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Building Achieves Net Zero Using Renewable Energy

July 19, 2007 | 3 Comments

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Branchburg, New Jersey [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] The commercial building housing Ferreira Construction headquarters in Branchburg, New Jersey, has produced enough electrical energy from a renewable energy source to meet its entire electric utility demand for a full year.

In addition to producing all of the electric energy needed to run the facility, the project exceeded expectations by generating a surplus of "green" energy, a surplus that was made available for use by other businesses.

In addition to producing all of the electric energy needed to run the facility, the project further exceeded expectations by generating a surplus of "green" energy, a surplus that was made available for use by other businesses to reduce their carbon footprints and use of fossil fuels.

The project team's proprietary, patent-pending energy efficiency and building system-monitoring solution proved critical to its success. This monitoring system can now be shared nationwide to help other companies reduce their energy consumption.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy has set a goal that renewable energy buildings will be commercially viable by 2025. In compliance, a key element of the 31 Tannery Project and Ferreira Construction project is 100% return on investment in just five to seven years. The project team is committed to sharing this impressive design with the US DOE and the state of NJ.

It is the goal of Ferreira Construction and the 31 Tannery Project to educate and provide other companies with the tools to utilize standard building designs, renewable energy, high efficiency systems, and their new patent-pending monitoring system to spread this energy efficiency strategy across the U.S.

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Ferreira Construction

Bioenergy, Geothermal Energy, Green Power, Hydropower, Hydrogen - Fuel Cells, Ocean Energy, Other, Solar Energy, Wind Power

3 Reader Comments

Comment
1 of 3

mortimer-shnerdlyfrump-47009

July 19, 2007

I have a question for the author. In the first paragraph you mention that the renewable energy source will run the building for a full year. What happens after the year is up? Does it revert back to a conventional energy source?So many renewable energy writers and journalists mention "for a year" as if, the renewable energy source disapears when the year is up. I wish they'd stop doing that. It's annoying. (Maybe almost as annoying as my complaint.)

Comment
2 of 3

john-grabowski-68909

July 20, 2007

The mention of 1 year was to show that the Ferreira 31 Tannery project has gone one full year as a Net Zero, or actually power plus building.  31 Tannery is already working on taking the next step to becoming ZEB, or a completely Zero Energy Building. To be direct to your point, no, the 31 Tannery will not return to being a conventional energy building.  It was important to note that F31 Tannery was not estimating it would be net zero or that it could or should be, but that it actually achieved that status, maintained it, and has the historical data to prove it.  A key part of the 31 Tannery project is that it is not content to rest on past achievements but is continually pushing the boundaries by now targeting ZEB and by developing a pat. pending energy monitoring system that can be shared with every building in the US regardless of whether they use renewable energy, to make them more energy efficient.

Comment
3 of 3

bryan-brown-52610

July 30, 2007

31 Tannery used to post its energy monitoring data on the web in real time. I found it a very informative tool. Unfortunately, it's no longer posted.  Can you tell me why? Will it be posted in the future?

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