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Case study about how the U.S. General Services Administration successfully renovated the historic Wayne N. Aspinall Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse. GSA’s goals were to preserve the building’s historic features, and achieve Zero Energy Building status. This case study provides an overview of how reducing plug load energy helped achieve the Zero Energy Building status.

Historic preservation and net zero energy performance may seem like opposing goals. But the modernization of the nearly 100-year-old Aspinall Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse demonstrates that it is possible to restore the former glory of a building's historic features and cut energy use in half. The building is approaching net zero energy and is expected to achieve that goal after controls adjustments and other measures.

This paper introduces a classification system for net-zero energy buildings (ZEB) based on the renewable sources a building uses.