Subtitle H—General Provisions
SEC. 491. DEMONSTRATION PROJECT. (a) In General— The Federal Director and the Commercial Director shall establish guidelines to implement a demonstration project to contribute to the research goals of the Office of Commercial High-Performance Green Buildings and the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings.
(b) Projects—
In accordance with guidelines established by the Federal Director and the Commercial Director under subsection (a) and the duties of the Federal Director and the Commercial Director described in this title, the Federal Director or the Commercial Director shall carry out— (1) for each of fiscal years 2009 through 2014, 1 demonstration project per year of green features in a Federal building selected by the Federal Director in accordance with relevant agencies and described in subsection (c)(1), that— (A) provides for instrumentation, monitoring, and data collection related to the green features, for study of the impact of the features on overall energy use and operational costs, and for the evaluation of the information obtained through the conduct of projects and activities under this title; and (B) achieves the highest rating offered by the high performance green building system identified pursuant to section 436(h); (2) no fewer than 4 demonstration projects at 4 universities, that, as competitively selected by the Commercial Director in accordance with subsection (c)(2), have— (A) appropriate research resources and relevant projects to meet the goals of the demonstration project established by the Office of Commercial High-Performance Green Buildings; and (B) the ability— (i) to serve as a model for high-performance green building initiatives, including research and education by achieving the highest rating offered by the high performance green building system identified pursuant to section 436(h); (ii) to identify the most effective ways to use high-performance green building and landscape technologies to engage and educate undergraduate and graduate students; (iii) to effectively implement a high-performance green building education program for students and occupants; (iv) to demonstrate the effectiveness of various high-performance technologies, including their impacts on energy use and operational costs, in each of the 4 climatic regions of the United States described in subsection (c)(2)(B); and (v) to explore quantifiable and nonquantifiable beneficial impacts on public health and employee and student performance; (3) demonstration projects to evaluate replicable approaches of achieving high performance in actual building operation in various types of commercial buildings in various climates; and (4) deployment activities to disseminate information on and encourage widespread adoption of technologies, practices, and policies to achieve zero-net-energy commercial buildings or low energy use and effective monitoring of energy use in commercial buildings.