Meeting the Newest Building America Team: BIRA

February 2003

The newest team member of Building America is Building Industry Research Alliance(BIRA) This team consists of six national builders: Centex Homes, Morrison Homes, Pardee Homes, Shea Homes, Standard Pacific Homes and William Lyon Companies. Each has demonstrated an on-going commitment to build resource-efficient homes. In addition, one builder, Shea Homes, has developed and is monitoring the most energy-efficient subdivision in the United States. These 292 homes exceed California's stringent energy code by 42% and incorporate photovoltaics and solar-thermal water heating. BIRA also includes membership from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), RAND, Fannie Mae, four State Energy Offices, The Alliance to Save Energy, utilities, equipment and appliance manufacturers, AstroPower, architects, community planners, utilities, retrofit specialists, public interest groups, and consultants.

The Team Leader, ConSol, has more than 20 years of energy consulting experience with the building industry, national and state energy agencies, large utilities, and building product manufacturers. ConSol is recognized as a leader in energy-efficiency analysis, policy, and implementation. BIRA has three distinct strong points: 1) the builders all have extensive experience building to ENERGY STAR^® standards and four are developing Zero Energy Homes; 2) all builder team members have experience in planning resource efficient communities; and, 3) all builder team members have committed to building resource efficient communities to meet Building America goals.

The Building Industry Research Alliance is a coalition of 31 industry professionals that accepts the Building America challenge to build Advanced Residential Housing that uses 40 to 70% less energy than comparable homes built to the '93 Model Energy Code, as well as improving existing housing by at least 20%. In addition, BIRA proposes additional monitoring of Advanced Residential homes, studying the impact of homeowner feed-back on the operation of their Advanced Residential homes, exploring implementation and impacts of demand-responsive programs, performing market analyses of Advanced Residential Housing, and developing training programs and disseminating information to builders and contractors on how to design and build Advanced Residential Housing.

This team, which includes a Zero Energy Home Program contractor, four Zero Energy Home builders, and a PV manufacturer, will attempt to go beyond 70% reduction using the Zero Energy Home Project approach and incorporating solar into the homes. BIRA will also focus on reducing summer peak electricity loads while reducing overall energy use.

BIRA anticipates that each builder partner will contribute at least one prototype home within the first year of the program. Further, it is anticipated that each builder will successfully move to community-scale Advanced Residential Housing that meets the Building America goals and objectives within the first 3 years of the program. Thus their goal is to start six or more Advanced Residential Housing Communities within the first 3 years under contract, amounting to 450 to 1,000 Advanced Residential Homes. Based on the popularity of the ComfortWiseSM program (ConSol's turn-key energy efficiency program that exceeds the ENERGY STAR requirements), BIRA believes that it is possible to achieve nearly 4,000 Advanced Residential Homes under this 5-year contract. BIRA will continue to recruit additional production builders to participate in this Building America Program.

This alliance proposes to expand its research effort beyond energy efficiency and reduced air emissions to also include conservation or recycling of lumber, cardboard, drywall, concrete, and water. BIRA has suggested the development of local government programs that can encourage builders to build Advanced Residential Buildings, as well as a plan to disseminate this information to key local governments, building industry associations, and the public. This alliance also includes electric utilities that will determine the benefits from construction of Advanced Residential Buildings, including reduced peak loads and distributed generation. The utility partners will provide in-kind services to evaluate any benefits and develop concepts for programs that could be used by the utilities to encourage construction of Advanced Residential Buildings on a large scale. Finally, BIRA proposes to periodically conduct focus groups with homeowners in the market for new homes and building amenities.

To improve the energy efficiency of existing homes by at least 20%, BIRA will apply the systems engineering approach, as well as use the lessons learned in the design and construction of new homes. BIRA will determine the best methods to disseminate information to the retrofit market and to encourage homeowners and retrofit-market actors to use similar methods to advance the efficiency of existing homes.

BIRA provides a broad base of experience and capabilities spanning residential construction, both new and retrofit. The Alliance has representation from companies ranging from those who on a daily basis design, build, test, commission and/or evaluate homes to those who are researching new methods and/or products to improve the quality and efficiency of homes. The members of the Alliance have been carefully selected to create a synergistic team that will impact new and existing homes to make them more resource efficient while making them more affordable.

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