Energy Budget Calculator for Net-Zero Building Projects
The Energy Budget Calculator is an application that enables the user of the prescriptive path of the standard to determine their Energy Budget based on selected criteria. A recipe of sorts is shown of the standard required building strategies that need to be incorporated into your net zero building.
NegaWatt Calculator
The Nega-watt calculator will provide the cost and savings for Nega-watts and PV watts and assist in determining the "tipping point". Energy efficiency improvements are generally more cost effective than installing photovoltaic (PV) panels, up to a point. This calculator will assist in determining when the cost of energy saved by efficiency improvements, a nega-watt, is more than the cost of electricity produced by PV. This is the "tipping point" when it makes sense to stop making the building more efficient and install PV. This tool does not tell you which energy efficiency improvements to make. Use the Net-Zero Energy Building standard for prescriptive path or energy modeling to determine this.
About the Net-Zero Energy Building Standard
The Net-Zero Energy Building Standard project was sponsored by the City of Tucson Office of Conservation and Sustainable Development. Pima County Development Services, Building Safety and Sustainability was the principle research group with assistance from the University of Arizona College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and Tucson Water.
The Net-Zero Energy Standard has a prescriptive residential section and a prescriptive commercial section covering apartments, office and retail. These building types represent approximately 30% of total energy use in the metro area. The Net-Zero Energy Standard also has a performance section for both residential and commercial that will allow buildings that can not use the prescriptive path to achieve a net-zero certification by using energy modeling software
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