Exploratorium aims at net zero (San Francisco)

When the Exploratorium moves to its new home on San Francisco’s waterfront in 2012, even the building itself will be a powerful display of energy and building science.

Officials from the museum of science, art and human perception currently housed at the Palace of Fine Arts are aiming to make its future home at the rehabbed Pier 15 building a “net zero energy” building. Net zero energy refers to buildings that produce as much energy on site as they require.

Documents on Exploratorium architect EHDD’s website show the Exploratorium is expected to use 11.26 kilowatt hours of electricity per square foot per year — or more than 2.14 million kilowatt hours each year for the 190,000-square-foot building.

So to produce a net zero energy facility, the museum would have to produce 2.14 million kilowatt hours of power to offset that demand.

Just a few Bay Area buildings are constructed to the "net zero" standard, though many more are in various stages of planning and design. Startup Zeta Communities constructed a two-unit, live-work townhome in Oakland and the Presidio Plant and Seed Lab to meet a net zero standard. The office of engineering firm IDeAs in San Jose was designed to be net zero and the Environmental Technology Center at Sonoma State in Rohnert Park is also a net zero energy building. Such buildings can be designed and positioned to make use of daylight, minimize heat gain and to use natural ventilation when possible instead of relying solely on energy-sucking air conditioners and heaters.

The Exploratorium, according to these documents, will employ strategies to make the building super efficient, including a cooling system to moderate the temperature inside the building that uses the naturally frigid San Francisco Bay water that not only surrounds the Pier but runs underneath it.

Plus, with its long, wide roof, the Pier 15 building has plenty of space for tons of solar panels to produce the energy it needs.

EHDD architect Mark L’Italien said his firm will help the Exploratorium make a huge statement with sustainability at the site. "We thought that net zero energy was a far better story and attainable on this given roof area and because we can use the Bay as this great heat sink," L’Italien said.

Read the full story in the San Francisco Business Times.