sdaarchi SDA Architect Carbon Trading

Carbon Trading

12 Sep 2016
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Carbon Trading

The Kyoto Protocol,1992 in the UN Framework Conventions on Climate Change but adopted in 1997 established the basis of Carbon Trading, Carbon offsets.
192 nation agreed to reduce Carbon emissions, which Identifies the 6 GHG gasses as 1) CO2 2) methane, 3) N2O 4) hydrofluorocarbon  5) perfluorocarbon and 6) sulphur hex-fluorocarbon. All these gases are referred to as Carbon emission, Carbon dioxide is the weaker global warming effect but the amount of it is the largest amount. Before the Kyoto Convention 2 Convention were held to establish the basis of Carbon emission, what is was considered as Carbon emission etc.

Carbon Trading Price Fluctuations

carbon-trading graph

carbon-trading in Asia

Protocols

The Carbon Trading has been defined in 3 conventions as follows:
a) Earth Summit-Conference on Environment and Development –UNCED, Rio 1992
b) United Nation Framework Conference on Climate Change UNFCCC( not binding due to no time limit was set by the UN
c) Kyoto Protocol, 1997
Carbon Trading is under the purview of the UN, Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 and therefore the Kyoto Protocol is a treaty
In Malaysia, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Trade is in charge of CDM. In Malaysia, 100 tonnes were traded in 2008, at RM4.8 Billion. I ton of carbon was  sold at RM48. The price of carbon rallied from US 25 – US 12 over these years.

Ways to earn Carbon Credits for Carbon Trading

There are a few established legitimate ways of Carbon trading , which are:
a) using PV solar panels as Carbon Offsets are made
b) using wind turbines as Carbon Offsets are made
c) designing Net Zero Carbon Emission buildings or Net Zero Energy Buildings
d) Managing a forest ( Tropical) or wetlands, as the soil and tree sequesters CO2 by using PV solar panels as Carbon Offsets is made
e) Investing in a Carbon reducing projects such as Renewable energy projects, Geo-Thermal, Biomass, PV solar panels, micro turbine and wind turbines.
How much can you gain by Carbon Trading?
A typical building as in a 100,000 sq ft of gross built commercial space up area can offset carbon 390 tons of carbon per year.
The financial amount you can trade is 390 ton per year xRM48/ton=RM18,720
Carbon Emission for Combustion Fuels
Coal…………………0,37kgCO2/kWh
Gasoline…………. 0.27kg CO2/kWh
Diesel………………0.24kgCO2/kWh
Light Oil…………. 0.26kgCO2/kWh
Natural Gas………0.23kgCO2/kWh
LPG…………………0.24kgCO2/kWh
Malaysian CO2 Emission Coefficient Rate is 0.631 kgCO2/kWh

Check out our Architect,Green Architect, House Plan relating to Net Zero Carbon designs

Carbon Trading

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Prepared by Ar Perumal Nagapushnam
Net Zero Emission Building Architect

Net Zero Energy Buildings in Green and Sustainable House Floor Plans

12 Sep 2016
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Certifying Bodies for Net Zero Energy Buildings

The certifying bodies for Net Zero Energy Buildings in the US A are :
A) Department of Energy, DOE, an equivalent to the Malaysian Ministry of Energy
B) Zero Energy Commercial Building consortium
C) New Building Institute. NBI
A nonprofit organization that provides research and improved energy performance in commercial buildings
D)International Living Future Institute

The Programs surrounding the Net Zero Energy Buildings are :
1)2030 Challenge
The top 80% of 10 Architectural firms and 70% of the top 20 Architectural firms use The Challenge 2030.whereby all developments, new buildings and major renovation shall be carbon neutral by 2030 in the US and thereby reducing the temperature by 2 degree below the pre-industrial times.Net Zero Energy Buildings are also refereed too as Zero Energy Buildings.

2)Ashrae Vision 2020
Ashrae is a strong supporter of NZEB, and where Ashrae Vision 2020 was developed to promote energy Efficiency. NZE is defined as uses as much energy as it produces as measured at the site.

