NASA embarks on Sustainability Base

NASA is shuttling $20.6 million into its new research center at Moffet Federal Airfield north of Sunnyvale, Calif., in an attempt to create a test bed of cleantech and green building innovation.

Dubbed the NASA Sustainability Base, the 50,000 square foot facility is expected to achieve the highest level of energy and resource efficiency of any building in the federal government. Sustainability Base is expected to achieve a Platinum rating under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system. The building is designed to consume near-zero net energy and use 90 percent less potable water than conventional buildings of equivalent size.

The building is expected to achieve approximately 80 percent of its power from photovoltaic solar panels in addition to more than 70 geothermal wells featuring ground-source heat pumps. The two-story, approximately 50,000 square foot facility includes offices and collaborative workspace with a glass-walled atrium delivering natural light throughout. The building relies on the area’s temperate climate for natural ventilation.

The project, designed by William McDonough, is also envisioned as a showplace for sustainable technologies utilizing the smart-monitoring systems developed by NASA for use in the space program. “Our software allows mission control to optimize trajectories and scheduling so that we can make the best use of the limited time and energy we have available,” says Steve Zornetzer, associate director of the Ames Research Center. Crews at Mission Control have access to real-time data on levels of solar energy generated by the space station’s panels, for example, as well as usage for water and other resources.

For the Sustainability Base, the agency created a building-monitoring system similarly able to provide real-time data that can then be used to reduce energy and resource usage. “It’ll know when there’s a meeting scheduled, how many people are supposed to be there, the weather outside and what the heat loads would be from the sun, and then plan the temperature accordingly,”  Zornetzer says.

Zornetzer says the technologies, materials and methods used to design and build Sustainability Base will be made available online in an open-source format. NASA may also explore licensing its system for commercial application.

The base is also envisioned as a kind of ongoing laboratory. “As new technologies develop, we hope to embed them in this building and use the extensive sensor network to monitor the efficiency of these new technologies and see how the building performs—a living test bed.”

Construction for the $20.6 million project began in August 2009 and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2011. The Silicon Valley office of Swinerton Builders was selected in a competitive-bid process to build the new Sustainability Base.