Buildings
A Necessary Low-Carbon Development Strategy for Chinese Buildings
China has the opportunity to improve the thermal comfort of building occupants without increasing energy use by designing new buildings (and retrofitting old ones) to have many of the passive features that RMI’s Innovation Center demonstrates. These features require very low levels of energy to fuel them, and deliver thermal comfort that is better than what most Chinese buildings are delivering now.
To Get to Net Zero, Think Bigger
Guest author Allison Hibbs was a summer associate at RMI. The World Green Building Council (WGBC) just launched a revolutionary project calling for all buildings to reach net zero by 2050 in an action plan known as Advancing Net Zero. The announcement provides a shot in…
Solar Contagion and Lessons for Other Energy Upgrades
What makes solar power contagious, and can home energy upgrades spread the same way? Solar is spreading like a reinvented fire. See the dropping prices, technology improvements, and rapid growth curve in residential solar installations over recent years. Witness the rapid expansion of our work with major companies across…
Making cents out of the “softer side” of efficient buildings
A typical search for office space can require combing through hundreds of listings and running the numbers on rent, utility costs, insurance, and building fees in an attempt to make an apples-to-apples comparison of different market options. And then there are the less quantifiable aspects of the search: How do…
Report Release: An Integrative Business Model for Net Zero Energy Districts
Net zero energy (NZE) buildings—those that are responsible for the production of as much (or more) clean energy as they use annually—have been gaining momentum around the world. And now, there are even net zero energy districts being contemplated, like Fort Collins’s…
