Tarrant Regional Water District -LEED GOLD Annex Building

Our class went to visit the Tarrant Regional Water District Annex Building.  This is the first LEED GOLD building in Tarrant County!

The USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) has put together the LEED certification program as a way to change how building are made.  LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.  LEED is for companies, municipalities, counties and basically anyone who is interested in building a sustainable building.  LEED certification is all about, "saving money, conserving energy, reducing water consumption, improving indoor air quality, making better building material choices and driving innovation." (http://www.usgbc.org/leed/why-leed)

There are published LEED Certification criteria for a number of building types, which include:
New Construction
Existing Buildings
Commercial Interiors
Core and Shell Development
Retail
Schools
Homes
Neighborhood Development
Healthcare

Each building type has it's own rating system, and there are 4 types of certification, based on the number of points achieved:
LEED Certified 40-49 points
Silver 50-59 points
Gold 60-79 points
Platinum 80 points and above


The main categories for LEED certification from the LEED rating website (website link listed just below) are:

• Sustainable sites credits encourage strategies that minimize the impact on ecosystems and water resources.
• Water efficiency credits promote smarter use of water, inside and out, to reduce potable water consumption.
• Energy & atmosphere credits promote better building energy performance through innovative strategies.
• Materials & resources credits encourage using sustainable building materials and reducing waste.
• Indoor environmental quality credits promote better indoor air quality and access to daylight and views.

For more details on the rating system, use the following link:

http://www.usgbc.org/leed/rating-systems

Some of the things the Tarrant Regional Water District did to accomplish GOLD rating in it's ANNEX building are as follows:

They took advantage of the south facing roof that was pitched at a 45 degree angle and installed a large solar array capable of generating 236 kw of energy.  It is able to generate enough electricity to provide up to 70% of the building's energy need.  Since the building was build with a strict energy standard, this was a great fit for the building.  The solar array came with a big price tag of $1.4 million, but will "pay for itself" in about 16-18 years (that's how much the offset in electricity costs was expected to be during the same period of time).

TRWD Solar Array

The designers also minimized the size of the windows on the south side to reduce the solar radiation into the facility.  However, they used plenty of glass on the north side of the building, where there is no direct sunlight.

TRWD north facing windows

The roof didn't only provide space for the solar array, but also helped with water efficiency.  with 19,000 square feet of roof space, building designers designed the gutter system that would channel rain water into collection reservoirs.  1" of rainfall is sufficient to collect 7,500 gallons of water and fill the reservoirs.  Then the water is used to irrigate the landscape of naturally occurring plant species.

Here some other pictures of the facility: