A Lincolne Scott has been awarded a prestigious platinum LEED rating.

Australian building services engineering firm, Lincolne Scott, and its specialist division Advanced Environmental Concepts (AEC) have been awarded the top US green building rating for one of their projects in Hawaii – only the eighth building worldwide to achieve the top rating.

Sydney-based Ché Wall, joint managing director of Lincolne Scott, and AEC environmental analyst David Jarratt, worked with Lincolne Scott’s Honolulu office as the mechanical and electrical engineering consultants to the Hawaii Gateway Energy Centre project which has been awarded the equivalent of a 6 Star Green Star Certified Rating under the US Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) environmental rating system for buildings - LEED Platinum.

Lincolne Scott and AEC were responsible for the design of systems that have ensured that the Energy Centre, which is located at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii (NELHA), is 100 percent solar powered and, in a world first, uses deep sea water for 100 percent cooling without the need for fans.

“Incorporating cutting-edge technologies, the facility is a model of environmental architecture, and shows how much more we can do as an industry in minimising our impact on the environment without compromising our current needs,” says Wall.

“By using the natural elements at the site, specifically cold deep seawater and solar energy, we have developed a design that integrates mechanical and electrical systems within the building architecture, delivering an 81% reduction in energy consumption, a 74 percent reduction in potable (drinking) water consumption, and a 333 percent improvement in outside air ventilation rate (average).”