RESILIENCY STRATEGY
The intent of the resiliency requirement is not only to maintain some of the building’s programmatic functionality during power outages, but also to enable Living Buildings to serve as hubs of resiliency for their communities in times of crisis.
Habitable for One Week
While the specifics of “habitable” may vary depending on the occupancy type and climate of the project, project teams are expected to plan for sufficient light and heat and/or cooling to maintain a safe shelter, regardless of season. Projects are not expected to meet code-based comfort or lighting standards. Project teams must describe their resiliency goals and the strategies they are implementing to remain habitable. Some example strategies include:
- Passive Survivability
Provide enough thermal storage to maintain habitable conditions during peak demand weeks—both the coldest and hottest weeks of the year for the project’s climate. - Energy Storage
Provide sufficient on-site capacity for energy storage to maintain critical loads for one week. Project teams may incorporate electric vehicles as part of their battery storage capacity, as long as a plan is created to ensure a sufficient amount of battery capacity is on site and accessible at any given time. - Community Resiliency Plan
Serve as a community shelter in the event of a disaster or coordinate to provide other support (e.g., water, energy, or food) for the community if other shelters already exist. This support should be inclusive and equitable for all community members.
Industrial facilities need to provide a strategy for resiliency for only the non-production facilities, such as retail spaces and any administrative offices that are not directly tied to production spaces. The project team must demonstrate compliance through calculations based on sub-metering data.
