One of the fundamental questions in planning the Hildreth Elementary School renovation is to what degree does Harvard want the school to be energy efficient and sustainable. At a Feb. 15 after-school meeting, a group including the project manager, three architects from the firm Arrowstreet, building committee representatives, and two members of the Harvard Energy Advisory Committee began to work on an answer to that question.
Harvard residents can get an update on this and other aspects of the proposed school renovation project at a community meeting Thursday, March 2, at 7 p.m. in Volunteers Hall at the library.
At the Feb. 15 meeting, architect Kate Bubriski explained that one possible choice for the town would be to meet the Stretch Energy Code, meaning that the building would be 10 percent more energy efficient than required by the state building code. Bubriski called that goal “very achievable.” Building committee member Ron Ostberg pointed out that meeting the Stretch Code would also allow the project to qualify for an extra 2 percent reimbursement from the Massachusetts School Building Authority. Harvard committed to following the Stretch Code, which covers most new residential and commercial construction, when it became a Green Community in 2010.
The next higher stage of efficiency and sustainability that the project might aim for, Bubriski said, would be to make the renovated building “net-zero energy ready.” That is, the building would be designed so that sometime in the future, renewable energy features could be incorporated. David Fay, a member of both the building and energy committees, suggested that it would mean figuring out how much solar photovoltaic capacity the building would need, as part of planning for a future changeover. Bubriski agreed but added that the best choice is always to reduce the building’s energy demands, or load, rather than trying to increase supply.
The highest stage of sustainability, Bubriski went on, would be to design the building for net-zero emissions. Achieving that level, she said, would involve making the building “a combustion-free site,” using a geothermal heat pump powered by electricity from a renewable source. That is a solution many new schools are looking at, she said. (As with the net-zero energy ready level, the use of renewably sourced electricity might be added later, as it became available.) In the long run, Bubriski said, using electricity “might make more sense than natural gas,” to which the Harvard schools converted a few years ago to reduce heating costs.
Energy committee member Paul Green pointed out that deferring renewable energy aspects until some future date would mean losing state reimbursement for those costs. Green also urged the architects to focus on passive ways of saving energy, such as insulation and energy-efficient doors and windows, rather than active features like complex controls that require maintenance and monitoring. He pointed to the town’s poor record on maintaining its buildings as a drawback for such systems.
“Every town has this exact same problem,” project manager Stephanie Gilman responded. “Maintenance problems are a theme.”
