This Building is 63% More Energy Efficient Than Even Boston’s “Greenest” Buildings
The green line on the left is The Distillery North, a 28-unit Passive House apartment building in South Boston
It’s great to see research that shows the real-world energy performance of buildings once they’re occupied and in use. Here in Boston, we’re actually required to report these data and they’re publicly available. Thanks to a study called Scaling Up Passive House Multifamily: The Massachusetts Story we can see how our building, a 28-unit Passive House rental building completed in 2017, stacks up against others.
The study analyzed 78 multifamily buildings completed between 2010 and 2019, and shows that The Distillery North is dramatically more energy efficient.
In the graph above, the green line is The Distillery North. The blue lines are buildings in Boston constructed around the same time. The purple lines are buildings in Boston that are certified to the LEED green building standard. The contrast is striking. The Distillery North uses 59% less energy than the conventional buildings. And uses 63% less energy than the LEED-certified buildings. (If you’re wondering why LEED buildings, which are supposed to be green, use more energy than the conventional buildings… good question.)
What do the numbers mean?
The numbers being compared in the graph are called Energy Use Intensity scores. EUI is commonly explained as a building’s “miles per gallon,” and is calculated by dividing the total energy consumed by the building in one year by the total gross floor area of the building. The resulting number is expressed in kilo British thermal units per square foot per year (kBtu/sf/yr). Therefore, The Distillery North uses 20.6 kBtu’s per square foot over the course of year of operation.
Where do these numbers come from?
Here in Boston, all residential buildings greater than 35,000 sf and/or 35 units in size are required to report their annual energy use, and the data is publicly available. This came into effect in 2017 thanks to BERDO, the Building Energy Reporting Disclosure Ordinance. The data you see here were reported in 2021, reflecting 2020 energy usage.
Access the full report here: Scaling Up Passive House Multifamily: The Massachusetts Story
And so can you
We hope results like this inspire developers to build Passive House buildings, which slash energy consumption, carbon emissions, and require minimal additional upfront costs. If you want to hear more about our experience building the first multi-family Passive House in Massachusetts, we’re happy to talk.
To learn more about The Distillery North story, read more here: The Distillery North Proves How Energy-efficient Multifamily Buildings Can Be