Is it acceptable for a LEED-NC multi-family residential project to receive an innovation point if it achieves the requirements of LEED for Homes credit EAc9.1 Energy Star Appliances?
The project is seeking an innovation credit for improving unregulated energy usage through the use of Energy Star appliances. The project cannot earn additional innovation credit for improvements to unregulated energy usage. The energy cost savings achieved by Energy Star appliances should be documented under EAc1. To achieve EAc1 credit, the improvement in energy achieved from energy star appliances should be documented using the Exceptional Calculation Method (G2.5). Reasonable assumptions must be applied for the Baseline & Proposed case, and these assumptions must be described in the Exceptional Calculation Narrative on the EAc1 template.