Research | Commercial Work | Non-Profit
Developing complete energy strategies.
Indora Solutions provides consulting and engineering expertise on a wide range of energy challenges. We work closely with our clients to develop complete energy strategies that begin with energy end use in mind. Different requirements demand different strategies and solutions. Understanding what our clients goals allows us to create the right system, at the right size, to produce turn-key solutions that save money, are easier to build and operate, and produce long-lasting value. More importantly, Indora Solutions looks at the complete “system”, and helps our clients also develop energy efficiency strategies that permit appropriately scaled systems that require fewer inputs and place less burden on the environment.
Research
Oil / Energy End-Use Efficiency
We have provided research assistance to the book, “Winning the Oil Endgame”. This book is an independent, peer-reviewed synthesis for American business to chart a roadmap for getting the United States completely, attractively, and profitably off oil.
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The strategy integrates four technological ways to displace oil: using oil twice as efficiently, then substituting biofuels, saved natural gas, and, optionally, hydrogen. Fully applying today’s best efficiency technologies in a doubled-GDP 2025 economy would save half the projected U.S. oil use at half its forecast cost per barrel. Non-oil substitutes for the remaining consumption would also cost less than oil. These comparisons conservatively assign zero value to avoiding oil’s many “externalized” costs, including the costs incurred by military insecurity, rivalry with developing countries, pollution, and depletion. The vehicle improvements and other savings required needn’t be as fast as those achieved after the 1979 oil shock.
*Work contributed in affiliation with Rocky Mountain Institute
Algae Biofuels
Biofuels derived from algae have generated growing interest as a possible source of sustainable energy. Researchers hope to convert algae-based lipids and hydrocarbons into a variety of fuels at a more efficient rate per acre than conventional biofuel sources.
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However, a consensus has not yet been reached on the scope of impact algae-to-biofuel production may have on the environment. Decision makers need to better understand the effects of production processes, inputs, and outputs on the environment, especially land and water resources, if biofuels are to become a truly sustainable fuel source.
Water Desalination
We have provided project management on a research paper entitled, “Assessment of Seawater Desalination as a Water Supply Strategy for San Diego.” The paper used rigorous economic and statistical/scientific techniques to understand and predict how seawater desalination affects water quality and supply.
Commercial Work (General)
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Life Sciences
We have provided comprehensive, full-service laboratory programming, planning, architecture, engineering, construction management, commissioning, and operations and maintenance planning for laboratory facilities on a local, regional, national, and international basis.
Fuels and Energy
We have provided expertise on bioprocessing facilities (biofuels, biochemicals) and renewable energy projects (wind, solar, geothermal, cogeneration).
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This assisted utilities with managing energy generation and demand (electric generation, substations, transmission and distribution, high pressure gas). In addition we couple our energy work with sound environmental solutions to improve overall system performance while lowering costs.
Decontamination and Decommissioning
We have provided environmental management expertise to decontamination and decommissioning projects throughout the United States.
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This has included project management, as well as assistance with facilities and construction, business finance, contracting, capital finance, alternative financing, environmental reviews, and regulation. Clients have included the US Department of Energy and private corporations.
Commercial Work (Projects)
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Large Array Solar PV Plant
We provided environmental management and technical advice to a 300 MW large array solar PV plant in Boulder, City Nevada. Out team assisted with site selection, technology choices, environment and technical due diligence, and helped negotiate the lease in the Eldorado Valley to build the plant.
New Oncology Center, Hackensack University
We assisted in a design charrette to help improve the performance of an oncology center at Hackensack University in New Jersey.
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Issues explored included ways to incorporate biophilic design elements such as daylight, natural views through windows, and indoor plants, all of which have been shown to improve patient recovery times in medical environments.
With the goal of easing patient stress and promoting healing, the charrette and subsequent report helped educate the project team on environmental design strategies.
*Work performed in affiliation with Browning+Bannon and Cook+Fox Architects.
Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory
The Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory (MDIBL) is an independent, nonprofit, marine research institution founded in 1898. As research capacity has grown, so too has the need for laboratory space.
