San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
New terminal uses sustainable design, construction
utilized a carbonsequestering concrete from Blue Planet, a Silicon Valleybased company, which produces a lightweight concrete aggregate (rocks) by capturing excess carbon in the air and using less energy to make the aggregate than traditional limestone rock.
CREATING A BUILDING THAT USES LESS ENERGY
The Harvey Milk Terminal 1 project team took a comprehensive approach to the facility’s sustainable features. Building innovations will spotlight our passengers’ journeys and include the following: Selfenergizing (regenerative) elevators recycle energy, rather than wasting it as heat. GoSlow escalators and moving walkways that reduce speed when not in use to save energy. Use of radiant heating and cooling to complement displacement ventilation to provide energy efficiency, improved indoor air quality and enhanced passenger comfort. Lowflow, handsfree bathroom fixtures and faucets save water in our droughtprone state. Controllable, dimmable, longlife light emitting diode (LED) fixtures throughout the facility. Use of highly efficient outdoor air filtration system to remove pollutants and odor. Use of dynamic windows that change with the sun’s location, to reduce glare and improve comfort. Use of building materials and furnishings with lowvolatile organic compound (VOC) emissions. Selection of products, systems and materials with the least environmental or planetary impact based upon Health Product Declarations (HPDs) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDS). Photovoltaic panels on top of the terminal, providing renewable power for the facility.
Integrated Building Management System measures energy and water use and adjusts equipment to be more efficient.
A smarter building from lessons learned from the world’s first Zero Net Energy airport facility.
Bringing all these elements together cohesively required another innovation: an Integrated Building Management System, which measures energy and water use and adjusts facilities and equipment to be more efficient.
Before implementing this in Harvey Milk Terminal 1, SFO first gained experience with this solution in its Airfield Operations Facility, which was constructed in 2015. The integration of a smart building management system allowed SFO to measure energy usage to a granular level, and find ways to further reduce consumption.
In conjunction with a smart building management system, SFO tested another new technology in its Airfield Operations Facility: View Dynamic Glass, a smart window technology that uses electrochromic coating to tint glass based on computer programming that considers the time of day, the position of the sun, even factors such as clear or cloudy skies. The result reduces the need for both indoor lighting fixtures and heating or cooling, further supporting both passenger comfort and sustainability goals.
As a result of these solutions in spring 2019, SFO’s Airfield Operations Facility was certified as the first airport facility in the world to operate with completely Zero Net Energy. Over the past year, the facility generated more electricity than it consumed, and was actually a net power producer, sending unneeded energy back into the grid.
The lessons learned and experience gained in this facility directly translated to the sustainability plans for Harvey Milk Terminal 1, ensuring that SFO’s newest passenger terminal would also set a new standard for reduced energy consumption.
Based on current projections, Harvey Milk Terminal 1 is expected to operate with an energy use intensity in the range of 6070 kBtu/ft2 annually, as compared with existing terminals that operate at about 179 kBtu/ft2 per year.
So when it opens, Harvey Milk Terminal 1 will be the first airport terminal in the world named for an LGBTQ+ leader who championed the cause of diversity, equity and inclusion. And it also channel his “energy” and tireless leadership by setting a new nearzero standard in sustainability.