On-Site Renewable Energy and Green Buildings: A System-Level Analysis

Adopting
a green building rating system (GBRSs) that strongly considers
use of renewable energy can have important environmental consequences,
particularly in developing countries. In this paper, we studied on-site
renewable energy and GBRSs at the system level to explore potential
benefits and challenges. While we have focused on GBRSs, the findings
can offer additional insight for renewable incentives across sectors.
An energy model was built for 25 sites to compute the potential solar
and wind power production on-site and available within the building
footprint and regional climate. A life-cycle approach and cost analysis
were then completed to analyze the environmental and economic impacts.
Environmental impacts of renewable energy varied dramatically between
sites, in some cases, the environmental benefits were limited despite
the significant economic burden of those renewable systems on-site
and vice versa. Our recommendation for GBRSs, and broader policies
and regulations, is to require buildings with higher environmental
impacts to achieve higher levels of energy performance and on-site
renewable energy utilization, instead of fixed percentages.