“The effect of LEED certified residential buildings on household finances in Florida” (original) (raw)

“Visibility of Zero-Energy Buildings” e-Proceedings of the ZEMCH2013 International Conference, Miami: ZEMCH Network; (chapter contribution), 2013

Abstract

"A LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is touted to produce buildings that are green in terms of energy efficiency, however a study on energy use in LEED certified commercial buildings gave mixed results and in another study no reduction at all. Both studies had concentrated on a database of commercial buildings with little having examined consumption patterns in residential buildings. The research proposes to examine the cost intensity of energy use in LEED certified residential buildings in the USA and what was the impact on household finances of the occupier’s. According to USGBC homes with LEED certification are resource efficient; healthy for the occupants and energy efficient consuming between 20 and 30% less energy than a home built to conventional standards. However literature on those claims are scanty, and have not included the possible economic costs of health implications. The available literature on performance of LEED certified buildings energy use was 25–30% better than the national average. The report has been criticized for lack of a robust methodology as it relied on voluntary submission hence created a biased sample; the comparisons were not on apple for apple basis as they used median energy use intensity (EUI) versus mean EUI for the conventional buildings. The study used the database that came from the NBI study and found that LEED mean EUI to be from 18% to 39% lower than for matching non-LEED buildings. However, other authors used the same database and came to different conclusions suggesting a need for further study and analysis of the results. He argued that LEED-certification did not on average produce buildings that lower energy consumption both at the source and at the production point, though he acknowledged that they consumed less on site energy but to the tune of 10-17%. The impact on household finances from the greening or energy efficient measure will be studied using the existing dataset from the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS). The 2009 survey contains data from 12,000 households from 16 states that will be used to track the characteristics of energy consumption patterns, impact on health due to changes to the indoor air quality resulting from airtight construction and quantification of the impact on their finances. "

John Onyango hasn't uploaded this paper.

Let John know you want this paper to be uploaded.

Ask for this paper to be uploaded.