SAME Energy & Sustainability Webinar: Enhancing the Military Mission through Beneficial Electrification of Buildings
Beneficial Electrification of Buildings can enhance the military’s ability to meet the primary missions’ requirements, with the added benefit of meeting the new mission, the environmental goodness mission.
This panel discussion includes the core design disciplines involved in designing for beneficial electrification of federal buildings and will discuss the impact on project budgets, project schedules, focusing on the over-arching theme that these project parameters won’t be burdened by the new Federal building electrification requirements. Additionally, the barriers and risks associated with the building electrification movement, including regulatory barriers, market barriers and equity concerns will be discussed with approaches for alleviating said barriers. Key risks to be discussed include mission resiliency, supply chain upheavals, geo-political concerns, and air quality avoidance. The Federal Sustainability Plan aims to integrate equity into planning, evaluation, and assessment of investment benefits for underserved communities through federal efforts taken to achieve the goal of reaching net-zero emissions buildings.
Fossil fuels used in federal building operations account for over 25% of all federal carbon dioxide emissions. The federal government is enacting new regulations to ensure that when it builds, it builds better. Federal buildings of a certain size threshold are required to be designed, constructed, and operated to be net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.
Agencies’ capital planning and retrofit projects will need to consider and prioritize building Beneficial Electrification and replacement of fossil-fuel consuming equipment with technologies that use carbon pollution-free electricity in addition to on-site generation of carbon pollution-free energy and storage.
The “short” definition of Beneficial Electrification is: “The use of electricity for end-uses that would otherwise be powered by fossil fuels (natural gas, diesel, propane, fuel oil, gasoline, or steam produced from a fossil fuel source), where doing so reduces Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and saves consumers money.”
Beneficial Electrification also relies heavily on the electric grid. The Federal Sustainability Plan outlines an ambitious path to power Federal facilities with 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity (CFE), including 50 percent on a 24-hour-a-day 7-days-a-week (24/7) basis. This plan will help accelerate a rapidly changing clean electricity sector and show how the U.S. Government can use the power of federal procurement to create a more resilient, modern, and climate-ready electricity sector. 80% of U.S. customer accounts currently are served by an individual electric utility with a 100% carbon-reduction target, or an electric utility owned by a parent company with a 100% carbon-reduction target.
Learnign Objectives
By participating in this webinar, participants will be able to:
1 - Identify what a building that is designed for Beneficial Electrification is and how it differs from other buildings.
2 - Describe the timeline for utility companies and grid-electricity to decarbonize.
3 - Identify mechanical and plumbing system all-electric options.
4 - Recognize unregulated loads (kitchen, science, laundry, etc.) all-electric options.
A successful outcome for Duncan delivers healthy experiences for building occupants, and serves the community through reduced water use, net positive energy and carbon balanced solutions. Duncan has collaborated on leading edge Healthcare facilities, working with Institutional, Governmental and Academic Health clients to uncover opportunities for resource conservation and pollution reduction in alignment with enterprise goals.
