Zion National Park Visitor Center: Significant Energy Savings Achieved through a Whole-Building Design Process: Preprint
The National Park Service (NPS) applied a whole-building design process developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to create a building that performs more than 70% better than a comparable code-compliant building at no additional construction cost. This whole-building design process involves a committed design team, including the energy consultant, in the earliest conceptual design phase and continues through building commissioning. The design team for this project included the architect, engineer, energy consultant, landscape architect, owner, operator, and others who could influence the building design and operation. Extensive whole-building energy and lighting computer simulations were conducted throughout the process, which included the integration of energy efficient and renewable energy technologies into the building. The design team, inspired by natural cooling within the canyon, developed simple solutions to create an extremely energy efficient building. The se strategies included natural ventilation cooling, cooltowers for evaporative cooling without distribution fans, daylighting, massive building materials, Trombe walls and direct solar gains for heating, engineered window overhangs for solar load control, a building automation system to maintain comfort and control the energy-efficient lighting system, and a roof-mounted photovoltaic system to offset building electrical loads and ensure a power supply during the frequent utility grid outages.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO. (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- US Department of Energy (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC36-99-GO10337
- OSTI ID:
- 15000714
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/CP-550-32157; TRN: US200401%%175
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Presented at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings, Pacific Grove, CA (US), 08/18/2002--08/23/2002; Other Information: PBD: 1 Jul 2002; Related Information: Prepared for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings, 18-23 August 2002, Pacific Grove, California
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
14 SOLAR ENERGY
29 ENERGY PLANNING
POLICY AND ECONOMY
AUTOMATION
AVAILABILITY
BLOWERS
BUILDING MATERIALS
COMMISSIONING
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CONSTRUCTION
DAYLIGHTING
EVAPORATIVE COOLING
HEATING
LIGHTING SYSTEMS
PUBLIC BUILDINGS
TROMBE WALLS
VENTILATION
BUILDING DESIGN
WHOLE-BUILDING DESIGN
RENEWABLE ENERGY
ZION NATIONAL PARK VISITOR CENTER
BUILDINGS