Transforming water and energy conservation
Innovation that’s already underway will have an essential role in enabling decarbonization in the built environment. Hydronics technologies will continue to be developed and deployed in advanced solutions that reduce water use in buildings.
“In some cases, the issue facing commercial buildings is water quality, not water scarcity,” said Xylem Innovation Lab's Schoenheit. “Individual water solutions and technologies are being merged to create large-system solutions.”
Air-to-water systems also have applications across the globe for addressing water quality and scarcity. This cutting-edge technology extracts water from the air and significantly reduces use of fossil fuels and CO2 emissions. These systems have solar and wind energy synergies, too.
Producing clean water with less energy
SEAS is a pioneer in designing and building machines and systems that produce clean water from air. The Swiss company is participating in technology innovation discovery with Xylem Innovation Labs. “High-quality tap water is becoming more scarce worldwide,” noted Graev. “We saw an opportunity to produce clean water in a way that balances low energy consumption and environmental sensitivity.”
One highly successful integrated water-energy solution is a SEAS application at Hotel Viva in Villahermosa, Tabasco, Mexico. SEAS integrated its technologies into the hotel’s HVAC system to reduce fossil fuel consumption and provide the highest quality water for drinking, food preparation and ice making. By sending hot air produced by the system to the hot water boiler and cold air as supplemental air conditioning to certain areas, the integrated system delivered a 70% savings in energy costs to the 154-room hotel. A study published in MDPI Applied Sciences Journal calculated ROI for this application to be 100% within 24 to 36 months. SEAS and Xylem successfully collaborated on a similar project at a five-star hotel in Lake Garda, Italy.
ENVIRONMENT
PILLAR 4
Blueprint for Net Zero
Finding opportunity among the natural environmental stressors
Aiming high on water and energy conservation in buildings
In a world marked by extremes – extreme urban population growth, temperatures and resource distribution – the need to live and build sustainably to effect change in our environment is urgent. Demand for HVAC systems is projected to rise significantly, according to a new commercial HVAC market report by Guidehouse Insights. The real estate sector is responsible for a staggering 40% of annual global CO2 emissions, while the U.S. Energy Information Association projected a 3% increase in electricity consumption in the commercial sector last year alone due to warmer temperatures and increased demand from data centers.
In our race to achieve global reductions in emissions and use of water and energy, reimagining our cities and the environments that we live in is mission critical. And, at the nexus of water and energy are hydronic systems. Demonstrated to routinely outperform traditional systems, hydronic systems will be instrumental to fast-tracking decarbonization with indoor heating and cooling.
Cost/SF comparison of studied buildings
In terms of lower energy use, cost and life expectancy, hydronic systems outperformed all other systems by as much as 24%, according to a Xylem cost analysis analyzing seven elementary and middle schools.
Power challenges creating more opportunities
When we think about the greatest challenges facing the built environment, climate change tops the list, according to the Deloitte-ThoughtLab Global City Survey. The effects of climate change impact both the built and natural environments: warmer temperatures will create more demand for energy as people seek to cool their homes and businesses and natural weather events like droughts will exacerbate the water supply.
“Power demand is one of the bigger challenges that impacts not only energy but water, because we need power to move water,” cautioned Green Building Initiative (GBI) President Worden, who explained that designing around these challenges requires a lot of “multidimensional thinking.”
At the same time, Worden offered that solving challenges of this magnitude fuels a highly opportunistic landscape: “The challenges we're facing are driving more innovation than I’ve seen in 30 years of working in this industry.”
Conserving more water
The challenge of water scarcity is driving innovation in water reuse and recycling. At least 25% of people worldwide already live in a country with high water stress, and global use of water is expected to increase by up to 25% by 2050, according to World Resources Institute. However, the Green Building Council notes there are just 43 buildings across the globe certified as LEED Zero Water, which indicates the building has a potable water use balance of zero over 12 months. How do we move forward to close this gap?
Public utilities and commercial buildings are tackling the issue through water reuse, and San Francisco is leading the way. In 2015, the city passed legislation that requires all new buildings larger than 100,000 square feet to have onsite recycling systems. The aim here is to make water recycling for non-potable use less costly than continuing to buy and use potable water for every type of water need. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which projects its Onsite Water Reuse Program will save 1.3 million gallons of potable water per day by 2040, says there are 48 onsite water reuse systems currently in use and another 29 projects planned.
Of those in use, six are blackwater systems, and 25 are graywater systems. Using a blackwater system at its headquarters building, the commission has reduced its own imported potable supply by 40%, while the reclaimed graywater system at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, provides for 85% of the stadium’s water use and is used for toilet flushing and irrigation of its green roof.
Transitioning to renewable energies
Success in meeting future decarbonization goals depends on the ability to reduce fossil fuel use. Currently, at least 34% of all energy used in commercial buildings involves combustion of fossil fuels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
There’s a fundamental energy transition ahead for the commercial building market. The flexibility of hydronic systems to integrate with various renewable energy sources will make it a strong choice for commercial building retrofits and adaptive reuse in the coming years. As we make this transition, the best decisions will be informed by data.
“Owners of older buildings are trying to figure out a strategy that works for them,” said 2024 President Chamberlain of Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA). “There’s a whole range of options, but you’ve got to have data. Data will help drive the decisions.”
Knowing that nearly 65% of commercial buildings built before 1990 utilize hydronic heating systems makes an even stronger case for the retrofit of existing buildings by implementing energy-efficient equipment and swapping out older mechanics.
Though solar power currently accounts for 6% of global energy, in 2023 the National Renewable Energy Laboratory tracked a 91% year-over-year increase in photovoltaic system installations worldwide. NREL says solar power accounted for 54% of new electric generation capacity in the U.S in 2023.
As commercial buildings prepare for energy transition, they have the option to connect their hydronic systems directly to photovoltaic panels with technology available now. The flexibility of hydronics allows building managers and owners to immediately reduce their carbon emissions and draw less on traditional power grids—a critical energy-saving advantage especially in water-stressed areas.
To accelerate energy transition now and in the future, Xylem is partnering with LORENTZ on worldwide distribution of solar-based pumping technology that reliably delivers water at lower cost, even in remote locations.
Hydronic pumps powered by solar
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