Image Credit: Fort Campbell Family Housing
Image Credit: Fort Campbell Family Housing A backyard rendering of the duplex. Fort Campbell Family Housing’s performance calculations for the zero-energy duplex, whose annual energy costs are expected to be mostly offset by renewable-energy sources, and a conventionally constructed duplex of similar size and design.
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Fort Campbell, the Army base on the Kentucky-Tennessee border that is home to the 101st Airborne Division, is now touting itself as the first U.S. military installation to include a net-zero-energy multifamily building among its residential projects.
Groundbreaking for the duplex, which is part of a housing build-out underway in the installation’s 521-unit Woodlands neighborhood, was held this week by Fort Campbell Family Housing, which manages residential services on the base, and its development partner, Nashville-based Actus Lend Lease.
The duplex includes renewables such as a ground-source heat pump, a PV array, and solar hot water. On its website, FCFH says Actus will track the performance and fine tune the duplex, which will be occupied by noncommissioned officers and their families, to develop a “lessons learned” strategy for other military housing projects.
Among the variables the FCHC and Actus will be measuring is “how small changes in lifestyle can affect energy efficiency,” Joe Sharp, project manager for FCFH, told the Leaf-Chronicle, which serves the Clarksville, Tennessee, and Fort Campbell markets. Fort Campbell Garrison Commander Col. Perry Clark added that military budget strictures have made top priorities out of energy efficiency projects such as the NZE duplex.
We’ve asked FCFH for further details on materials, construction techniques, and other aspects of the project, and will include them here when we hear back.
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One Comment
renewables?
Unless the definition of "renewables" has changed, a ground source heat pump should not be listed as such. This expensive system may be able to operate efficiently, however it will never generate power like PV and Solar Thermal. I personally believe the confusion between true geothermal power production and ground source heat pumps has lead many down a confusing path. Combined with a tax credit and misinformation as posted above, many home buyers opt for a Cadillac HVAC system at the expense of a properly insulated and airtight envelope.
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