SOLAR TODAY - November/December 2010

Navy Yard Site to be
Energy-Efficiency
Design Hub

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a $122 million grant to a group led by Penn State University researchers to initiate a design hub for energy-efficient buildings on the Navy Yard campus in South Philadelphia. The country’s first naval shipyard, the Navy Yard is now a business center with an aging building infrastructure — it’s been a Navy facility since 1801, and some structures date from the 19th century. It was considered ideal for the project because more than 200 of its buildings operate as an independent electric microgrid.

The energy-efficiency design hub will enable a full-spectrum retrofit of all average-sized buildings on the Navy Yard campus. In addition to testing different technologies, the design hub will

The design hub at the Navy yard Campus in South Philadelphia will test efficiency technologies.

u.s. NaVy

analyze the role of policy in driving the adoption of energy-efficient building retrofits.

The Navy Yard is one of three energy
innovation-oriented hubs to receive funding
in 2010. In May, the DOE announced that a
team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory
will establish a hub for modeling and simulating
nuclear reactors. Also announced was an energy
innovation hub focused on developing chemi-
cal fuels from sunlight, to be led by a team from
the California Institute of Technology.