News 3

UDC has just completed twelve months of field research and case studies into the feasibility of retro-fitting existing restaurants and religious facilities and the results are promising.

With the uncertainty of markets causing all business owners to take a long hard look at where they can slash operation costs, it has become increasingly apparent that an cost effective operations architectural solution is long overdue. While each building is slightly different and must be assessed on a case by case basis. The results that have been gathered thus far for Religious facilities and restaurants show a lot potential. Studies are currently on-going concerning supermarkets, office buildings, educational facilities and hotels with results expected soon.

There is no one solution fixes all approach or “plug and Play solution that will allow every building to achieve energy efficiency, however specific common areas such as energy retention and conservation techniques and strategies have and are being currently developed by UDC for use in new and existing buildings.

From the data that has been collected from case studies, we are confident that we can retrofit existing buildings and reduce electrical consumption by at least 50%. New buildings designed and configured by our staff can easily reach 50% to 80% reduction or greater in electrical consumption for less. Please contact us today for more information and pricing at ZEB@udcinc.org

Most religious facilities have controlled usage. Church sanctuary and other areas where weekly gatherings are common can be addressed with several approaches to reduce electrical consumption. Since the building is not used on a daily basis you can simple shut off systems that are not required. Because of the unique nature of religious facilities, it is possible to store electrical energy to be used on demand as the building needs it. Again, as with the Restaurant case studies, the installation of solar arrays and wind turbines may not be the most cost effective solutions nor neighborhood friendly. Every effort should be exhausted to maximize the insulation envelope and protect the building direct exposure to thermal radiation. Once these solutions are in place, then resizing a renewable energy production system should be considered. Again a parabolic hybrid configuration seems to be the most cost effective solution to accomplish this. While reaching net zero energy is always the goal, realistically for large religious facilities 50% to 80% seems to be the acceptable range without breaking the budget. Due to the size and configuration of the buildings- all religious facilities must be assessed on a case by case basis.