Client: Tiree
Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Size: 11,148 m2 (120,000 ft²)
Building B on Canada Post Corporation’s (CPC) Ottawa headquarters campus was damaged by a fire in 2017, resulting in a required renovation. JLR, as a subcontractor to Tiree, provided the architectural and complete engineering design services to the project. As part of the project, the renovation needed to consider energy efficiency and sustainability wherever practically possible. Specifically, JLR’s Energy Systems team was tasked with proposing and evaluating means of reducing the building’s carbon footprint and energy consumption.
The base design for the retrofit included a reasonably aggressive energy savings package to replace existing windows with modern double-glazed units, increase the wall insulation, greatly improve the sealing of the building envelope, and replace all mechanical equipment with current products. An energy model of this retrofit plan indicated that energy consumption of the retrofitted building would result in annual utilities costs 28% lower than when the building was in normal operation prior to the fire.
JLR energy systems engineers further developed three alternative retrofit packages with design variants that included a rooftop solar power system, improved envelope, solar-heated ventilation air, and ground-source heat pumps. Building energy modelling and lifecycle cost analysis was undertaken for each package, with inclusion of the cost of carbon as a variable. Each alternative retrofit package had a different capital cost premium, but all had a positive IRR, with a range between 5 and 13%. Results were presented to CPC and Tiree staff, both in a written report and in face-to-face meetings. The final package included solar-heated ventilation air, and was integrated into the project’s design and construction, as shown in the pictures.
This building was one of the CPC’s first deep-energy retrofit and supported an evolution into further energy and carbon reductions, including aiming for Zero Carbon Building Standard designs for new buildings.
