NORESCO has been selected by ASHRAE to develop a guide for decarbonizing existing commercial and multifamily buildings in the U.S. and around the world. NORESCO is a part of Carrier Global Corporation (NYSE: CARR), global leader in intelligent climate and energy solutions.
“The ASHRAE Task Force for Building Decarbonization (TFBD) is committed to providing technical guidance to reduce global, built environment greenhouse gas emissions,” said Kent Peterson, ASHRAE TFBD Chair. “We are pleased to partner with NORESCO to develop our Building Decarbonization Retrofits for Commercial and Multifamily Buildings Guide, which will offer actionable and responsible strategies to decarbonize existing buildings.”
The guide will build on ASHRAE’s recent position document on Building Decarbonization, co-authored by Roger Hedrick, Principal Engineer at NORESCO, project team member and 45-year member of ASHRAE. The position document set general goals for ASHRAE activities, such as ensuring that widespread energy-efficiency retrofits of existing assets are well underway by 2030. The forthcoming guide will focus on how these goals can be achieved.
The position document asserted that, by 2040, up to two-thirds of the global building stock will comprise structures already in existence today. However, it also recognized that most new decarbonization measures implemented throughout the U.S. are focused on new construction. These facts led ASHRAE to call for development of a decarbonization guide specific to existing buildings.
“The guide will look at the issues building owners and operators might face when working to decarbonize existing buildings and will provide approaches for addressing and overcoming these issues,” Hedrick said.
It is expected to include topics related to building electrical loads, HVAC systems, distributed energy generation and domestic hot water systems. The guide will be grounded by NORESCO’s deep experience with decarbonizing existing buildings around the country as well as authorship of technical documents, including several iterations of ASHRAE’s 90.1 and 62.1 User’s Manuals.
“The new guide will be designed to provide a framework for a varied audience, including architects, engineers, contractors, building owners, trades/subcontractors and tenants,” said Michael Goodrum, Technical Director, Existing Buildings Policy, NORESCO. Goodrum will serve as the guide’s primary author and principal investigator.
The Building Decarbonization Retrofits for Commercial and Multifamily Buildings Guide is expected to be published in May 2024.
For more information about NORESCO services, visit www.noresco.com.
About NORESCO
NORESCO, a part of Carrier Global Corporation, helps clients adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change by decarbonizing, modernizing and electrifying aging infrastructure to be more sustainable and resilient. By deploying innovative distributed energy, storage and renewable energy solutions, NORESCO improves the health and efficiency of existing campuses, buildings and communities. To date, NORESCO has guaranteed more than $5 billion in energy and operating cost savings at more than 10,000 facilities while reducing customer CO2 emissions by more than 25 million metric tons – the equivalent to planting 1.4 million acres of forest. For more information, visit www.noresco.com
