After the storm

4. Designate and upgrade select buildings to provide critical community services.

With so many people displaced from their homes and workplaces, designated locations should be established in each community to provide critical services such as shelter, food, water, electricity and communications. Renewable energy with energy storage, or microgeneration with on-site fuel supplies, could help meet critical needs at schools, community centers, churches and other designated locations.

5. Use passive design principles to increase building resilience.

Passive approaches to providing electrical power, such as renewable energy, and passive building designs can increase building resiliency. Passive design principles — including building envelope, natural ventilation, shading, and water capture and storage — allow buildings to provide adequate comfort and water without requiring a significant energy supply. When severe storms or other events are accompanied by excessively hot or cold weather, providing comfortable and safe environments using minimal energy resources is highly desirable. An additional benefit is that buildings designed using passive principles will be significantly more energy efficient and have a lower environmental impact during normal day-to-day operation.

6. Use distributed generation and microgrids to increase community resilience.

Dependence on a centralized electrical grid is a definite liability given the extended time that is sometimes required for utilities to bring entire communities back online after a severe storm event. During Superstorm Sandy, large numbers of overhead power lines went down over an extended distance, making repair-crew logistics challenging. Microgrids, supported by distributed energy generation, are a potential solution, as they allow decentralized energy distribution at a community scale. At a community scale, the application of district heating, cooling and energy plants and renewable energy generation is more scalable, cost-effective and resilient than their use in individual building applications. Water treatment and other critical services can also be provided more cost-effectively within a community-scale microgrid. The U.S. Department of Defense is at the leading edge of designing and installing microgrids to maintain operational integrity and improve resilience, and it can set an example for cities, communities and campuses to follow.

Many of us involved in designing and operating the built environment have been promoting the environmental, economic and social benefits of more efficient and sustainable buildings for decades. There have also been strong voices in the sustainable energy industry calling for the greater use of renewable energy, distributed generation and district energy systems as a more cost effective and environmentally sound approach to meeting future energy needs. As we learned in Superstorm Sandy, many of the same design and operational principles that lead to greater sustainability can also lead to greater resilience. As if improving efficiency, reducing costs, creating jobs and protecting the environment weren’t enough, we can now add increasing resilience to the list of benefits resulting from more sustainable buildings and energy systems.

This article was first posted at USGBC.org.

Clay Nesler is the Vice President of Global Energy & Sustainability and a LEED Green Associate at Johnson Controls, Inc.

Photos courtesy of flickr users lusterbr and ccho.