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The construction of a new 15,000 square foot laboratory and teaching facility called for state-of-the-art research and imaging facilities as well as new meeting space and a library. The design needed to address the sensitivities of its remote location adjacent to Acadia National Park. The year-round facility also had to be seamlessly integrated into a campus that had been designed to run only as a summer research station. We assisted in an Environmental Opportunities Charrette to formulate a plan for optimizing the environmental performance of MDIBL’s new structure.
*Work performed in affiliation with Browning+Bannon and Cook+Fox Architects.
Kobunaki Eco-Village
We participated in a charrette to create a set of strategies related to energy performance, long-term habitation, and sustainable settlement of a new community in Omihachiman City, outside of Kyoto, Japan.
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Founded on the ethic of local production for local consumption, this 360-home project aims to become a community centered on agricultural and cultural stewardship. Each home will feature a kitchen garden as part of a larger “infrastructure of food” designed to buttress the community’s self-sufficiency.
The homes of Kobunaki will also feature tiles reclaimed from the recently demolished Higashi Hongwanji Temple in Kyoto. With ambitious goals such as reducing community CO2 emissions by 80% of 2000 levels, plans for Kobunaki have developed through the involvement of many stakeholders so that the project may “co-evolve like an ecosystem.”
*Work performed in affiliation with Browning+Bannon.
Haymount
We provided environmental management expertise for a New Urbanist development located on the Rappahannock River, one of the Chesapeake Bay’s most pristine tributaries and an area rich in Native American and American history.
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Fifty miles from Washington D.C., the development has a projected population of 9,500 people and is designed to hold 4,000 homes and 750,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, along with religious, civic, and recreational buildings. In addition to housing green buildings and homes, two-thirds of the open fields, forests, hillsides, fresh-water wetlands, and brackish wetlands that compose the 1,600-acre site are able to remain free from construction by carefully negotiating the competing demands of the development’s natural and urban environs.
*Work performed in association with the John A. Clark Company.
Callaway Gardens
For the last fifty years Callaway Gardens has been a premier travel and meeting destination in the South, owned and operated by the Ida Cason Callaway Foundation.
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When considering a substantial construction and renovation project, this longtime conservation organization made a commitment to sustainable operations on this 13,000 acre resort composed of a botanical garden, forested preserve, golf community, and lake front resort. We provided strategic consulting for the master planning of Callaway Gardens which included existing facility and infrastructure redevelopment along with the addition of new residential communities and hotels into the existing fabric.
*Work performed in affiliation with Browning+Bannon, LLC.
The Ritz-Carlton Charlotte
We helped conduct a charrette to explore green building strategies for a five star hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina. Designed as part of a planned expansion of the Bank of America’s headquarters complex, Ritz-Carlton wanted to create a sustainable and healthy atmosphere for their guests.
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By focusing efforts on back-of-house water and energy conservation and indoor air quality, this modern and environmentally responsible hotel uses 30% less energy than conventional hotels. Water usage was reduced by 35% by installing water-saving fixtures and allowing guests to opt out of the fresh daily linen service. Outside air is circulated at 60 cubic feet per minute, greatly improving the air quality for guests and staff alike. After opening its doors in October of 2009, this 188-room hotel is the first Ritz-Carlton hotel to achieve LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Corporate meeting planners across the country are looking for green locations to book events, and as a result, Charlotte Ritz-Carlton enjoys the highest occupancy rates of any Ritz-Carlton.
*Work performed in affiliation with Browning+Bannon and Cook+Fox Architects.
Non-Profit Work
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Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (Zeri)
We are ZERI certified practitioners. ZERI is a global network of creative minds seeking solutions to world challenges. The common vision shared by the members of the ZERI family is to view waste as resource and seek solutions using nature’s design principles as inspiration.
Center For Environmental Science and Management (CER)
We helped co-found the Center for Environmental Restoration, a Washington, D.C. based non-profit organization affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.
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CER works with academia, business, civil society, and government to research and develop solar and ecologically-inspired technologies for environmental restoration. Their designs include the Algal Turf Scrubber (ATS), a biological wastewater treatment system that uses periphytic algae to purify water to tertiary standards. The resulting biomass can then be harvested, converted into a renewable biofuel, and used to produce energy.
*Work performed in affiliation with Browning+Bannon and Terrapin.
Get in Touch
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