The most environmentally friendly buildings in the world amount to a pretty short list, and just a handful of them are in Hawai'i. The latest of these is Hawai'i Preparatory Academy's new energy lab, just the third Hawai'i building to gain Platinum Certification under the LEED program. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
(Image: horses, and a LEED-Platinum building in the pastures of Waimea. Credit: HPA)
Others are Hawaii Baptist Academy Middle School in Honolulu and the Hawaii Gateway Energy Center at the state's Natural Energy Lab in Kona.
The HPA center is the first to get a Platinum certificate under the new LEED for Schools 2.0 rating system.
Our previous post on the opening of the energy lab is here.
Why go to the difficult task of getting such a certification?
“The green building movement offers an unprecedented opportunity to respond to the most important challenges of our time, including global climate change, dependence on non-sustainable and expensive sources of energy and threats to human health.
“The work of innovative building projects such as the Energy Lab at Hawaii Preparatory Academy is a fundamental driving force in the green building movement,” said Rick Fedrizzi, president U.S. Green Building Council.
The energy lab is still in the running for an even tougher green certification, the Living Building Challenge, another environmentally appropriate building ranking system.
What did the energy lab designers and builders do to impress the raters? A sampling: It collects waste heat from its computers; The lab is liberally supplied with hundreds of sensors that track electricity and water use; All wood is from salvaged sources; Solar panels produce its power.
For pictures of the facility, see here.
Here's the school's Facebook link.
© Jan TenBruggencate 2010
This is great! It would be even better to add a Xerolet (dehydration toilet)for waste water management,in which Hawaii is the first state in the Nation to approve its use.
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