ABSTRACT
This 152,000-square-foot new middle school in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area opened in August 2011. It was constructed for $29.9 million, or about $193 per square foot. There was no completed U.S. precedent for a net zero energy school—or any building type of this scale—during the design phase for this project. The school district’s aspirations for the school were twofold: first, to reduce utility costs and redirect the savings to educational purposes; and second, for the building to serve as a “living experiment” for science students to learn about the environment with the building as a teaching tool. In 2012, after a June hailstorm damaged the PV system and reduced its efficiency by an estimated 1 to 2 percent, the building generated 99.26 percent of the energy it consumed. The school’s energy use intensity (EUI) is 17.26 kBtu/ft2/year, less than one-third of the 54 kBtu/ft2/year EUI for the average Texas middle school at the time. (See Box 10.1 for a project overview.) Box 10.1: Project overview https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">
IECC Climate Zone
3A
Latitude
32.5°N
Context
Urban
Size
152,250 gross ft2 (14,144 m2)
Height
2 stories
Building footprint
111,294 ft2 (10,340 m2)
Program
Education—Middle School
Occupants
1,080 occupants and 20 visitors/day
Annual hours occupied
About 2,000
Energy use intensity (2012)
EUI: 17.26 kBtu/ft2/year (54.5 kWh/m2/year)
Net EUI (with hail-damaged PV system): 0.128 kBtu/ft2/year (0.4 kWh/m2/year)
National median EUI 1
(K–12 School)
58.2 kBtu/ft2/year (183.7 kWh/m2/year)
Certifications
LEED BD+C: Schools v3 Gold
Energy Star Portfolio Manager benchmark for site energy use intensity
