This project is located in State College, Pennsylvania. The project involves a single greenhouse structure approximately 42ft by 108ft (4536 s.f.) for use by a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm using sustainable and organic growing practices. Existing nearby facilities are able to serve as the only additional support space required leaving the greenhouse structure to serve as a single greenhouse space. Unlike the greenhouse identified in the CIR dated 1/8/2007, this project has no governing authority regarding energy conservation and the project\'s Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) only governs this structure in regards to fire and life safety per the International Building Code (IBC) 2006 section 312.1. Therefore, we are requesting that the USGBC act as the AHJ for the greenhouse energy conservation requirements and ASHRAE 90.1 (2004) interpretations in effort to meet EAp2 of LEED v2.2. Per the ruling of the CIR submitted on 4/30/2008, the sole function of the building envelope is related to plant growth and therefore exempt from the prescriptive requirements of ASHRAE 90.1 (2004). However, unlike the greenhouse from the CIR dated 4/30/2008, this project does not involve additional spaces that are required to meet further requirements of the Standard. Therefore, no minimum requirements exist for the greenhouse building envelope for use in an energy model comparison in effort to achieve credits through EAcr1. In order to compare our proposed greenhouse design against a baseline, we are proposing the following approach: 1.) Since the amount of window used for the greenhouse impacts plant growth, we request that the greenhouse envelope be exempt from ASHRAE 90.1 (2004) item 5.5.4.2.1 and table G3.1.5 in regards to maximum window area permitted in the proposed design and model. We propose that both baseline and proposed design models have the same amount of window area without a limitation on the percent of gross wall area that can be modeled as window for the proposed design. 2.) We propose using the baseline window U-value of 0.98 from ASHRAE 90.1 (2004) table 5.5-5 for fixed vertical glazing in a semi-heated space equal to 40.1 to 50% of wall since this is the maximum percentage range provided and given the baseline window U-value permitted for CIR dated 1/8/2007. We request that the USGBC permit the space to be classified as semi-heated per ASHRAE 90.1 (2004) item 5.1.2.3 given that it is a process space not conditioned for human comfort. 3.) We propose to treat greenhouse lighting as unregulated lighting per ASHRAE 90.1 (2004) item 9.2.2.3 and the ruling for CIR submitted on 4/30/2008 and model the lighting identical in the baseline and proposed design models with the allowance to include daylighting controls in the proposed model only since it would result in additional energy savings and given it is above and beyond the bare minimum lighting system required for the growing process. 4.) We propose to use the minimum requirements for space heating of ASHRAE 90.1 (2004) in the baseline model in order to improve upon space heating energy efficiency in the proposed design in lieu of modeling space conditioning the same in the baseline and proposed design models as identified in the ruling for CIR submitted on 4/30/2008. For this application , we interpret ASHRAE 90.1 (2004) to prescribe an oil or gas-fired furnace with the prescribed minimum performance. Per AHRAE 90.1 (2004), all space conditioning setpoints and schedules shall remain the same between the baseline and proposed design models. Please confirm that this approach is acceptable.