Key Insights from ASHRAE International Building Decarbonization Summit in Madrid

Last week, I was in Madrid for the ASHRAE International Building Decarbonization Summit, with my colleague Daniel Robert . Here are some of our take aways.

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Bottom line — we all have a lot of work to do. The engineering community needs to speed up decarbonization and take responsibility to convince building owners to act. We need way more regulation in Canada — EU was on that case way back in 2002 — and they’re still at ~40% of emissions in buildings. Engineering techniques are changing fast, it’s not going to be the same old oversized HVAC; rinse, repeat. Engineers must stay up to speed on future codes, not hitting net zero on time will put a building out of the market!

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Heat pumps are still not standard in Europe. Crazy.

• Gas for heating still dominates (e.g., the UK installed 1.5?million boilers compared to just 35k heat pumps in 2023). This is crazy, given the climate conditions and current dependence on Russian gas.
• Lowering barriers to adoption is key in addition to simply prohibiting new boiler installation.

Regulatory frameworks incoming!

• e.g., Energy performance building directive (EPBD). First issued in 2002, current version (2012–2018) requires defining building efficiency from A to G with Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) (criticism: some say it’s easy to manipulate data to get a higher score) New version will be in force in 2025.
• Key goal is to reduce GHG emissions by 60% by 2030. All new construction will be zero emissions building (ZEB) (passive haus; production of renewable energy onsite, grid-tied to renewable only) 2040 ban on gas boilers! Life cycle GWP must be disclosed in EPC by 2028 in any new building.

Policies continue to evolve: most effective being USA IRA, UK ESS (energy security strategy) EU EPBD (above), France building Code?RE2020 and New York City local Law?97.

• This is happening so fast that by the time a new building is erected, it’s no longer to code. This puts engineers and other professionals on the spot: it’s their responsibility to make the design fit for tomorrow’s codes. No more boring same-old-same-old copy paste HVAC design.

Engineering techniques are finally evolving.

• It’s critical to size systems—heat pumps in particular—much more accurately. Most buildings in EU use less than 50% of their capacity. Energy use needs to be simulated hourly, not daily, and matched to latest equipment to gauge over/under design. Canada—Krome and Kolostat in particular—is way ahead on this technique.
• Overdesigning—a traditional conservative habit in HVAC—is no longer an option. It creates embedded carbon and significantly excessive operational emissions.
• The more we aggregate buildings, the better the GHG reduction: a neighbourhood peak is different than a building peak, and we can use the mass to optimize profile helps a lot—QC is ahead of the curve (HILO, centrale virtuelle Hydro-Québec)
• Storage—reserve, battery, thermal accumulator or any thermal sink—must be incorporated into designs to shave the peak, increase resilience, manage operational costs and allow for tighter capacity designs (smaller equipment).
• The building mass itself must be used as a thermal sink.

It’s all about GHG now, and everybody knows it. Smart engineers are talking like climate hawks now.

• Fast reductions matter way more than future plans. Future GHG impacts can be discounted, just like capital.
• According to the UN, we have two years to bend the GHG curve, we have to dramatically change in two years because the climate changes are way faster and brutal than anticipated.
• It’s about people as much as engineering. Engineers build what CFO’s permit. CFO’s permit what boards demand!
• We need the “donkey serenade”—carrots, sticks and tambourines! (Tambourines promote and advertise good work, climate heroes, smart solutions and positive outcomes.)
• Canada may lead on engineering, but we’re embarrassingly awful climate laggards. Our energy productivity is garbage—our GDP per litre of diesel, for example, decreased while every other country increased!

Fun fact: Eunice Foote (1819–1888) was one of the earliest climate pioneers, but her work was claimed by men until just a couple of years ago!