1. Speaker Bio

Giuliano Todesco is a Senior Energy Specialist with the University of Ottawa with over 35 years of experience in energy efficiency, energy auditing, load calculations and energy modeling. He has published articles in the ashrae journal and presented at conferences.

2. Abstract

This presentation focuses on the application of “back-to-basics” good design principles as a legitimate energy efficiency measure to achieve high performance / low energy buildings. These principles equally apply to laboratory buildings.

The approaches described hinge on rigorous adherence to prescriptive design characteristics that match energy standards (90.1, 189.1, AEDGs), over the industry approach to rely on tradeoffs/technologies to achieve improvements in building energy performance.

There are several reasons why the industry needs to start focusing on the design process rather than “simply pasting energy efficiency into a conventional design”. They include:

• the very small improvement in energy performance being achieved by so called green buildings;

• the need to start designing more resilient and climate responsive buildings with reduced loads and low TEDIs, and finally;

• the urgency to tackle GHG emissions reductions in the face of accelerating worldwide climate change with increasingly unpredictable weather.

3. Outline

a. Where we are today including current energy performance;

b. Climate change woes

c. Design approaches towards high performance construction