NEW NATIONAL ENERGY CODE
combined hot water systems, power distribution components and motors.
“ The energy code requirements will not only affect our designs, but also our design process,” says Kelsey Chegus, a building science consultant with Williams Engineering. Chegus says the co-ordination among the designs of walls, roofs and mechanical systems will become vital.
“ I believe it will really shift us towards a more integrated approach in our designs. We’ ll need more communication as a team earlier on in the design process. We’ ll have to make energy efficiency a priority in the early stages of design, all the way through.”
One of the most important aspects of the new requirements is the flexibility with compliance they provide engineers, architects and designers. The new requirements give guidance while still allowing design teams to explore multiple options.
Both the NECB and ABC 9.36 offer a design team a choice of three compliance paths: prescriptive, trade-off and performance modelling.
The prescriptive path requires meeting all requirements outlined in the code. It is typically the simplest compliance path to follow, but may not be appropriate for all buildings.
The trade-off path allows for more flexibility in your design, allowing you to trade elements within a portion of the design, like the building envelope, so the overall performance is equal or better to the prescriptive path without meeting every prescriptive element found in the code.
The performance compliance path provides the most design flexibility. You must demonstrate that your proposed design will not consume more energy than an equivalent building built to prescriptive requirements. This path is the most complex, and requires the use of a computer simulation, but offers significantly more design freedom.
“ Following these requirements will incur a small cost to builders,” says Pockar.“ We are not naive to the difficulty that changes like this present. We’ ve really tried to go out of our way to help builders adopt these new standards. We’ ve put together web information for both commercial and residential buildings on what the standards are and how to comply. We’ ve tried to instill a sense of flexibility and to provide paths to painless compliance.”
Chegus says that she thinks Albertans should be asking for more, looking beyond energy code compliance.
“ I believe it can drive innovation in the industry as a whole,” she says. •
To learn more, visit http:// www. municipalaffairs. alberta. ca / CP _ Energy _ Codes _ Information
Jennifer Atkinson is a communications analyst with the City of Calgary’ s Planning & Development department.
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