Why LEED
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is the nation’s foremost coalition of leaders from across the building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work.
The USGBC LEED program, which is a voluntary, consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings, is quickly becoming an accepted standard for green building design. Many state and local governments now require their buildings to be LEED-certified.
Energy Recovery Ventilation is an excellent method to achieve points towards a LEED certification.
Points for Energy Reduction
- LEED-NC v2.2 for new construction and major renovations gives credit to “Achieve increasing levels of energy performance above the prerequisite standard to reduce environmental impacts associated with excessive energy use.”
- Some Airxchange® customers have realized a reduction in total building energy use of 10-15% by using energy recovery as part of their HVAC systems. In this case, according to the Energy and Atmosphere Credit 1: Optimize Energy Performance, this customer would receive 2 points for new construction and 4 points for a major renovation.
Points for Ventilation
- Additionally, USGBC recognizes the contribution of higher outdoor air ventilation rates with better indoor air quality (IAQ). The Indoor Environmental Quality Credit 2: Increased Ventilation gives one point for outdoor air ventilation rates 30% above the minimum required by ASHRAE 62.1-2004. The credit also suggests:
- “Use heat recovery, where appropriate, to minimize additional energy consumption associated with higher ventilation rates.”
- With Airxchange® energy recovery wheels, you can achieve the ventilation credit with no energy penalty while still receiving points towards the energy performance credit.
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