Building green: states are getting involved in making new and old buildings energy efficient.

It may be Arizona's greatest contribution to the green building movement: a $36.4 million headquarters for the state's Department of Environmental Quality that is loaded with energy-efficiency features.

"We have people coming in here all of the time on tours, officials from other states who are interested in making their own buildings back home energy-efficient," says Courtland Coleman, communications director with the Arizona DEQ. "And the one thing they are the most amazed about is the range and scope of energy-efficiency measures that have been incorporated into this building."

Nearly a year and a hall in the making, the new headquarters boasts building materials composed of recycled content, recessed light fixtures with low-energy bulbs, Energy Star transformers, solar panels on the roof, low-water use plumbing fixtures, and carpeting made from recycled materials.

"And it doesn't stop with the building itself," notes Courtland. "The landscape outside was designed to reduce what are called 'heat islands.' There is also an underground gray water tank to capture all of the blow-down water that in most buildings is either flushed down the drain or seeps into the soil."

One of the many who has visited the structure is John Giglio, executive director of the National Association of State Energy Officials. "This is proof that the states have adopted a very proactive approach to promoting and securing energy efficiency in their public buildings," he says.

And those approaches, to a much larger degree, are also including measures for existing buildings. "Through performance contracting, we have been able to reduce our consumption on the capitol campus since 1995 from 60 megawatt hours on average per day to about 40," says Washington Representative Jeff Morris, the chairman of the House Committee on Technology, Telecommunications, and Energy.

"And that savings is enough to supply the energy needs of up to 20,000 bornes."

A WIDESPREAD GOAL

Although the exact number of state public buildings that are energy-efficient or in the process of becoming so is hard to come by, there are currently more than 1,800 energy-efficiency projects in all SO states that have been registered under the Leadership in Energy Efficiency Design program sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council.

"LEED is essentially a system for defining what a green building is by establishing a common standard of measurement," explains Taryn Holowka, communications manager with the U.S. Green Building Council.

According to the LEED program, buildings are either registered or certified; the difference being that a certified project is one that has been completed, adopting a series of energy-efficiency measures in the process, and is now occupied and in use. Currently there are 155 such buildings, both private and public, according to the U.S. Green Building Council.

Registered buildings are those that are in the pipeline: "They are projects where someone has come to us and said they wanted to build a green building. We then help them achieve that goal through workshops and educational material," says Holowka.

Inevitably at the state level, energy-efficiency building and renovation efforts are tied in with larger and more varied goals such as the promotion of alternative fuels, energy conservation and public education. And two of the nation's biggest states--California and New York--not only have the most all-encompassing energy-efficiency programs, but some of the most innovative.

"Our goal has been to try to address as many of the energy-efficiency issues that are out there as possible," says William Keese, chairman of the California Energy Commission.

To that extent, building green in California has meant state incentives for the use of sustainable building technologies, equipment and systems. Examples of recent projects built with state of local support include the CAL/EPA Headquarters in Sacramento, a $270 million project that features solar energy generation from some 736 photovoltaic panels on the roof; low-flow water fixtures, and the use of zero volatile compound (VOC) paints throughout the interior of the 950,000 square foot building.

Combined state and city energy-efficiency projects are a special point of pride in California, says Keese. This fall the city of Arcata in Northern California installed 56 solar panels on the roof of its City Hall, with the help of a $116,000 loan from the California Energy Commission. City officials predict that the panels, along with several other conservation measures, will create up to $13,000 in energy savings a year--enough to pay off the loan to the CEC in roughly eight years.

A MONEY SAVER

"The emphasis, no matter what the project, is always on savings," says Keese. "Whatever the particular program is, the message is always on the pay back. We never tell anyone to stop using so much energy. The idea, instead, is to emphasize the use of energy efficiency, doing something that will guarantee savings through a lower bill."

With more than a dozen LEED-certified buildings and 270 LEED-registered structures, California has also been a leader in both green building construction and renovation. But that task was suddenly made easier by an executive order issued in early December by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger mandating that all new state buildings must be built so as to win LEED-certification.

By so doing, Schwarzenegger said, the amount of electricity used could be reduced by 10 percent per square foot by the year 2010 and twice that amount by 2015.