The Industry Codes and Regulations  surrounding the Net Zero Energy Buildings  in the world are: 
1)Security Act of 2007
2)Energy Independence and Security Act( Malaysian Renewable Energy Act)
3)California Public Utilities Commission
4)Massachusetts Zero Energy Building Task Force
5)European Union
The parliament passed a directive to achieve NZE by 2019 but focused on residential buildings and not commercial buildings: UK-Zero Carbon Hub to be carbon neutral by 2016, Germany-Passivhaus, Netherlands-energy neutral by 2020, France to be Energy positive by 2020.

The Building Codes surrounding the Net Zero Energy Buildings  in the USA are:  
1)IgCC– International Green Construction Code
This code is developed in conjunction with AIA,USGBC (MGBC-a Malaysian equivalent body –Malaysian Green Building Council) , 2)ASHRAE,ASTM,IES
3)CalGreen, California Green Building
4)Standard 189.1

The Building rating and Energy Labelling Systems surrounding the Net Zero Energy Buildings  in the USA are:

1) Energy Star
Is an energy labelling program of EPA( Environmental Protection Agency) and DOE( Department of Energy) It labels energy efficient products, homes, and commercial buildings. It scores on a table of 1 to 100.100 is a top performer. Energy Star does not recognize NZEBs. But the NZEB would score 90 in this program.
2) Leed/Green Building Index
The energy efficiency is the first and primary focus of the certification, one cannot obtain a platinum certification without designing for a high performance building. Incidentally the Net Zero building would easily obtain the Platinum with a marginal additional cost
3) Living Building Challenge by International Living Future Institute
Defines Imperatives for Net Zero Energy:

  • Net Zero Energy-if this imperative is not achieved it will not be qualified for the Living Building Challenge. The definition of NZEB are on: renewable energy, photo voltaic, wind turbines, water powered micro turbines, direct geo thermal. Biomass or combustion of any kind is not allowed. Hydrogen cell is allowed if energy is fueled by Hydrogen. Off grid connection is a must.
  • Site Imperatives-Site is restricted for gray fields and brownfields
  • Equity Imperatives-fresh air, sunlight and natural waterways
  • Beauty Imperatives-Beauty, spirit, inspiration and education

 

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Prepared by Ar. Perumal Nagapushnam

How Green Architects can design for Waste Reduction, Recycling and Reusing

18 Sep 2015
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Green and Sustainability solutions for our Cities

All over the world the we generate much domestic waste from New York City to New Delhi, a call for reduction of waste should be in calculated by Architects. Buildings are the sources of waste and it should be reduced, reuse and recycled otherwise we will find ourselves living among the waste.

Waste designs failures

Failure of Disposal Waste designs by Green Architect

We can learn from nature how waste is processed. The spider eats up the waste webs , plants consume the Co2 we dump, and the bacteria consume our waste, the earth does not have a dump center. But our domestic waste is left to decompose and we are running our of land fills as the waste takes about 30 years to decompose and diapers takes 500 years to do like wise, to a stable conditions.

We generate much waste as the figures listed below reveal; Architects can do much to solve the problems.

  • New York City generates as much as 36,200 tones of garbage every day.
  • London city’s waste can generates 9,100 tones per day, equivalent power to power 2m homes
  • The amount of domestic waste( Municipal Solid Waste) generated is 2,400 tones per day in Kuala Lumpur
  • New Delhi generates about 7,000 tones of waste per day

In the absence of a comprehensive Integrated Strategic MSW Plan all over the world, Architect can forge a plan to reduce the waste at the source-the building, where 95% be recovered and recycling the aluminum and steel and the wet waste to be reprocessed composted for reuse. Or biomass waste power be generated and re-supplied into the grid.

