ASHRAE Technology Awards: winning project features green design

The ASHRAE Technology Awards recognize outstanding achievements by members who have successfully applied innovative building design in the areas of occupant comfort, indoor air quality (IAQ) and energy conservation. The designs incorporate ASHRAE standards for effective energy management and IAQ. Performance is proven through one year's actual operating data. The first commercial building in Quebec designed to meet the country's standards for high performance building through integrated design has been awarded ASHRAE's Award of Engineering Excellence. To meet Canada's C-2000 building certification program, Mountain EquipmentCoop had to be at least 50% more energy efficiency than a building design following Canada's Model National Energy Code for Buildings. Frederic Genest's design resulted in 68% energy savings. Genest, project engineer and associate at Pageau Morel and Associates, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was honored during the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers' (ASHRAE) 2005 Winter Meeting held in Orlando February 5-9, 2005. The building features a geo-exchange system using ground-source heat pumps, radiant slabs for heating and cooling, a combination hybrid ventilation system and dedicated outdoor air unit, a high performance envelope and natural lighting. The building also includes thermal energy storage with night pre-cooling and -heating, heat recovery from exhausted air and rainwater harvesting. "The goal was to design a building incorporating as many green features as possible to serve as an example to the community and other construction professionals," Genest said. "All of these features combined result in high energy efficiency, while maintaining superior indoor air quality and good thermal comfort." Two other projects received first-place awards in the refrigeration field: - Jeffrey Paul Blaevoet, president of Guttmann and Blaevoet Consulting Engineers, San Francisco, Calif., received first place in the new commercial buildings category for Big Rock Ranch. The project is the first significant geo-exchange system for a non-residential project on the West Coast, and the first in the United States to use a ground loop heat exchanger with central chillers and chiller heat pumps to generate chilled water and heating hot water. The project is 38% below California's Energy Code, with air distribution via a raised floor. - Nicolas Lemire, project engineer and associate at Pageau Morel and Associates, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, received first place in the new institutional buildings category for Concordia University Science Complex. The project includes some 250 fume hoods designed to achieve 45% energy savings over the Model National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings. It also features heat recovery from hood exhaust air as well as a closed loop steam condensate system with flooded vertical stacking heat exchanger eliminating steam losses, a variable volume control tracking all lab exhausts, and a heat recovery low temperature water loop to collect energy from the gas flue of the existing boilers and from heat recovery chillers.