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U.S. Department of Energy Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

Advanced Energy Design Guides

The 50% AEDGs provide practical approaches to achieve 50% energy savings compared to base code requirements. Download them free from ASHRAE:

  • Small and Medium Office Buildings
  • K-12 School Buildings
  • Medium to Big Box Retail Buildings
  • Large Hospitals

The Advanced Energy Design Guides (AEDGs) accelerate the construction of energy efficient buildings by providing prescriptive solutions to achieve significant energy savings over minimum building energy codes. The AEDG project represents a partnership between the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), ASHRAE, American Institute of Architects, U.S. Green Building Council, and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES).

The AEDG series provides design guidance for buildings that use 50% less energy than those built to the requirements of the ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1-2004 commercial code,  and are specific to prominent building types across each of the eight U.S. climate zones. Using the AEDGs, those involved with designing or constructing commercial buildings can easily achieve higher levels of energy savings using available technologies and without requiring detailed energy calculations or analyses.

The AEDGs for achieving 50% savings are all available for free download from ASHRAE:

The previous series of guides to achieve 30% savings (based on ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-1999) is available for small office buildings, small retail buildings, small warehouses and self-storage buildings, highway lodging, hospitals/healthcare, and K-12 schools.

Read a fact sheet about the AEDGs or review ASHRAE's frequently asked questions.

Strategies for 50% Energy Savings

DOE, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory developed recommendations on how to achieve up to 50% energy savings in a variety of commercial building types. These reports will provide the basis for the next series of Advanced Energy Design Guides, which are "how-to" guides that show architects, engineers, and building designers how to achieve above-code exemplary energy performance for buildings using existing technologies available today.

View the 50% Energy Savings Technical Support Documents for the following building types:

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Sustainable Design Guide

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) produced a Sustainable Design Guide that describes the issues and design process for 50% more energy-efficient buildings and the added value that sustainable design can provide in architecture, facility construction, operation, and maintenance.

The following documents are available as Adobe Acrobat PDFs.