BigHorn Home Improvement Center Energy Performance

The BigHorn Development Project, located in Silver-thorne, Colorado, is one of the nation's first commercial building projects to integrate extensive high-performance design into a retail space. The BigHorn Home Improvement Center, completed in the spring of 2000, is a 42,366 ft 2 (3,936 m 2 ) hardware store, warehouse, and lumberyard. The authors were brought in at the design stage ofthe project to provide research-level guidance to apply an integrated design process and perform a post-occupancy evaluation. An aggressive energy design goal of 60% energy cost saving was set early in the process, which focused the efforts of the design team and provided a goal for measuring the success of the project. The extensive use of natural light, combined with energy-efficient electrical lighting design, provides good illumination and excellent energy savings. The reduced lighting loads, management of solar gains, and cool climate allow natural ventilation to meet the cooling loads. A hydronic radiant floor system, gas-fired radiant heaters, and a transpired solar collector deliver heat. An 8.9 kW roof-integrated photovoltaic (PV) system offsets a portion of the electricity. After construction, the authors installed monitoring equipment to collect energy performance data and analyzed the building's energy performance for two-and-a-half years. The authors also helpedprogram the building controls andprovided recommendations for improving operating efficiency. The buildingshows an estimated 53% energy cost saving and a 54% source energy saving. These savings were determined with whole-building energy simulations that were calibrated with measured data. This paper discusses lessons learned related to the design process, the daylightingperformance, thePVsystem, and the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning system.