Consideration by Green Architects  in Domestic waste( solid) disposal

As Green Architects our responsibility lies in designing for Waste Collections Centers (waste dumps) where rubbish is sorted out not dumped. Sorting should be done at every floor of the office tower so that it is not dumped at the waste dumps but easily sorted out early at the source.Sorting should be wet waste, paper, cans and bottles waste.Every waste dump at every residence, industrial buildings, resorts, hotels, commercial centers are
to be designed like wise for waste sorting.

Consideration by Green Architects  in Domestic Waste water disposal

As Green Architects we ensure the drains are built properly ,the collapsed drains can be a source of to breed mosquitoes. Bios vales may be considered to replace the external drains as the waste water can be recycled as portable water even for human consumption.

 

Consideration by Green Architects  in Wet Waste disposal

As Green Architects we should ensure the food waste ( wet waste)are not dumped into the drains which help to breed rats rampantly, liters in drains can encourage the rat population to breed.

Wet Waste mixed with the landscape waste, should be sent to the composting yard at every building which should be reused as compost manure which is a better manure for the landscaped areas as it stabilizes the acidity of the ground helping to maintain Eco balance in the ground, See the Edmonton waste center in Canada, an example where waste is recycled as manure. We can start small composting places at our every building sites . If it was a campus style development or a housing scheme where wet waste generated could be massive amount, a Net Zero Energy Architect would design for generating  biomass renewable energy from the wet wastes.

Consideration by Green Architects  in Construction waste disposal

Construction waste should be minimize by using construction systems that reduce wastes such as IBS system or waste is recycled within the site, ensure the contractor reduces waste in the first place. As architect it is our responsibility to design buildings as a waste sorting, reducing and recycling at the source than to shove the problem to city municipalities to solve green and sustainable issues before the waste sites swallows our living spaces.

Prepared by Net Zero Energy Architect Perumal Nagapushnam Read more!

11 Whys for Net Zero Energy Building in our cities

17 Sep 2015
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The common misconceptions about Net Zero Energy Building as reported by Wikipedia: A zero-energy building is a building with zero net energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building yearly equal to the amount of energy created on the site. This is only partly true in the early day when this principle was first conceived. And to this day this is the common misconception among many .

In fact the energy (the energy pie) consumption is reduced to about 80% of the conventional consumption and then the balance 20% of the balance of energy is made up by the renewable energy, the renewable energy may be sourced from solar Photo Voltaic panels, geothermal, wind turbines or biomass energy.

This article is about the case for Net Zero Energy Building and why we should perpetuate this goal: There has always been some anticipation of imminent disaster that we need to be cautious about, such as the ones illustrated below:

  • Recently Bill Gates asked the, If some cataclysm, all scientific knowledge was destroyed, what is the one line fact that next generation of humanity needs to know!
  • About 50 years ago the question schools debated on was the earth was depleting its resources and the end is near.
  • Recently with the major obvious undeniable weather changes and so called global warming in the Arctic glaciers!

There have been many calls for Green Sustainability movement called -Going Green, thinking this is the solution to the impending juggernaut disasters. In reality the solutions in Green are really superficial and will not help very much with self reliance and self sustainability.

  1. When Japan faced the Fukusima earthquake that destroyed the Daiichi nuclear plant they experienced a power crisis that awaken to the importance of energy conservation and lead to the need for Net Zero Energy Building A new standard for construction was implemented to this end of 2020. We need Net Zero Energy Building for our future survival.
  2. One would think that even this should not be the goal would not suffice unless there was a total independence for electrical consumption and not be dependent on the utility company for energy consumption should be the ultimate goal, with Net Zero Energy Buildings which is off the grid. Net Zero Energy Buildings tend toward self reliance.
  3. Net Zero Energy Buildings reduced the waste in as much as 80% purely on the basis of passive strategies and shading, smart landscaping and other active strategies. The buildings are more efficient and low energy consuming where not wasting is reduced and resources and minimized;
  4. By installing Net Zero Energy Building you have clear conscious that you are  morally doing the right thing, stopping the unwanted wastage.
  5. By installing Net Zero Energy Building, you indeed saving money , which could be used meaningfully elsewhere, imagine the regular monthly bills amounting to USD200 could be used meaningfully else where.
  6. By installing Net Zero Energy Building you are responding responsibility to the climate changes demands that us undergoing world wide by reducing the foot print and closer towards becoming self sustainability for our future survival..
  7. By installing Net Zero Energy Building you have Value for your rent able space or value for property, Developers will find the Net Zero Energy Buildings as a marketing tool to bargain for higher rental compared to Going Green for certification. Green building do not receive higher rentals as tenants do no see the need to pay higher rentals for Green sustainability certified building.
  8. By installing Net Zero Energy Building, you secure government grants and benefits from most governments of the world.
  9. By installing Net Zero Energy Building you may receive taxation incentives
  10. By installing Net Zero Energy Building you don’t have to pay the monthly electric bill
  11. By installing Net Zero Energy Building you are making the buildings, cities ,world economies more efficient and  enhances the productivity of the  individual and collectively at large.

