DATE: May 17, 2016
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Director of Utilities and Environmental Services
SUBJECT
Title
Zero Net Energy Policy for Municipal Buildings
End
RECOMMENDATION
Recommendation
That Council adopts the attached draft resolution (Attachment I) to establish a Zero Net Energy Policy for municipal buildings.
Body
SUMMARY
This report discusses adoption of a policy recommended by the Council Sustainability Committee that, if adopted, would require new municipal buildings, as well as significant retrofits of existing municipal buildings to be designed and constructed as zero net energy (ZNE) buildings. This policy would be consistent with and implement current General Plan policies and would help prepare Hayward for upcoming changes to the state Building Code.
BACKGROUND
A ZNE building is one where the value of the energy produced at the property is equal to the value of the energy it consumes, averaged over the course of a year. More specifically, the California Energy Commission (CEC) defines ZNE as follows:
"A Zero-Net-Energy Code Building is one where the net amount of energy produced by on-site renewable energy resources is equal to the value of the energy consumed annually by the building, at the level of a single "project" seeking development entitlements and building code permits, measured using the California Energy Commission's Time Dependent Valuation metric."
Benefits of ZNE buildings are listed in the State's California ZNE Communications Toolkit (Attachment II). In addition to the benefits listed, many ZNE buildings utilize operable windows and daylight for lighting needs, which can result in buildings that are more comfortable for occupants. Calculations using the Time Dependent Valuation (TDV) method are based on a series of annual hourly values for electricity cost and monthly costs for natural gas. TDV encourages building designers to design bu...
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