NetZero is an Internet service provider based in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California. It is a subsidiary of United Online, owner of Juno Online Services and BlueLight Internet Services. The current (2007) chairman, president, and CEO of United Online (and thus NetZero) is Mark Goldston
In the midst of a struggling economy, the green building industry is booming, with homeowners and companies alike discovering the many great benefits of building sustainably. And with technology and sustainable materials improving all the time, the pioneers of the green building movement are now setting their sights higher than ever.
Where the aim was once to cut down on a building’s energy use, a movement has now sprung up with the goal to make buildings generate at least as much energy as they consume – what’s known as “net-zero” building.
For years just a green pipedream, net-zero buildings, both residential and commercial, are now becoming a reality.
Buildings as a whole account for nearly 40% of energy consumption in the U.S. – more than any other sector, including transportation and industry. They contribute a similar share to greenhouse gas emissions, the majority of which can be attributed to the pollution created by electricity generation.
Net-zero building, though still in its infancy, offers a clear path away from the pollution and energy dependence of the buildings of yore. Designed with optimum energy efficiency, net-zero buildings are equipped with a range of self-supporting energy-generating technologies that make use of an area’s specific weather conditions to power themselves.
Zeta Communities is a San Francisco-based homebuilder at the forefront of the net-zero movement. Their factory-built homes use energy-saving materials like super-efficient insulation, appliances and windows, and generate their own energy via solar panels. They are also equipped with smart technologies like an energy control and monitoring system and a heat recovery ventilator.
“It’s really a revolutionary change to the way buildings have been thought about,” Naomi Porat, Zeta’s CEO said of net-zero building recently. “And it could change forever the way we think about buildings as great energy consumers, to [thinking about them as] great energy producers.”
Military energy programs are at a transformational
moment. The leadership and funding are in place
to address current deficiencies, and the potential is
at hand to create the tools and framework for longterm
success. Part of that transformation is to establish net-zero
energy installations—those that generate as much electricity as
they consume—to provide an islanding capability in case of commercial
grid failure and power loss.
A move toward net-zero energy has four main strategies: reduce
energy consumption and demand, implement sustainable
business practices, install renewable energy and other onsite energy
generation systems, and develop a smart grid to control and
manage onsite generation and installation demand.
Within these strategies are actions that both renew and rebuild,
including improvements to operations and maintenance,
reducing water, solid waste, and transportation requirements,
and managing a variety of energy demands. As the sidebar
“Evolving an Action Plan” describes, no single, isolated action can
produce a net-zero efficiency, so a necessary first step is to establish
a framework for integrating strategies and their components.
While there is certainly much excitement in the arena of net-zero homes, the real impact of the movement could come in the form of larger commercial buildings and entire master-planned communities. Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), a large international architectural design firm, is currently working on designs for a 2.3 million square foot mixed-use skyscraper (pictured top left) in Guangzhou, China. The building, known as the Pearl River Tower, will not be fully net-zero, but it’s still being seen as a great test case for truly green building on a large commercial scale.
SOM architects say improved technology and design tools are allowing for ever greater advances in green building designs. Recent advances in computer technology have enabled them to perform extremely complex and precise environmental analysis, and to model their results with a great degree of accuracy to test out potential designs. From this wealth of data, architects can ensure that their designs are completely optimized for the environment in which they’re built. Each design is tailored to create the most efficient flow of air and light and the retention and distribution of energy possible.
For the Guangzou tower, for instance, SOM architects designed a “sculpted body” which “directs wind to a pair of openings at its mechanical floors, where traveling winds push turbines which generate energy for the building,” according to the SOM website. The planned Solar2 building in NYC, which you can see more on in the video below, will employ geothermal wells for heating and cooling, and an innovative “vegetative green screen” to absorb CO2 and provide shade.
Many of the new building technologies allow the buildings’ energy performance to be monitored and studied long after construction is complete, making them useful not only in a building’s design but in its maintenance as well. “We’re getting to the point where we have programs giving us almost real-time feedback on whether the design we’re considering will perform well,” says Carrie Byles, an architect at SOM.
The biggest challenge of net-zero buildings, especially for smaller builders, is the pricey initial construction cost. Design and construction costs of net-zero buildings are estimated to be about 10% higher than those of comparable buildings, with expensive alternative energy generators like solar panels often behind the extra cost. But proponents of net-zero construction are quick to remind people unsure about the extra cost that that higher upfront costs are always recouped over through energy savings, which can far outweigh initial costs over time.
Builders and owners are not the only parties getting excited about net-zero buildings: government agencies at various levels, as well as an increasingly environmentally conscious public, are increasingly advocating for energy-independent buildings. Perhaps the most ambitious of these adherents is the California Public Utilities Commission, which has called for all residential construction to be net-zero by 2020 and all commercial construction by 2025.
