Edina puts a climate neutrality plan into action – Finance and Commerce

The clich goes like this: City reports get created, drafted and approved with grand fanfare before gathering digital dust on a server following years of inaction.

Not true of Edina. The suburban city passed an aggressive climate action plan in December 2021 and has been making strides toward reducing city operations and community-wide carbon emissions by 45% by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

City officials have begun to act on the ambitious plan by starting with a significant city hall renovation, described recently in a panel discussion at the American Institute of Architects state convention in Minneapolis moderated by HGA principal Wade Cooper. Edina facilities manager Derik Otten was joined by the HGA staff members who consulted with the city on the plan.

Before the climate action plan passed, Edina had established an environmental commission, benchmarked city and commercial, and installed solar panels on city hall and a community solar garden on a public works structure, Otten said. To pay for projects, the city created the Conservation and Sustainability Fund, which is part of the citys levy, he said.

The climate action plan has more than 275 action points, with several underway. But even before Edina passed the program, it had begun studying city-owned building stock to identify low performers based on energy use intensity data, a measure like miles per gallon for cars.

Edina found the two-decade old city hall would be a perfect candidate for a retrofit after it scored the third highest EUI, after the aquatic center and an indoor city park, both expectedly big energy users.

Otten said the city hall included the police department, a 24/7 operation that consumed more energy than the rest of the building. One of the biggest challenges we had was that although it is two separate buildings, its technically controlled as one, Otten said. One main goal we had is to separate these buildings and operate in these two individual buildings.

HGA mechanical engineer Ben Fuller analyzed Edina City Hall and found that most of its energy went to natural gas heating. Not surprisingly, the building used electricity for lighting and technology, such as computers. Yet he said the building still performed efficiently, with power consumption 30% below a 2009 baseline.

HGAs study of city hall revealed that HVAC systems and the aging solar array would need replacing. Electric systems would need upgrading. The study even looked at the potential of solar carports in the buildings parking lot.

In all, HGA developed 18 measures to improve the building. Otten said timing retrofits became part of the planning. By staggering the spending, we wont have to spend millions and millions of dollars at one time to do a major renovation or have a catastrophic failure by waiting too long, he said.

Otten chose four improvements at city hall; two focused on lighting and involved installing LEDs and a new lighting control system, the other two on ventilation and occupancy control. He said these initial projects would not significantly disrupt the work of employees over a long period of time.

By trying to complete several related projects at once Edina could tell employees they would have to make do with contractors working throughout the building for six to eight months. Still, the result would be better indoor air quality and lighting, Otten said.

Doing several projects at once also meant employees would not have to tolerate contractors coming in at three or four different times over several years. So, we were trying to limit the disruption to the building occupants, he said.

Even though the conservation fund kitty had grown to more than $2 million, Otten received approval from the city sustainability manager to borrow ahead from future years to pay the completion of major projects in a coordinated fashion. Taking on the financial burden was a little easier at that point, he said.

Edina also focused on testing and selecting gaskets for replacement. Otten said city hall has a reputation as a drafty building with leaks in walls, doors, windows, and gaskets. The roof and the solar system on it both needed to be replaced. The solar system only generated 10% of its intended design.

Again, by planning out the investment, the city could do those projects at one time in a few years and increase the solar installation on the roof to 120 kilowatts, and the carport solar would bring the total to 300 kW.

Otten said the biggest challenge was packaging the projects before determining it would be simpler to deal with one contractor for all the jobs instead of three. City council members supported the project after being shown the study identifying needs and then the reasoning behind the selection of the initial improvements.

Otten said the city is now looking at recommissioning buildings to determine how to improve energy performance. HGAs Chris Iacono studied the inefficiencies in buildings heated with geothermal heat pumps combined with a supplemental gas boiler to determine how the city could improve that system.

Other buildings will be studied and retrofitted over the next two decades as the city seeks to reach the net zero goal. For now, though, the city will replace lighting and lighting controls and move on later to HVAC equipment in a few years.

Were not just doing this once and walking away from it; we were going to continue to talk to HGA every year, he said. Work has begun on the $4 million city hall project, with completion anticipated in 2025. The work will include design, engineering, commissioning, third party inspections, lighting, gaskets and sealants, roof replacements and a new solar system.

Here is the original post:
Edina puts a climate neutrality plan into action - Finance and Commerce