Town of Devon: Building Upgrade Energy Audit Net Zero Feasibility Study

The Town of Devon is located along the North Saskatchewan River, a 15 minute drive south of the City of Edmonton. It is gaining recognition as an environmentally conscious community and has set a goal of becoming the first net zero-energy municipality in Alberta. Devon wishes to conduct a technical and financial energy feasibility study for a major retrofit of an existing office building into a sustainable, net zero-energy building that will be the municipality’s Town Hall. The study will look into energy reduction options and methods, as well as potential sources of renewable energy for the building. Other components of the study include looking at ways to take advantage of the location and orientation of the building and ways to incorporate nature into the building’s performance. With this project, the Town aims at the following objectives: a large reduction in energy usage and costs, a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, creating a healthy indoor and outdoor environment on the office site, and demonstrating sustainable practices to the community and visitors of the building. Devon will meet them with the following deliverables: a performance measure feedback and stakeholder engagement, and a triple bottom-line evaluation of baseline and three scenarios. The three scenarios studied are 1) a baseline retrofit scenario modifying the building to make it a fully functional office building, while maintaining its current level of energy efficiency; 2) a National Energy Code for Buildings (NECB) retrofit scenario modifying the building to meet the minimum levels of energy efficiency required in the NECB, and 3) Net Zero-Energy (NZE) building retrofit scenario modifying the building to meet a NZE performance level. The environmental performance, estimated capital, operational, and maintenance costs will be generated and compared for all three scenarios. A 30 year Life Cycle Cost Analysis will also be conducted and include capital, maintenance and replacement costs, as part of the evaluation process. Public consultation will be held with stakeholder engagements and creative brainstorming sessions to see what people want from the building and how it will effectively reach its fullest potential and cater to the community. (Project description from original funding application)