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Building Electrification & Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings Executive Forum Recordings

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Thanks to all who joined us for our recent two-part ‘Why Smart Buildings?’ Executive Forum on Building Electrification & Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings. The recordings for the sessions are now available on the SBC YouTube channel at the links below.

Part 1 of this series brings together expertise from the policy, regulatory, ratemaking, and utility industries to discuss their view on what must change from current practice to ignite a robust market for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs). Speakers include: John Gibson – Avista Corporation, Ryan Hledik – Brattle Group, and Sangeeta Ranade – AlphaStruxure.

Part 1 Recording

Part 2 of this series features a panel drawn from the communities of building owner/manager, developer, service provider and research institutions to discuss the market side of this equation. Speakers include: Brett Bridgeland – RMI, Salone Habibuddin – Urban Visions, Mary Ann Piette – Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Hendrik Van Hemert – Edo.

Part 2 Recording

NEEC & SBC Welcome New Team Member

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The Northwest Energy Efficiency Council (NEEC) and Smart Buildings Center (SBC) are pleased to announce that Rebecca Sheppard is joining our team!

As Senior Project Manager at NEEC, Rebecca will support the organization’s footprint with Grid-interactive Efficient Building operations and act as a strategic lead and technical advisor on smart building technologies, overall building electrification and policies that support the role of higher performing buildings in the clean energy economy. Rebecca has worked as a Resource Conservation Manager for the past 5 ½ years and has experience in the energy management of buildings, data analysis, building controls, energy efficiency projects, project management and facility operations. Her educational background includes a Business Management degree, an MBA degree, a Construction Management Certification from the University of Washington, as well as BOC training. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, horseback riding and camping.

NEEC and SBC are proud to welcome Rebecca to the team!

Resilient, Healthy HVAC Doesn’t Have To Cost So Much

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A recent study conducted by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA), Red Car Analytics (RCA) and the University of Oregon (UO) shows that commercial building operators can reduce the risk of viral spread by more than 25% with two steps: 1) increase ventilation rates by 217%, 2) add in-room filtration units. Unfortunately, most HVAC systems that can handle this increased ventilation and filtration will also dramatically increase HVAC energy usage.

Thankfully, according to the same study, there are higher efficiency HVAC solutions, such as very high efficiency DOAS, that can run efficiently under acute ventilation conditions while using 37% less energy than less efficient HVAC options. To learn more about this study and the ways building operators can adapt their HVAC approaches to foster healthy indoor environments without wasting energy, read the full article on NEEA’s BetterBricks.com.

Video Series: Lowering Commercial Buildings Emissions in King County

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Join the 2050 Project as we learn about what King County and Washington State are doing to help commercial buildings lower their environmental impact and save money. There are six episodes in this engaging and educational video series. Each episode examines a unique focus between commercial properties and sustainability. And different guests are introduced throughout the series that add a range of perspective to the story. Help us share this important message, and act alongside other community members so that King County and WA State can reduce more emissions from commercial properties.

 

Job Opportunites: Emerald Cities

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Community Engagement and Policy Manager
We are excited to be expanding in the Northwest, adding staff positions to our Economic Inclusion and Community Engagement work in order to bring clean energy opportunities to BIPOC communities. Please share these career opportunities with those who might be interested.

Apply here


Inclusion Manager – Minority Contracting
The Economic Inclusion Manager – Minority Contractor Development will implement policies, models and programs that advance Emerald Cities Collaborative’s mission with a focus on creating business opportunities and community wealth for Black and brown communities by leveraging investments in clean energy, affordable housing, and other infrastructure projects.

Apply here

Don’t Miss ‘Why Smart Buildings?’ Executive Forum, Feb 17th & 24th

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Building Electrification & Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings

Thursday, February 17th & 24th
12:00 – 1:15 pm PT
Register Here!

Certainly, increasing building electrification (BE) is a critical step toward decarbonization of the built environment. The specific steps to achieve BE are somewhat less certain. Replacing carbon-emitting fossil fuel appliances with clean electric sources is the easy answer, but as usual there are lots of complexities in making this happen in both commercial and residential buildings – new and existing. During the Smart Buildings Exchange (SBX) 2021 virtual conference, two technical sessions on grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) highlighted the potential values of deploying dynamic two-way communication capacity in buildings to both the electric utility system and building owners and managers. This two-way communication can automate load shifting, shedding, and modulating and improve a utility’s capacity, resiliency, and cost. Building on the SBX 2021 conversations, this two-part Executive Forum discussion will link the efforts around BE to successful widespread deployment of GEBs.

Part 1 of this series will bring together expertise from the policy, regulatory, ratemaking, and utility industries to discuss their view on what must change from current practice to ignite a robust market for GEBs. Like most SBC events, this Executive Forum will be structured as an extemporaneous discussion between panelists (with a twist – see note on format below). Sure to be a dynamic and engaging discussion, this panel will tackle issues such as:

  • Building electrification – the role that GEBs need to play to allow for optimizing utility capacity management/coincident peak management (the context being, can building electrification succeed without some form of GEBs)
  • Grid modernization – everyone agrees that it needs to happen and that it will be expensive. Do GEBs offer a least cost approach to modernization that will enhance reliability/resilience?
  • Are GEBs a complement to the Northwest’s emerging energy imbalance market – are the two compatible?
  • Why aren’t GEBs evaluated as a resource in the 8th Power Plan?
  • Are GEBs more realistic/helpful to the utility system in the residential or the C/I sector?
  • What scale is necessary for GEBs to be a real solution?
  • What rate reforms are needed to make GEBs work?
  • What policy/regulatory reforms are needed to make GEBs work?

Part 2 of this series will feature a panel drawn from the communities of building owner/manager, developer, service provider and research institutions to discuss the market side of this equation. Of course, there has to be a market-based value proposition for the BE-GEBs solution to decarbonization and this group will take that question head-on. Again, expect a dynamic conversation amongst the panel addressing core issues, such as:

  • Who is responsible for triggering market adoption – utility-customer-third party-government/regulator?
  • Will dynamic rate structures be sufficient to move the market or are some types of financial incentives also needed?
  • Are GEBs only realistic for new construction?
  • If the future of commercial buildings is variable occupancy does this help or hurt GEBs deployment?
  • How critical is the inevitability of EV charging to GEBs?

This FREE two-part virtual series is targeted to building owners/managers, developers, utilities, service providers as well as those with interest in or responsibilities for policy and regulatory changes related to decarbonization.

Ever been frustrated that your question didn’t get addressed by a panel because they ran out of time? Submit your questions ahead of time during registration and we will tailor the conversation to match your information needs!

Register Here!

 

 

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