Schwarzenegger also said that all existing state buildings must adopt the kind of energy-efficiency measures that will eventually make them LEED-certified buildings too.

New York, at the same time, has promoted a wide-ranging series of energy efficiency programs both for both public and privately-owned structures through its New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Those programs have resulted in the construction and renovation of nearly 100 green buildings with higher energy-efficiency equipment exceeding the state's energy code by 18 percent. They have brought in some $125 million in private financing for energy performance contracts at more than 30 state institutions, including buildings on the campuses of the State University of New York and several prison facilities.

In addition, New York has specifically geared programs for building owners, a particularly important target group given that the vast majority of New York City's 8 million residents live in apartments.

"Our residential program is what we call Home Performance with ENERGY STAR," explains Tom Collins, the authority's director of communications. "It gives people a complete audit of their homes and helps them to determine their specific energy-efficiency needs."

"On top of this," adds Collins, "we offer a loan program for any work that needs to be done, which buys down whatever interest their banks would give them."

WISCONSIN'S BOLD MOVE

But perhaps the most ambitious state energy-efficiency program for state buildings is the Wisconsin Energy Initiative, which was officially launched in 1992 and addresses the energy needs of more than 6,900 buildings through an ongoing energy-performance contracting program.

"No other state has removed as many bureaucratic processes to enable them to move as quickly on these issues as Wisconsin has," says Chuck McGinnis, director of sales for state government with Johnson Controls, a Milwaukee-based systems facility management and controls company serving as the coordinator for the program.

The program began with the upgrading of lighting fixtures in nearly S0 million square feet of state-owned structures, resulting in more than $S million in annual savings.

A second phase of Wisconsin's program addressed the energy needs of local schools and municipal facilities, followed by a third phase that focused on upgrading mechanical equipment, including ventilation and heating systems, in all state facilities.

At the completion of phase three, the Wisconsin Department of Administration estimated that the program had saved enough energy to heat up to 10,000 homes a year while, at the same time, reducing state expenditures by nearly $7 million a year.

MAKING THE OLD GREEN

And that effort, despite the growing amount of new green building construction across the country, ultimately centered on the internal workings of existing buildings. "We can, of course, make a new building energy-efficient," says McGinnis. "But the amount of energy conservation that can be obtained through new construction is minimal compared with what you could do with the existing building stock.

"Wisconsin has a $110 million energy bill. But they only build a couple of new buildings a year out of the 6,900 they operate. So obviously any meaningful energy-efficiency effort has to center around the buildings that are already there."

"From programs that promote efficiencies and conservation in institutional and state-owned government buildings, to programs for new home construction, commercial construction, existing home remodeling and everything else in between," says Giglio of NASEO, "I see the states becoming more involved."

"How successful these efforts will ultimately be, remains to be seen," he adds.

"But I think in many parts of the country, the states have made a great start."

RELATED ARTICLE: Federal programs aim to help states.

As green building advances in the states there are many federal programs to help them. One of the oldest is Energy Star, a voluntary labeling program launched by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1992. It identifies and promotes products that save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Computers and monitors were the first labeled products. Today, the program covers more than 40 product categories and thousands of models that offer the same or better performance while using less energy. Energy Star also labels new homes that meet efficiency standards related to heating, cooling and hot water energy use. Certified homes are verified to be at least 30 percent more energy efficient than homes built to the 1993 national Model Energy Code or 15 percent more efficient than a state's energy code, whichever is more rigorous. For more information go to: http://www.energystar.gov/.

One of EPA's partners in the ENERGY STAR program is the U.S. Department of Energy, which serves as a clearinghouse on national model energy codes. The International Energy Conservation Code establishes the national model for building code efficiency standards and contains both commercial and residential standards. Published in 1998, 2000 and 2003, these codes are then adopted or modified by states. For more information go to: www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/program_areas/codes.html.

ENERGY STAR and the International Energy Conservation Code are just two examples of the work going on at the federal level to promote energy efficiency, reduce energy costs and lower pollution emissions.

--Tamra Spielvogel, NCSL 

Garry Boulard, a frequent contributor to State Legislatures magazine, is a free-lancer in Albuquerque, N.M.