Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory Research Support Facility: Golden, CO - Net Zero Blueprint

When the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) decided to move 800 staff out of leased space into a new office building on its Golden, Colo., campus, it used that opportunity to build a living lab for best practices in net zero energy performance based on DOE and NREL research. The Research Support Facility (RSF) also provided a chance to develop and advance a replicable model for the next generation of high performance buildings. The result is a LEED Platinum facility built for $259/ft2 (comparable to other government and institution office construction costs) with an energy use intensity (EUI) of 35.4 kBtu/ft2.