Resiliency and Decarbonization in Northeast Mission-Critical Facilities

Join panelists from owner, design team and engineer to explore two high performance, mission critical public health labs in the northeast: Rhode Island State Health Lab (certified LEED Gold) and New York State Public Health Lab (tracking Gold, in construction). Both projects were charged with significant decarbonization goals, including New York State Executive Order 22 (EO 22), requiring full electrification. Decarbonization goals were balanced with resilience, continuity of operations and support for the science. Panel will walk through two case studies for mission critical facilities in the northeast, demonstrating how hazard and vulnerability assessment, climate scenarios and resilience/mitigation strategies were evaluated based on first cost and risk aversion. Panelists will walk through resilience assessment, design for sea level rise and flooding, design for extreme heat and cold, electrification challenges in high ventilation facilities, and first cost/payback evaluation. Case study one was designed for 2’ of sea level rise through 2100; case study two was designed for anticipated rise in extreme heat through 2060, and for extreme cold (below- zero conditions) while balancing project decarbonization goals to preclude future down time or need for costly renovations. Panelists will review ACP 161, and leveraging electrification and carbon reductions under the Optimize Energy Performance credit, and how this would look under v5 Carbon Assessment. Panelists will review how Resilience Assessments were conducted under v4/4.1 and how they would be conducted under v5. Panelists will discuss how lessons learned from both case studies are adaptable to any projects.