 

 

Prepared by Net Zero Energy Architect  Perumal Nagapushnam, Green Sustainability Architect

Net Zero Energy Building Terms used in Designs

26 Jun 2015
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What the basic Net Zero Energy Building Terms used in Design

Net Zero Green and sustainability

Photo Voltaic Panels

The main Net Zero Energy Building Terms  used in Designs are :


1,) Net Zero Energy Building Energy Models are virtual e models of the building which is based on building physics and it uses a baseline model and compares the energy savings with the proposed model. Interpreting the results will make the difference. Read the 10 types of energy saving model in this blog

The Energy performances are to be controlled through-out the delivery process tracking for net zero energy performance?The entire design team should interface with the energy model for energy modeling to be successfully achieved as an end to the energy model.

Inputs such as OTTV, RTTV, air con loads, temperature set points , outside ambient temperatures, and details about systems will help the energy model to be accurate.A white box model/shoe box model helps to analyze the daylight and energy performances.  A white box model is a simple 3 d electronic model of a building without much details of the building.merely showing the overall shape of the building, and the insulation material will be shown.

These Net Zero Energy Building Energy Models can be created by Sketch up plug in such as  IES Virtual Environment and Energy Plus and Open Studio.This  model study is possible with VE( mass, window/wall ratios).In the future, the Thermal comfort models may be designed for designing purposes.Other Tools box that can be useful are–Weather Maker, sketch up, eQuest, IES Virtual Environment(VE), TRNSYS and THERM

The basic  Net Zero Energy Building Terms used in Designs


2.) Energy-energy is a property of objects which can be transferred to other objects or converted into different forms, but cannot be created or destroyed.
The types of Energy are – Kinetic Energy, Potential Energy, Mechanical Energy,Gravitational Energy, Nuclear Energy, Chemical Energy, Electricity Energy, Motion Energy, Thermal Energy, Radiant Energy and  Sound Energy.

3.) Law of Thermodynamics states that:
a)Energy cannot be created or destroyed, the sum energy of the universe is constant.
b)Law of Entropy, that energy flow from hot to cold

4.) Power is the rate of doing work or transfer of energy, P=W/t, SI for power is Joules per sec(Watt), a LED using 1watt diode uses 1-watt energy for 1hour

5.) Horse Power is to measure mechanical power,

6.) Btu is heat used to raise the temperature by 1 pound of water by 1 degree F.MBtu is the power to cool and heat water for air con.
Megawatt hour is electrical energy

7.) Photo-voltaic Solar panels convert radiant energy to electrical energy and thermal energy.
8.) pls read here Super Insulation,
9)   pls read here Solar Path
10) pls read here Renewable Energy
11) pls read here BAS Systems
12) pls read here Shading
13) pls read here Orientation of Building
14) pls read here  LED lighting
15.) pls read here Energy Bill
16,) pls read here Peak Loads
17.) pls read here  Conductance,Conductivity,Resistivity, Resistance

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Prepared by Green Architect Architect Perumal Nagapushnam, http://www.sda-architect.com/

 

 

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