Cove.tool can be used to assist users in the following TREES credits.
BM 3
SL 1
SL 2
WC 1
EA 1
EA 2
Before we begin, what is TREES?
TREES stands for Thai’s Rating of Energy and Environmental Sustainability. The TREES version 1.1 is for New Construction and Major Renovation. The Thai Green Building Institute (TGBI) launched TREES as a rating system to encourage Thailand to construct buildings that consume less energy, water and have reduced environmental impacts. It has 9 sections in total and cove.tool features can be used to achieve the following credits.
BM 3 - Monitoring and evaluating green building activities during design stage, construction stage and after completion stage
Cove.tool can be used by the team to evaluate various possibilities in the design stage. The green building project team can evaluate and monitor the impact of design changes on the project through the automated report generated in the design and construction stage.
SL 1 – Locate project on developed land
Though cove.tool does not generate names of context buildings, it gives access to various features that the users can use to document and show how the site lies in a previously developed area. The user can embed the property line and cove.tool automatically generates context for 1 mile (1609.34 meters) around the site. Each property line can be cross-referenced to see the Land Use Class for each property and to document that the site is surrounded by at least 10 different types of urban facilities. Learn more about accessing property line information here.
SL 2 – Reduce using private cars
For TREES under SL 2, a maximum of 4 points can be achieved and cove.tool automates the Transit score that can be used to achieve 3 points.
Transit Score is a measure of how well a location is served by public transit. Transit Score is based on data released in a standard format by public transit agencies.
To calculate a Transit Score, a "usefulness" value to nearby transit routes based on the frequency, type of route (rail, bus, etc.), and distance to the nearest stop on the route is assigned. The "usefulness" of all nearby routes is summed and normalized to a score between 0 - 100. Read more about the Walkscore tool here.
WC 1 – Water Saving and Water Use Efficiency
TREES requires the use of water-saving urinals, water closet,s and faucets. Water use reduction of 15% to 35% from the baseline can fetch 2 to 6 points. This information is provided under the Water Use tab in cove.tool. One can use this data to manually calculate the percentage difference between Baseline Flow Rate and Low Flow Rate.
EA 1 – Energy Efficiency
The whole building EUI should be less than either ASHRAE 90.1-2017, or Ministerial Regulation for Energy Saving Building Design B.E. 2552 (2009), or Thailand Energy and Environmental Assessment Method (TEEAM). Points are allocated based on the energy use reduction given in the Table EA1 T1 in the TREES v1.1 manual. One can use cove.tool to compare the whole building EUI from the baseline tab to ASHRAE 90.1-2017 standards.
EA 2 – Renewable Energy
EA2 requires the use of on-site renewable energy system such as solar power to generate enough power to offset at least 0.5-1.5% of the energy cost of the building. The Optimize option on cove.tool can be used to select a parametric combination of using solar panels with energy savings and the suggested options can be downloaded as bundles. See a full explanation of the Optimization tool here.
Further guidance on TREES can be obtained by referring to the technical manual - https://www.tgbi.or.th/uploads/trees/2017_03_TREES-NC-Eng.pdf
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