Net-zero federal lab set to open

BY OLIVIA PRENTZEL THE COLORADO SUN

When construction is complete, the new all-electric facility in Lakewood aims to be net-zero, releasing no new emissions into the atmosphere.

But the new Food and Drug Administration lab has a secondary mission: To prove that cost-e ective and energy e cient buildings can house serious scienti c activities without risk of losing crucial research. Like hospitals, labs run 24/7, 365 days a year.

“You can’t shut the power o and shut the experiments down or the testing that they’re doing. But you can be more e cient in the way that you use the energy,” said Daniel Nikolich, project manager for the new FDA lab at the Denver Federal Center.

Funded through $79 million from a federal climate change and health care law, the new lab is part of the U.S. General Service Administration’s rst batch of projects that looks to boost clean energy innovation by using energy-saving technologies and materials that minimize carbon emissions in construction and renovation projects at federal facilities. e administration owns more than 411,000 buildings across the country, including research and judicial complexes in Boulder and Denver.

e GSA estimates that its rst round of clean energy projects, totaling more than $300 million from the In ation Reduction Act, will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 12,000 metric tons, which is equivalent to the emissions created by more than 25,000 cars in one year and reduce energy costs by $35 million over the next 20 years. e project works toward President Joe Biden’s goal of reaching net-zero emissions from federal buildings by 2045.

“It’s great to see the federal government leading by example,” said Nissa Erickson, an associate at Boulder-based Southwest Energy E ciency Project. “Using IRA funds to help pay for the state-of-the-art HVAC systems in this new lab makes a lot of sense. It’s important to demonstrate all-electric, net-zero energy buildings of many di erent types, commercial and residential. Moving to highly e cient, all-electric buildings will be essential to protect our climate — and it can save us money too.” e new 70,000-square-foot Food and Drug Administration lab, which is set to open in 2026, will be decked with solar panels and other ways to o set power generated by coal or natural gas and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. e three-story building will replace a building that was built as a munitions factory during World War II. e FDA moved into the nearly windowless two-story building at the Denver Federal Center in 1987, after it was modi ed into a lab. e new lab will be built with glass on the south and west sides of the building to bring in sunlight, Nikolich said. e north and east sides will have less glass to help provide for better thermal insulation, he said. e building design and construction, a combination of steel and concrete, will help the lab use half the amount of energy a typical lab uses, Nikolich said. For perspective, a typical lab uses about 10 times as much energy as an o ce building of a similar size. e FDA lab in Denver performs tests on a wide range of food for humans and animals, cosmetics and dietary-supplements and specializes in testing for food allergies and DNA sh barcoding, among other analyses. e lab will still rely on a generator in the case of a power outage, but due to “fairly stable” power in Denver, Nikolich said he doesn’t expect it to be used often. e energy e ciency will save the FDA money that would otherwise be spent to heat, cool and light the building.

To o set the energy used in heating and cooling the building, the lab will recapture energy as it leaves the building and put it back, using runaround loops, ground-source heat pumps and other technologies.

“We’re proud of the fact that it is going to be our rst net-zero lab in the country,” said G.W. Emge, director of design and construction for GSA’s Rocky Mountain region.

“Every dollar they have to spend