Page 108 - Designing for Zero Carbon - Case Studies of All-Electric Buildings

CASE STUDY NO. 5 SFUSD CLAIRE LILIENTHAL MIDDLE SCHOOL
SFUSD Claire Lilienthal Middle School
Case Study No. 5
Data Summary Building Type:
Public School Classrooms Location: San Francisco, CA Gross Floor Area: 21,995 sq.ft.
Occupied: Aug. 2019 - Mar. 2020; Sep. 2021 - present. (Unoccupied Mar. 2020 - Aug 2021)
Modeled EUI (Site):
13.4 kBtu/sq.ft. per year
Measured EUI (Site):
16.7 kBtu/sq.ft. per year (See discussion)
On-Site Renewable Energy System To Be Installed:
67.8 kW (DC) Solar PV
Measured On-Site Energy Production:
TBD - System to be installed in 2022.
Client
San Francisco Unified School District
Design Team
Architect:
Lionakis, Oakland
Structural Engineer:
Lionakis, Oakland
Mechanical/Plumbing Engineer:
Capital Engineering Consul- tants, Alameda
Electrical Engineer:
Alliance Engineering Consul- tants, San Carlos
General Contractor:
Zolman Construction
& Development, San Carlos
In 2011, San Francisco voters passed Proposition A, part of which authorized the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to issue general obligation bonds in the amount of $531 mil- lion for the renovation and new construction of schools throughout the city. Many schools had installed “temporary” classrooms, consisting of trailers or “bungalow”, to relieve space needs and provide seismic safety on various school sites. These facilities were aging and there was a priority to replace them with buildings that were more suitable programmatically.
The replacement building programming included not only space programs but also a uniformly strong design standard for the buildings’ structure, and in particular a standard for sustainable design and, where feasible, zero-net-energy design.
Background
SFUSD had been preparing for the program for some time. The District had undertaken a series of studies of different school building types to determine the feasibility of aggressive sustainable design for both new building construction and retrofits. For energy-related design, this involved evaluating the potential for zero-net-energy (ZNE) performance with on-site renewable energy systems, with an emphasis on all-electric systems so that the buildings would eventually be fully zero-carbon (ZC).
These feasibility studies consisted of energy modeling of the different types of school buildings to establish certain EUI1 benchmarks for each type and to determine the size of the solar photovol- taic (PV) system needed to make each type ZNE. In the process of energy modeling, the studies identified optimal design strategies to achieve these design objectives, all of which focused on all-electric technologies and operations. The result of these feasibility studies was the creation of a set of design “standards” that were adopted by the SFUSD. These standards were in place when the bond measure passed and the building program began, creating an efficiency in the design process for all the design teams.
These standards were applied first to a project that was a precursor to those of the SFUSD Proposition A program: the Claire Lilienthal Middle School located on a 1.44 acre site in the Marina District in the northern part of the city near the waterfront. In fact, this was the first ZNE project to be undertaken by SFUSD.
A standard RFP was issued in 2016 with the brief containing the newly adopted design standards and describing the new 12,000 square foot building as a “bungalow replacement” project. The brief also required the selected design team to carry out energy modeling at certain prescribed stages of design and demonstrate that the new building would achieve the specified target EUI. The design team was also required to document that the proposed design solution includes space for a solar PV system installation that would be adequate to produce ZNE performance.
The Lionakis/Capital Engineering design team was selected based on their previous experience with school projects and familiarity with the new ZNE design standards.
1 EUI = Energy Use Intensity, the unit of measurement is kBtu/sq.ft. per year.
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Designing for Zero Carbon: Volume 1