Great River Energy Publishes White Paper About Platinum LEED Building
Document details planning, design and construction of company headquartersMaple Grove, Minn. – March 13, 2009 – On Earth Day 2008, Great River Energy, an electric generation and transmission cooperative, dedicated its new headquarters building in Maple Grove, Minn. Designed to be the most efficient building possible, it was named the first Platinum certified LEED building in Minnesota by the U.S. Green Building Council.
To assist other organizations seeking LEED certification and to further the advancement of sustainable construction, Great River Energy has published a white paper that documents the planning, design and construction of the building, detailing every step from site selection to occupation. The document is intended to help future projects prepare for LEED certification, identify opportunities for increased efficiency and avoid potential pitfalls.
“One of the major motivations behind this building was to serve as an example for others who want to pursue LEED certification and usher in a new generation of efficient buildings in this country,” said Mike Finley, Great River Energy’s director of business operations. “By sharing this white paper, we hope others will learn from our experience and we contribute to the maturation of sustainable, green building.”
In addition to documenting the building’s creation, the white paper includes a point-by-point summary describing how each LEED credit was achieved, as well as the reasons why certain credits were not achieved nor pursued.
The white paper is available at http://www.greatriverenergy.com/aboutus/ourleedbuildings/leedwhitepaper.pdf or by visiting GreatRiverEnergy.com, then selecting “About Us,” followed by “Our Company” and “Energy-Efficient Buildings.”
The 166,000-square-foot building is designed to use 45 percent less energy than a comparable facility built to state code requirements and 90 percent less water than a similarly sized corporate campus. It features a geothermal HVAC system embedded in the adjacent Arbor Lake, in-floor displacement ventilation, daylight harvesting, 72 kilowatts of on-site solar panels and a 200-kilowatt wind turbine.
The Great River Energy building received 56 LEED points, four more than required to achieve Platinum certification. Great River Energy is also pursuing LEED certification at its satellite office in Bismarck, N.D.
About Great River EnergyGreat River Energy is a not-for-profit cooperative which provides wholesale electricity to more than 1.7 million people through 28 member distribution cooperatives in Minnesota and Wisconsin. With more than $2 billion in assets, Great River Energy is the second largest utility in the state, based on generating capacity, and the fifth largest generation and transmission (G&T) cooperative in the United States. Great River Energy’s member cooperatives range from those in the outer-ring suburbs of the Twin Cities to the Arrowhead region of Minnesota to the farmland of southwestern Minnesota. Great River Energy’s largest distribution cooperative serves more than 120,000 member-consumers; the smallest serves just over 2,400. For more information, visit www.GreatRiverEnergy.com.
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Contact:Daniel Becchetti
763-445-5706
