LEED Points for Energy Conservation
Water Energy can help you understand how LEED guidelines can be applied to your operations for improved energy efficiency and for obtaining coveted points toward LEED certification.
A Water Energy Green Laundry System based on an ozone standard uses only a tiny amount of hot water relative to traditional laundering methods. This absence of heat translates into a massive reduction in the amount of energy used in your building every day. Energy that would normally be used to heat an enormous volume of water simply to clean light to medium-soiled linens can now be saved for more important things.
Traditional building operational energy expenditures include laundry washing and drying activities. Traditionally you use an average of 3 gallons of water per pound of linen processed. 60% or more of that water is heated near 100 degrees before use in the washers (60-degree tap water heated to 160-degrees) which means that if you have 100 rooms, 3,000 pounds of linen each day, 9,000 gallons of water used, 5,400 of that being heated 100 degrees, you will need to use 4.5 million Btu’s each day just to heat your laundry water. That’s a lot of energy. With traditional slow-speed extract washers, your linens will carry at least 50% water weight (typically much more) to the dryers for evaporation. It takes 2,000 Btu’s to evaporate one pound of water. With 3,000 pounds of linen, you will get 1,500 pounds of water in the dryers to evaporate. This will take 3 million Btu’s to get the linens dry. A Water Energy Green Laundry System washer with high-speed extract using an ozone standard will get up to 80% of the moisture weight out of the linens. That leaves about 600 pounds of water to evaporate which will consume 1.2 million Btu’s to get the linens dry. This saves you 1.8 million Btu’s in the dryers each day. So, with a complete Water Energy Green Laundry System, you will save approximately 6.3 million Btu’s each day processing the linens for a 100 room hotel. That’s quite a bit of energy. That also equates to reducing your Carbon Footprint by approximately 738 pounds per day!
LEED Points for Water Conservation
Water Energy can help you understand how LEED guidelines can be applied to your operations for improved water efficiency and for obtaining coveted points toward LEED certification. There are up to 5 possible points toward LEED certification available to companies that adopt certain water saving initiatives. Our green laundry water reuse systems qualify for gray water reclamation and creative gray water irrigation LEED credits.
Water Energy has numerous technologies available that will allow you to easily earn all LEED points available for water conservation. Our ozone laundry and water reuse systems are designed to reuse up to 90% of the water used in your laundry on any given day. These systems will reduce the volume of water used by your entire facility more than enough to qualify for all applicable water conservation points in that category. These systems can also be used to treat laundry wastewater for use in an irrigation system. The volume of water coming from most laundries is sufficient enough to reduce the amount of fresh water used in an irrigation system by more than enough to qualify for all LEED points available in this area.
Water Energy Green Laundry Water Reuse Systems automatically capture and recycle water being drained from the washers. You won’t always get as much water back as you put into a washer because some of it is trapped in the linens and ends up in the dryers and ironers to be evaporated. Our Green Laundry Systems also call for the washers to have two drains which allow the really dirty water and strong chemicals used in an occasional hot water wash to be sent directly down the drain keeping the majority of water to be recycled relatively clean and segregated. A makeup and blending valve allows fresh water into the system to replace any water lost to these factors. This feature allows you to send recycled water to the irrigation system without risking a shortage of water to the washers. Our systems have an advanced PLC (computer control) that precisely monitors water quality, volume, flow, pressure and other information critical to the process. The blending valve in conjunction with the water quality monitoring system assures the water quality always exceeds minimum required standards.
Water Energy also has gray water reuse systems that can reclaim all of your gray water if your plumbing will allow it. If showers, sinks, dishwashers and other gray water sources are plumbed in a manner that will allow the gray water to remain separate, it can be reclaimed and used to supplement your irrigation system or even your laundry. This process would allow you to qualify for LEED water conservation points. The system can be programmed to ensure that only available gray water is used to irrigate or it can be programmed to always supply water to the irrigation system whether gray water is available or not.
Water Energy also has patented closed-loop black water recycling systems available for applications ranging from a single toilet to an entire high-rise building. Our zero-discharge toilet systems completely recycle all black water with biological remediation techniques and use ozone to sterilize and polish the water before reuse. These systems can be used with traditional fixtures in place of waterless urinals and low-flow toilets because the same water is used over and over with no need for more fresh water. Why invite the possibility of an unpleasant smell or incomplete flush into your guest’s experience when you can use as much water as you need without experiencing any guilt. Our use of aerobic biological processes for waste removal and ozone for sterilization assures no unpleasant odors will ever be produced.
GRAY WATER REUSE is very big with the LEED Green Building Program.
LEED Water Efficiency Credit 1.1: One LEED point for reducing your potable water consumption for irrigation by 50%. Use water reclaimed by the Water Energy Green Laundry Water Reuse System to supplement your irrigation system to achieve a 50% reduction in potable water use.
LEED Water Efficiency Credit 1.2: One LEED point for eliminating the use of potable or other natural surface or subsurface water resources all together. If you use your treated laundry gray water to supplement or replace your water used for irrigation, you could get up to two points toward LEED certification. Most laundries use so much water that if you were to capture and treat the reusable portion of their wastewater, you would certainly have enough to reduce your potable demand for irrigation by 50% and most likely enough to completely replace it.
LEED Water Efficiency credit 2: One LEED point for innovative wastewater strategies. Reduce potable water demand for sewage conveyance by 50%. Using graywater for sewage conveyance is an option. If your building’s plumbing system is designed to allow the introduction of gray water into the sewage conveyance system (water sent to toilets for flushing), you can use some of the reclaimed gray water from the laundry to flush your toilets and gain another point toward LEED certification. Now, that’s a total of 3 LEED points you can get with a Water Energy Green Laundry Water Reuse System.
LEED Water Efficiency credit 3.1: One LEED point for reducing overall building water use by 20%. Use reclaimed graywater for sewage conveyance in toilet and urinal flushing and custodial uses. Same as above, if your building’s plumbing system allows the introduction of treated gray water to the sewage conveyance system, you can get a point for reducing your building’s overall water usage by 20%. If you have any size laundry at all, you will surely be able to accomplish this. This is another point toward LEED certification.
LEED Water Efficiency credit 3.2: One LEED point for reducing overall building water use 30%. Same as above. This is another point toward LEED certification.
All of this means if you have any sizable laundry at all, you will surely be able to replace your irrigation needs and supplant your sewage conveyance requirements for potable water by enough to receive up to 5 points towards LEED certification. It is all relative to the volume of laundry you do each day. Traditional laundering methods use on average about 3 gallons of water per pound of linen processed. A Water Energy Green Laundry System requires less than 2 gallons per pound. Right there is a 1/3 reduction over national averages for water use. A 120 room hotel will produce about 3,000 pounds of linen each day. With our system you will use 6,000 gallons of water as compared to 9,000 gallons used in a typical laundry. If you reuse 80% of that water, you will have 4,800 gallons of water to flush toilets and water landscaping each day. That’s enough water savings to earn you 3 to 5 points toward LEED certification – all possible with one of our Green Laundry Systems with the water reuse option.
More about LEED Building Credits
There are a number of prerequisites to address before you can earn LEED points in the Energy Conservation category of the USGBC’s LEED program. For more information on these prerequsiutes and how to obtain LEED points in both Energy and Water Conservation, please contact us or read the US Green Building Council LEED Program Guidelines (PDF, 396kb). You’ll find the Energy Conservation information starting on page 33 and further information on Water Conservation starting on page 26.