Challenges and Opportunities in Deep Envelope Retrofitting

In today’s real estate markets many commercial industrial building owners and managers recognize the business case potential of energy efficiency retrofits including energy cost savings and operating costs, while reducing a building’s environmental footprint. The challenge for existing building energy efficiency is to unlock that vast potential and realize the benefits of a built environment that is comfortable, efficient, and cost-effective. Deep Energy Retrofits (DER) that include the envelope are a challenge because of longer payback and upfront investment. Life cycle costing versus First Costs must be projected with ROI (Return on Investment) and NPV (Net Present Value) for a sound business case. The case study of the 500-unit Castle Square Apartments, is one of Boston’s most critical affordable housing resources and represents a historic milestone toward reducing the carbon footprint of existing buildings through the principles of Deep Energy Retrofit. A portion of the 1960s property, the 192-unit midrise, is the largest Deep Energy Retrofit ever undertaken in the U.S., and predictive modeling demonstrated energy reduction by 72 percent with the envelope representing + 30% of the total. One year of Post Project performance data will be presented compared to the predictive energy modeling along with lessons learned.

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