In Europe, meanwhile, major companies such as Daikin are getting on board, building test net-zero facilities with the hope of finding ways to make net-zero construction more economically feasible on a wide scale.
BENEFITS TO BOTH OWNER AND TENANTS
Many building owners in both the public and private sectors
are ! nding considerable bene! ts from green buildings,
particularly in the form of positive marketing and public
relations with their stakeholders.
Public relations and marketing bene! ts. Marketing
is an essential component of all building operations,
even in the public and quasi-public sector. Publicly traded
corporations, privately held companies, public agencies,
universities, hospitals, school districts, and many nonprofit
social and environmental organizations seeking to maximize
their brand equity are capitalizing on the marketing
and public relations bene! ts of green buildings—bene! ts
that likely will accrue to ZONE buildings in the future.
Stakeholder relations and occupant satisfaction. Tenants
and employees want to see a demonstrated concern for
their personal well-being and that of the planet. Progressive
building owners are wise to market these bene! ts to
discerning and skeptical clients and stakeholders, using
the advantages of LEED and Energy Star, including support
from local utility and industry programs.
Most private organizations have short-term planning
horizons. But many large property owners have been in
business for decades and plan to stay in business, so they
must balance the short-term costs and bene! ts of greening
their buildings with the longer-term positive outlook
for sustainable buildings. In this context, the long-term
reduction in operating costs for ZONE buildings must
count as a major bene! t, provided that the incremental
costs can be ! nanced in a way that is not detrimental to
the owner’s cash " ow. Let’s look at some ways this objective
can be achieved.
Picking up the PACE. The growth of commercial
PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) ! nancing is one
way this is happening. Already, half the states in the U.S.
have adopted PACE programs, mostly for existing buildings.
19 In PACE ! nancing, the building, not the owner,
carries the incremental cost of energy-saving investments,
through a loan that is recovered from future property
tax assessments, typically over a 20-year period. My own
analysis shows that investment portfolios with payback
periods greater than seven years are unlikely to show
positive cash " ows, since interest rates on the loans are
typically greater than 7%. This need not be a problem,
however, if the longer-term paybacks of solar systems,
for example, were to be bundled with the shorter-term
paybacks from ef! cient lighting, variable frequency drives,
high-ef! ciency HVAC systems, and similar active systems.
In fact, it’s quite possible to retro! t an existing building
to be a ZONE building, even in the humid tropics, as was
done in a 2009 retro! t in Singapore by the Building and
Construction Authority.
In the midst of a struggling economy, the green building industry is booming, with homeowners and companies alike discovering the many great benefits of building sustainably. And with technology and sustainable materials improving all the time, the pioneers of the green building movement are now setting their sights higher than ever.
Where the aim was once to cut down on a building’s energy use, a movement has now sprung up with the goal to make buildings generate at least as much energy as they consume – what’s known as “net-zero” building.
For years just a green pipedream, net-zero buildings, both residential and commercial, are now becoming a reality.
Buildings as a whole account for nearly 40% of energy consumption in the U.S. – more than any other sector, including transportation and industry. They contribute a similar share to greenhouse gas emissions, the majority of which can be attributed to the pollution created by electricity generation.
Net-zero building, though still in its infancy, offers a clear path away from the pollution and energy dependence of the buildings of yore. Designed with optimum energy efficiency, net-zero buildings are equipped with a range of self-supporting energy-generating technologies that make use of an area’s specific weather conditions to power themselves.
Zeta Communities is a San Francisco-based homebuilder at the forefront of the net-zero movement. Their factory-built homes use energy-saving materials like super-efficient insulation, appliances and windows, and generate their own energy via solar panels. They are also equipped with smart technologies like an energy control and monitoring system and a heat recovery ventilator.
“It’s really a revolutionary change to the way buildings have been thought about,” Naomi Porat, Zeta’s CEO said of net-zero building recently. “And it could change forever the way we think about buildings as great energy consumers, to [thinking about them as] great energy producers.”
Military energy programs are at a transformational
moment. The leadership and funding are in place
to address current deficiencies, and the potential is
at hand to create the tools and framework for longterm
success. Part of that transformation is to establish net-zero
energy installations—those that generate as much electricity as
they consume—to provide an islanding capability in case of commercial
grid failure and power loss.
A move toward net-zero energy has four main strategies: reduce
energy consumption and demand, implement sustainable
business practices, install renewable energy and other onsite energy
generation systems, and develop a smart grid to control and
manage onsite generation and installation demand.
Within these strategies are actions that both renew and rebuild,
including improvements to operations and maintenance,
reducing water, solid waste, and transportation requirements,
and managing a variety of energy demands. As the sidebar
“Evolving an Action Plan” describes, no single, isolated action can
produce a net-zero efficiency, so a necessary first step is to establish
a framework for integrating strategies and their components.
