Point”, White Paper, Gilles, 2015

9. Incorporating Resilient Technology for Energy and Water Using The Living Building ™ Framework
We developed a viable approach to converting the Barnes Building from a resource and financial burden to a self sufficient asset by Incorporating Resilient Technology for Energy and Water Using the Living Building ™ Framework

10. Barnes Building as Living Building™ UESC
And by using the UESC plus a third party investor we made it plausible to do this with other peoples money.

11. Thank you!
Contact Information:
Richard Gilles
REM, Fort Devens RFTA
Sain Engineering Associates
Office
Directorate of Public Works
USAG Fort Devens RFTA

12. Barnes Building as a Living Building Concept Plans

13. Barnes Building as a Living Building Concept Plans

14. Barnes Building as a Living Building Concept Plans

15. Barnes Building as a Living Building Concept Plans