DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Turns to Uponor PEX Tubing for Nation's Largest Net-Zero Energy Building
42 miles of PEX help power the super-energy-efficient heating and cooling system
GOLDEN, Colo., July 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- When the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) wanted to encourage adoption of innovative, energy-efficient commercial building technologies, it chose to lead by example.
In designing the new $64 million Research Support Facility (RSF), the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) created a super-energy-efficient, 220,000-square-foot office structure that represents the largest net-zero energy building in the United States.
A key component in the LEED™ (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum-certified, sustainable office building is a reliance on concrete slabs embedded with hydronic tubing that enables low-temperature radiant heating and high-temperature radiant cooling. These concrete slabs and the high-performing enclosures they create are a hallmark of a new sustainable construction concept known as a thermally activated building system, or TABS.
In fact, more than 42 miles of crosslinked polyethylene tubing (PEX) tubing — manufactured by Uponor Inc. — runs through all the floors of the building. This tubing uses water as the cooling and heating medium in most of the workspaces, instead of the more conventional forced air. According to NREL senior engineer Paul Torcellini, the PEX-based radiant heating and cooling slabs are key to the energy performance at RSF and, he hopes, in TABS-style buildings yet to come.
The water flowing through the PEX tubing "is a much better conductor of energy than air," says Torcellini, "and employing hydronic systems as a pathway for energy will be one of the strongest tools in rewriting our energy profile. It isn't enough to be energy-efficient when commercially viable technology exists to make buildings energy-neutral."
To speed installation of the heating and cooling zones, which ranged from 48 feet to 250 feet long and up to 24 feet wide, installers used custom-designed, pre-pressurized rollout "mats" of PEX tubing, prefabricated to fit each zone. The mammoth dimensions of the zones required contractors to link multiple mats, but the streamlined installation process — all 42 miles of tubing — still took just two days. The Uponor Radiant Rollout™ Mat can install approximately 85 percent faster than conventional radiant tubing methods.
Among the many groundbreaking innovations that make the super-efficient RSF possible is a unique ventilation heat exchanger designed to capture the heat of the day or the cool of the night, and then slowly release this thermal energy to help warm or cool the interior, as needed.
For more information about the many technological innovations at the new RSF, including hi-res photography, please visit: http://uponor.oreilly-depalma.com/casestudies/nrel-rsf.shtml
Uponor, Inc. is a leading supplier of plumbing, fire safety, and radiant heating and cooling systems for the residential and commercial building markets in the United States. Uponor, Inc. employs 380 people at its North American headquarters in Apple Valley, Minn. For more information, visit www.uponor-usa.com or call (800) 321-4739. For more information, visit the Uponor media room at http://uponor.oreilly-depalma.com/
© 2011 Uponor, Inc.
SOURCE Uponor, Inc.
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