Decarbonization During Predevelopment of Modular Building Solutions

Klammer, Noah; Kaufman, Zoe; Podder, Ankur; Pless, Shanti; Celano, David; Rothgeb, Stacey

doi:10.2172/1837021

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DOE OSTI · 1837021

Decarbonization During Predevelopment of Modular Building Solutions

Klammer, Noah·Kaufman, Zoe·Podder, Ankur·Pless, Shanti·Celano, David·Rothgeb, Stacey

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Abstract

Off-site construction methods offer the opportunity to compress costs of net-zero energy (NZE) housing using the advantages of mass production. There has been limited investigation on trade-offs between site-built and industrialized construction from the perspective of reducing the incremental cost of NZE strategies and reducing greenhouse gas emissions during embodied and operational stages. Blokable, LLC, a vertically integrated modular builder, wanted to know how the learning curves of mass production would help them decarbonize their existing modular housing prototype at a relative cost advantage. The method developed for this question looked at the life cycle assessment of an individual apartment and used learning-curve efficiencies to approximate the relative advantage of construction-at-scale. Greenhouse gas emissions were quantified by a learning-affected, whole-life carbon emissions model and demonstrated a path to a 60% reduction of whole-life CO2-equivalent in the 2030 production year. The resultant roadmap considers a best-first approach to decarbonizing a modular building product line, and the method can be replicated for other modular builders.

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32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION advanced building construction buildings cost decarbonization embodied carbon energy modeling industrialized construction life cycle assessment manufacturing modular construction net-zero energy operational carbon solar photovoltaics

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Klammer, Noah, Kaufman, Zoe, Podder, Ankur, Pless, Shanti, Celano, David, Rothgeb, Stacey. 2021-12-01. Decarbonization During Predevelopment of Modular Building Solutions. https://doi.org/10.2172/1837021

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