Reducing carbon emissions from the built environment is one of the biggest challenges facing our industry today. Cities and countries around the world have announced ambitious carbon reduction targets by the year 2050 and beyond. Given that the large majority of buildings that will exist in the year 2050 already exist today, deep energy retrofits of existing buildings will play an important role in meeting such targets.
While the industry is well aware of this challenge, there is a lack of viable solutions for how to achieve such deep energy retrofits at the necessary scale. A major part of the solution must be to transition buildings away from burning fossil fuels for space heating. Such a transition has proven challenging due to several factors including high cost, invasive installation, and strains on existing electrical infrastructure. This presentation outlines a strategy for achieving deep energy retrofits and introduces an emerging HVAC technology called Hydronic Shell.