All-Electric Real Estate: The Movement Gains Momentum
While few of us have tested electric vehicles, certainly most of us have experienced power outages, so perhaps the first thing people need to know in connection with this “all-electric” solution is: what safety net is there? And with the all-electric trend having entered the real estate industry, there are even more questions.
Luckily, there are specialists who devote their time and expertise to answer these questions and to advance research on making the buildings we live, work and play in more climate- and human-friendly. The experts at Buro Happold—an integrated consultancy of engineers, consultants and advisers with a presence in 31 locations worldwide—believe that sustainability is intrinsic to the economic and social impact of their work. The firm has set its own eco-targets: to reduce its own operational carbon emissions by 21 percent by 2025, to design all new build projects to be net-zero carbon in operation by 2030, and to reduce embodied carbon intensity of all new buildings, major retrofits and infrastructure projects by 50 percent by 2030.
 100vw, 2000px”/>The Santa Monica City Hall, an all-electric, net zero energy and net zero water building. Image courtesy of Buro Happold</p>
<p>Late last year, a team at the firm developed a preliminary study of new construction typologies in several U.S. cities to inform sustainable engineering solutions, dubbed Engineering All-Electric Buildings. Julie Janiski, a partner at Buro Happold who co-leads the Boston office and the company’s U.S. sustainability team, shares details about the findings of the study.</p>
<p><strong>What happens with an all-electric building during a power outage? </strong></p>
<p><strong>Janiski</strong>: Reliability is a critical consideration in the feasibility and design of an all-electric building. In an all-electric building, a key risk is that the power demand could shift from cooling to heating, so it’s more critical to avoid outages for safety and comfort in the winter season.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there have been huge improvements in technology for power production and storage, for energy demand management systems, for efficient electric heating, and for creating high-performing, energy-efficient building envelopes. Our study shows that, in most cases, a new building built today can keep the power demand based on cooling, and therefore avoid overburdening the electrical grid compared to a new building using gas-fired heating equipment.</p>
<p>The safety net would be similar in nature to what many buildings have now with back-up generators, though on-site power generation and storage solutions will become better options for greenhouse gas emissions reductions as these solutions are available at scale. Our feasibility study also emphasizes strategies for avoiding outages in the first place, in what the industry refers to as “demand management.” A robust strategy for maintaining stability and reliability would include designing with a high-performance building envelope and techniques for avoiding electrical usage during peak hours —like with zone controls and setbacks—or thermal storage and shifting power production to off-peak hours as much as possible.</p>
<p><strong>To truly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, an all-electric building needs to connect to an electrical grid that is supplied by renewable energy sources. Are there presently sufficient renewable energy sources? </strong></p>
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The good news is that more and more jurisdictions are emphasizing efficiency and GHG reductions, creating incentives for exploring the implementation of all-electric strategies. Our study attempts to acknowledge the obstacles while also providing a path for assessing the feasibility of all-electric buildings from a holistic perspective across GHG emissions, resiliency, technology and cost.