For an office project we are working on, the tenant is only responsible for their electric consumption and will not have any other fuel source dedicated for them. The building is heated via district steam but is (most likely) folded into the rent.
When using the Prescriptive Option for purchasing RECs and/or green power, the reference guide states to use the "appropriate EUI from the CBECS database" to calculated both electric and non-electric energy consumption.
My question is, if my project will only be responsible for the electric consumption they have, and will not directly consume any other fuel within their scope of work, do I only use the electric CBECS EUI value (17.3 kWh/sf per the Renewable Energy credit EAc4) and ignore the non-electric CBECS data? Or, do I need to include both the electric and non-electric EUI values from CBECS as part of my green power credit requirements?
Question part 2 - can we use the 2012 CBECS data in lieu of the EAc4 data?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5868 thumbs up
March 29, 2017 - 11:14 am
It sounds like they are consuming other fuels. It does not matter if they are billed for it directly or not. So no you can't ignore the non-electric fuel. You need to include both.
I think you could justify using the more recent data. The credit language references CBECS generically without reference to a specific year. Might want to check the Reference Guide to see if that gets more specific.
emily reese moody
Sustainability Director, Certifications & ComplianceJacobs
LEEDuser Expert
454 thumbs up
June 6, 2017 - 11:57 am
I talked to a green power/carbon offset provider about this project and thought I'd share here to help others.
To clarify, for the above example, if we wanted to target the 100% threshold for both points, this means that we would either need to purchase all carbon offsets to cover all energy types, or we could opt for 100% RECs with 100% carbon credits. For our project with current rates, the 100% + 100% is about $400 cheaper for a 50K SF office space than the all-carbon option.
For further clarification for other projects, if we can prove all power consumed is electric, how does that change our options?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5868 thumbs up
June 6, 2017 - 1:31 pm
The options are the same, qualifying RECs or carbon offsets can be used for electricity.