While there is certainly much excitement in the arena of net-zero homes, the real impact of the movement could come in the form of larger commercial buildings and entire master-planned communities. Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), a large international architectural design firm, is currently working on designs for a 2.3 million square foot mixed-use skyscraper (pictured top left) in Guangzhou, China. The building, known as the Pearl River Tower, will not be fully net-zero, but it’s still being seen as a great test case for truly green building on a large commercial scale.
SOM architects say improved technology and design tools are allowing for ever greater advances in green building designs. Recent advances in computer technology have enabled them to perform extremely complex and precise environmental analysis, and to model their results with a great degree of accuracy to test out potential designs. From this wealth of data, architects can ensure that their designs are completely optimized for the environment in which they’re built. Each design is tailored to create the most efficient flow of air and light and the retention and distribution of energy possible.
For the Guangzou tower, for instance, SOM architects designed a “sculpted body” which “directs wind to a pair of openings at its mechanical floors, where traveling winds push turbines which generate energy for the building,” according to the SOM website. The planned Solar2 building in NYC, which you can see more on in the video below, will employ geothermal wells for heating and cooling, and an innovative “vegetative green screen” to absorb CO2 and provide shade.
Many of the new building technologies allow the buildings’ energy performance to be monitored and studied long after construction is complete, making them useful not only in a building’s design but in its maintenance as well. “We’re getting to the point where we have programs giving us almost real-time feedback on whether the design we’re considering will perform well,” says Carrie Byles, an architect at SOM.
The biggest challenge of net-zero buildings, especially for smaller builders, is the pricey initial construction cost. Design and construction costs of net-zero buildings are estimated to be about 10% higher than those of comparable buildings, with expensive alternative energy generators like solar panels often behind the extra cost. But proponents of net-zero construction are quick to remind people unsure about the extra cost that that higher upfront costs are always recouped over through energy savings, which can far outweigh initial costs over time.
Builders and owners are not the only parties getting excited about net-zero buildings: government agencies at various levels, as well as an increasingly environmentally conscious public, are increasingly advocating for energy-independent buildings. Perhaps the most ambitious of these adherents is the California Public Utilities Commission, which has called for all residential construction to be net-zero by 2020 and all commercial construction by 2025.
In Europe, meanwhile, major companies such as Daikin are getting on board, building test net-zero facilities with the hope of finding ways to make net-zero construction more economically feasible on a wide scale.
BENEFITS TO BOTH OWNER AND TENANTS
Many building owners in both the public and private sectors
are ! nding considerable bene! ts from green buildings,
particularly in the form of positive marketing and public
relations with their stakeholders.
Public relations and marketing bene! ts. Marketing
is an essential component of all building operations,
even in the public and quasi-public sector. Publicly traded
corporations, privately held companies, public agencies,
universities, hospitals, school districts, and many nonprofit
social and environmental organizations seeking to maximize
their brand equity are capitalizing on the marketing
and public relations bene! ts of green buildings—bene! ts
that likely will accrue to ZONE buildings in the future.
Stakeholder relations and occupant satisfaction. Tenants
and employees want to see a demonstrated concern for
their personal well-being and that of the planet. Progressive
building owners are wise to market these bene! ts to
discerning and skeptical clients and stakeholders, using
the advantages of LEED and Energy Star, including support
from local utility and industry programs.
Most private organizations have short-term planning
horizons. But many large property owners have been in
business for decades and plan to stay in business, so they
must balance the short-term costs and bene! ts of greening
their buildings with the longer-term positive outlook
for sustainable buildings. In this context, the long-term
reduction in operating costs for ZONE buildings must
count as a major bene! t, provided that the incremental
costs can be ! nanced in a way that is not detrimental to
the owner’s cash " ow. Let’s look at some ways this objective
can be achieved.
Picking up the PACE. The growth of commercial
PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) ! nancing is one
way this is happening. Already, half the states in the U.S.
have adopted PACE programs, mostly for existing buildings.
19 In PACE ! nancing, the building, not the owner,
carries the incremental cost of energy-saving investments,
through a loan that is recovered from future property
tax assessments, typically over a 20-year period. My own
analysis shows that investment portfolios with payback
periods greater than seven years are unlikely to show
positive cash " ows, since interest rates on the loans are
typically greater than 7%. This need not be a problem,
however, if the longer-term paybacks of solar systems,
for example, were to be bundled with the shorter-term
paybacks from ef! cient lighting, variable frequency drives,
high-ef! ciency HVAC systems, and similar active systems.
In fact, it’s quite possible to retro! t an existing building
to be a ZONE building, even in the humid tropics, as was
done in a 2009 retro! t in Singapore by the Building and
Construction Authority.