Impact Energy Consulting, LLC, Inc., known to many of our clients as simply IEC, is a consulting firm headquartered in Berkeley, CA. Our firm specializes in these services, including but not limited to:
Passive House Residential and Multi-Family Design building: Passive House buildings use 80%-90% less energy than conventional buildings. It comprises of a set of design principles used to attain a quantifiable and rigorous level of energy efficiency principles and specific quantifiable comfort level. Its the only internationally recognized, performance-based energy standard in construction. It optimizes the gains and losses of the building based on your climate zone. Passive house is designed and built in accordance with these five building-science principles:
LEED: Stands for Leadership In Energy & Environmental Design, is the most widely used green building rating system in the world. You can virtually certify any building type with LEED. It provides a framework for a healthy, highly energy efficient, as well as cost-saving green buildings. We offer LEED certification services in the design phase as well as the performance and verification phases.
IEC has consulting arrangements with a substantial number of expert specialists, providing immediate access to a wide spectrum of energy-related disciplines. Feel free to contact us and we would be happy to further assist you.
HERS: HERS stands for Home Energy Rating System, and is a program developed to address poor
construction quality and equipment installation. It includes HVAC systems, ductwork, ventilation, and insulation for residential projects, and ductwork for nonresidential projects. We perform onsite inspections and tests,
to ensure proper installation and code compliance.
Type of projects requiring HERS verification:
BPI: stands for Building Performance Institute. BPI is the cornerstone for the residential building science and performance industry, making all residential and multi family buildings energy efficient, comfortable with a much better indoor air quality (IAQ) as well as durable. We offer testing to BPI standards.
Building & designing affordable Zero Net Energy building involves 12 integrated steps that utilize commonly available building materials and equipment along with easy to learn building strategies.
If you follow these steps, you can build a new building that uses 80%-90% less energy than a conventional building.
Cost-effective zero net energy Buildings begin with smart design. Most designers and architects, as well as builders, are now familiar with all the steps involved in energy efficiency and building a net-zero Building, and should design the building so that builders and subcontractors can implement these steps as cost-effectively as possible.
There are several design parameters to which builders should ask designers to pay special attention. Detailed communication between the builder and the designer will ensure that these critical details don’t fall through the cracks.
2. Use Energy Modeling
Windows and doors are like big energy holes in a well-insulated, airtight building envelope and are the third most cost-effective strategy for making a Building energy efficient.
Control window and door heat loss and gain by selecting appropriate window and door products, carefully locating them, and optimizing their size and orientation. U-factor, SGHC, climate zone, and many other metrics are very important factors for your windows selection criteria.
7. Use the Sun for Solar Tempering
for residents, is an important feature of zero energy Buildings. LED lights are the perfect match for these tasks. They are more energy-efficient than CFLs, last many years longer, and contain no mercury.
In addition, they can meet a variety of lighting needs from very bright white light to soft, warm light. Selecting the right LED lights for the task, locating lights strategically, and utilizing natural light as effectively as possible can drastically reduce a Building’s energy use.
In a typical zero-energy building just over 40% of the building’s energy use is accounted for by heating, cooling and hot water, while appliances and plugloads may account for up to 60% of the load. Thus, selecting energy-efficient appliances and managing “phantom” plug loads for electronics is essential. “Phantom” loads are hard to find and continue to draw energy unseen, day and night whether or not the devices are being used.
Several buildings that were modeled and built to zero-energy standards have ended up not meeting zero energy requirements in practice because of the unanticipated energy waste caused by “phantom” plug loads on electronics.
Grid-tied solar photovoltaic (PV) panels currently provide the most cost-effective form of renewable energy for a zero-energy Building. They can power all the energy needs of a building including lighting, heating and cooling systems, appliances and hot water.
However, they are the most expensive component of a zero-energy building and strategies for reducing or mitigating those costs are important to consider.
While thick layers of insulation get most of the attention in cold climates, insulation needs less emphasis in warm climates. There are several other issues that would be treated differently in warm climates.