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Copyright ©2013 Sefaira Ltd.
PER FOR MANCE BASED DESIGN: E XECUTING THE VISION
Study Renewable Energy
Performance analysis can help the design team evaluate which types of renewable
energy sources are worth pursuing, and determine the fraction of total energy use that
renewables may be able to supply. This type of analysis can also help to build a case
for passive design strategies or efficiency measures, because such measures make it
easier to supply a greater portion of energy from on-site renewables.
For instance, our example project had a goal of supplying at least 10% of the required
energy with on-site renewables. We studied the impact of building-integrated pho-
tovoltaics for both a baseline case and a "high performance" case, which included a
number of passive strategies that together reduced annual energy use by 45%.
We were able to meet the 10% goal for the baseline case if we covered nearly the
entire roof with high-efficiency photovoltaic panels. For the "high performance" case,
we found we could achieve the same goal with half as many solar panels.
Fig. 2. The "High Performance Construction" option made it possible to achieve the goal
of 10% on-site renewable energy generation with roughly half the number of solar panels
as the baseline case.
