Marriage of design and environmental ambition!

• Strong energy management measures and renewable energy installations (PV and Canadian well) 
• Net-positive energy building, selling € 12 000 in surplus electricity yearly
• 138 m2 of PV panels produce over 20 MWh a year

Dugarry, a French architectural firm, wanted to showacase their green design credentials and at the same time create an environmentally friendly building for their new premises. 

This innovative building has the unique feature of communicating its energy performance in real time. In fact, Dugarry has set up a website displaying the building's energy consumption and production as well as additional information about its performace and construction. The project shows that it is possible to combine design with an ambitious environmental approach.

Key benefits

A Canadian well system is used for cooling and photovoltaic panels generate power. On the building's 138 m2 roof, these panels can produce more than 20 MWh in one year. For the year from September 2009 to 2010, the PV installation produced 21 457 kWh of electricity, which is more than the total energy consumption of the building over the same period.

This was made possible thanks to the building's optimised design (distributed insulation, wood frame) and daily energy management: user awareness, automation (programming of ventilation, detection of presence in the offices for lighting), choice of low-energy IT equipment and management of the computers’ standby power.

For an initial investment of nearly € 125 000, the project benefited from a regional grant of about 30 %. It also generates more than € 12 000 per year in revenue from the sale of electricity production.