How Net-Zero Strategies Take a Broad Approach

The building powered by coal may need a full remodel while the location powered with renewable energy could be eligible for a green-energy contract. These green-energy contracts can be partially paid for with government funding and rebates.

Residential and commercial buildings account for 40 percent of energy consumption and emit roughly 39% of energy-related carbon dioxide globally. Approximately 28% of these carbon-dependent buildings directly correlate to building operations, maintenance, and equipment inefficiencies.

Stark Tech can help your organization understand how carbon dependency impacts climate change. We can provide solutions for a net-zero strategy and building energy integration.

What Should Building Owners Do to Achieve Sustainability Goals?

While the energy intensity of the building sector has improved, it continues to be outpaced by the growth of new buildings. Energy intensity has improved by 1.5 percent annually, but new buildings and expansions have outpaced that at 2.3 percent. The bottom line is that the progress made in existing infrastructure needs to go further to offset new facilities coming online annually.

5 Ways to Optimize Your Building’s Energy Efficiency with a Net-Zero Strategy

  • Organizations must understand their carbon footprint across their enterprise of buildings to evaluate operational efficiency. A deeper dive into their utility data is necessary to understand and benchmark their base-level energy efficiency against national standards.
  • Submetering on equipment is beneficial during this stage. For meaningful data collection and analytics, we can help identify inefficiencies and areas for improvement. The data from this energy audit can also benchmark and rank each building using common efficiency and performance standards.
  • The convergence of disparate systems into a building management system allows monitoring through a single pane of glass. By adding a software platform to normalize the data, metrics and key performance indicators can be standardized across the entire portfolio.
  • Once there’s common data, an Energy Master Plan (EMP) can be developed. The EMP is a roadmap of recommended actions for each facility across the portfolio. This is an important aspect to proactive facilities management as it provides a practical approach to achieving sustainability goals with an implementation plan that builds on existing investments made.
  • Lastly, recommendations may range from full capital improvement projects to energy conservation measures (ECMs). These include equipment upgrades – either replacement or retrofit – with eco-friendly materials; LED installation, and/or replacing fossil fuel-powered boilers with electric and swapping older HVAC systems with high efficiency units.

Leverage State Regulations and Government Rebates

For enterprise-wide corporations with a national footprint, the energy master plan must consider the different state regulations and power zones. For example, 1 kWh savings in a region powered by coal is worth more than 1 kWh of savings in a region powered by renewable energy. The building powered by coal may need a full remodel while the location powered with renewable energy could be eligible for a green-energy contract. These green-energy contracts can be partially paid for with government funding and rebates.

Maximize the Impact of Limited Funding

No matter the size of the portfolio, building owners may choose to implement a multi-year staged project-plan using capital funding. While others, like school districts and universities, may utilize an energy service company (ESCO) to implement energy conservation measures with off-balance sheet funding.

Identify Gaps that Drain Resources

Monitoring is critical to the success of any capital improvement project, whether it’s self-funded, off-balance sheet, or partially funded with rebates and government incentives. After all, without data, how can you prove return on investment and success of the net-zero strategy?

Stark Tech is Your Sustainable Environment Expert for Building Optimization and Net-Zero Strategy

Stark Tech customizes turnkey solutions that meet your buildings energy performance goals. We take a unified building approach through master systems integration. We offer a scalable and customizable data-intelligence platform that drives total facilities optimization.

Stark Tech is a single source agent for master systems integration, intelligence, and mechanical and electrical equipment. Our company has an in-house ESCO team for performance contracting. Other financing options are also available for a range of project sizes.

For more information, visit starktech.com or call (716) 693-4490 to speak with a sales rep today.

Sources
  1. “How do buildings contribute to climate change?” Vox Media, Curbed Magazine, September 2019
  2. New Research Shows Zero Carbon Buildings are Possible Where you Might Least Expect Them, World Resources Institute. September 2019

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jill Szpylman
Jill Szpylman

Jill Szpylman is the Marketing Communications Director for Stark Tech. With a demonstrated history in the clean energy space, Ms. Szpylman has a passion for technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build a more sustainable future. Jill is responsible for the execution of the marketing strategy, content development, and sales support collateral for all of Stark Tech and the affiliated business units.

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