4. Deere wind. BTI-Greensburg, the local John Deere dealership, uses two wind turbines
( 4. 2 k W and 1. 9 k W) to provide about 8% of the facility’s electricity requirements. Courtesy:
BTI-Greensburg
5. Energy efficient building designs. As part of the Greensburg master development plan, all city-owned buildings over
4,000 square feet must be LEED Platinum in
design and construction, including Greensburg’s new City Hall building, shown here
under construction. The new building design
also integrates photovoltaic panels, geothermal technology, reclaimed brick, and recycled
wood and other materials. Courtesy: City of
Greensburg, Kansas
nesses like banks, car dealerships, and
funeral homes, along with churches and a
lodge have rebuilt using environmentally
friendly materials and are saving energy
and water. Per capita, the city has the highest concentration of LEED Gold and Platinum buildings in the U.S.
As noted earlier, the city of Greensburg
passed a resolution that all city-owned
buildings over 4,000 square feet would be
certified LEED Platinum. Completed in
May 2009, the city’s Business Incubator
not only achieved LEED Platinum status
with greater than 50% energy savings, but
it also became the first LEED Platinum–
certified municipal building in Kansas
(Figure 5).
Other public and commercial buildings,
such as the Greensburg School and the Kiowa County Memorial Hospital (see sidebars), are striving for LEED Platinum status;
if awarded, the hospital will be the first critical access hospital in the nation to achieve
the LEED Platinum rating. Greensburg is
also home to the 5. 4. 7. Arts Center, the first
LEED Platinum building in Kansas.
Greensburg’s business community is
rebuilding with a major focus on energy
efficiency and green building principles as
well. The new John Deere dealership is a
LEED Platinum building and has become
the model for all future John Deere dealerships across the nation. In addition, the
town’s grocery store, banks, churches, car
dealership, senior center, and many other
buildings are rebuilding green.
Of the 180 new homes that received build-
ing permits between May 2007 and March
2009, the designs of 95 were evaluated and
should use 40% less energy on average than
standard homes built to the International En-
ergy Conservation Code (IECC) 2003 (with
2004 Supplement). This is an outstanding
level of energy efficiency, especially consid-
ering that most were built by individual home
owners and builders.
Clean, Green Medical Care
Slated for completion in March 2010,
Greenburg’s new hospital facility combines
all medical services in a single, highly energy efficient structure that is striving to
be the first critical access hospital in the
country to meet LEED Platinum standards.
The whole building has high R-value
insulation and features a dual ventilation system that prevents the exchange
of air between the emergency and isolation rooms and the rest of the hospital,
along with seamless floors and coun-tertops that make cleaning easier and
more thorough.
Highly efficient T5 fluorescent and
compact fluorescent luminaires maximize
energy efficiency without sacrificing vi-
sweat equity, built 20 highly energy efficient homes and plans to build 30 more using design recommendations from NREL.
Children Today, Greensburg’s
Leaders Tomorrow
If anything can forecast the lasting success
of Greensburg’s bold vision, it’s the way
the town’s young people envision their own
futures. Greensburg’s enthusiasm for renewable energy and energy efficiency has
inspired young people, fed by extensive
education and outreach efforts at several
levels to give youth the opportunity to understand, embrace, and champion the alternatives to petroleum.
sual comfort or patient care. LED sources
for accent lighting, exterior walkways,
and parking lot lighting provide energy
efficient illumination, while light-sensing
dimmers and motion sensors minimize artificial light use. Daylighting in common
spaces, corridors, patient rooms, and administration areas illuminates 75% of the
interior. High-performance, low-E, double-glazed windows allow natural light to offset electrical lighting.
An onsite, grid-tied, 50-kW wind turbine generates 220,000 kWh annually to
partially offset the hospital’s energy use.
A rain filtration and storage system supplies recycled (gray) water to irrigate the
property and flush the building’s toilets.
