Blog - Smart Buildings Center

Smart Buildings Strategy Workshop at PSRC

August 4, 2015 By Vamsi

Do you know our friends over at the Puget Sound Regional Council? The PSRC is a great local organization that “works to ensure a thriving central Puget Sound now and into the future through planning for regional transportation, growth management and economic development.” They are hosting an event on August 12th that you should definitely check out!

The “Developing Your Smart Buildings Strategy” workshop will bring in city staff, public utilities, and building operators to talk about how to create a smart buildings program. The workshop will share insights from Seattle’s High Performance Building Pilot (see video below) and King County’s Energy-Smart Buildings Program. Commercial buildings in the US waste about $50 billion per year in energy costs. Find out how Seattle and King County are using smart buildings technology to plug that energy drain, and how your community can do the same.

More information and workshop registration details may be found here.

Please contact Sasha Anderson at [email protected] with questions.

NEEC is turning 20!

July 23, 2015 By Vamsi

Founded in 1995, the Northwest Energy Efficiency Council (NEEC) has been serving the energy efficiency industry in the Northwest. Smart Buildings Center’s parent organization is going to be celebrating their 20-year anniversary on August 11th from 10am – 1pm at the Pacific Tower in Seattle, and we would love you to join us! We will be celebrating NEEC’s accomplishments within the energy efficiency industry and its power and potential as a driver of economic productivity with an industry panel of end user customers. Also as a special treat, Senator Maria Cantwell with be sharing her perspective on energy and the role it plays in the state’s economy. We couldn’t be more excited for you to join us, please see the details below including a link to RSVP at. Hurry, this limited event is filling up fast!

As one of the oldest energy efficiency industry associations in the United States, NEEC is celebrating its 20 year anniversary with an exciting event featuring keynote speaker Senator Maria Cantwell and showcasing the accomplishments of the energy efficiency industry and its power and potential as a driver of economic productivity. A panel of end use customers will describe their views on how energy services factor into their business now and in the future

Industry Panel: Energy Efficiency in the next 20 Years: A Customer Perspective

Panelists:

Emma Karlsson, Director of Sustainability, JSH Properties
Chris Roe, Energy Resource Manager, Boeing
Darrell Smith, Director of Facilities Operations and Energy, Microsoft

And don’t miss out on a complimentary lunch featuring a keynote address by Senator Maria Cantwell and her perspective on legislation and the role energy plays in the state’s economy.

For more information, go to the NEEC website. Registration is free but space is very limited.

Sending Thanks

June 29, 2015 By Vamsi

It’s been a little while since we have spoken about our Tool Lending Library and Smart Buildings Center has been working diligently to make this available. We’ve already ordered several tools (more on that next week), received many shipments, and are readying our system to begin lending them out.

The Tool Lending Library is going to be a great resource towards energy efficiency for the State of Washington, and Smart Buildings Center would be remiss without making sure we thanked some key players in helping us move forward with this project. Our neighbors at PG&E have been operating a Tool Lending Library for over 20 years, and when Smart Buildings Center was interested in creating our Library we went straight to them! Take a peek at the PG&E Tool Library. Bill Pottinger and Ryan Stroupe at the PG&E Pacific Energy Center Tool Library have been a tremendous resource and have been so generous with their time, experience, and expertise. They were even willing to have us come see their Library twice, thanks Bill and Ryan! You rock!

Smart Buildings Center meet with industry leaders

June 9, 2015 By Vamsi

Smart Buildings Center relies heavily on advice from members of the industry to allow us to provide the most effective services to our “customers”. Regardless of whether that input is coming from a building owner, a building/construction services company, or an operator of a building, that knowledge is incredibly valuable. Fine tuning our products and services at our new SBC home in the Pacific Tower has been on our minds for a while now, so we organized a charrette. For those of you who aren’t fluent in French, a charrette is an intense, freewheeling discussion.

In an 8th Floor conference room in the Pacific Tower, a group of 15 or so facility directors, energy engineers, and product folks got together with SBC staff to share ideas and suggestions on how to best create value from core SBC services like tool lending and analytical tools.

Things got granular right away. How long can the tools be borrowed? How does the SBC ensure appropriate use of the tools by sufficiently qualified users? How does the reservation system work? We were glad to hear an extremely positive response from both building owner/operators and service providers on the basic concept of making diagnostic tools more generally available. The conversation really helped us both refine the list of tools we want to offer and to think through the mechanics of making the library work to best serve our community.

We then steered the conversation toward our other big SBC lift – creating a showcase for the opportunity when “Smart meets efficient”. New analytic and visualization tools are exploding on the market and our stakeholder group both showed excitement about them and expressed the need for better market information and education about what they are, what they do, and when and where they are most appropriate. We walked away from that discussion with pledges from industry folks to share product information and case study examples which can help us “curate” the SBC space for maximum effect.

The event was incredibly helpful and we are extremely grateful to the following folks for sharing their time and ideas:

Javad Maadanian
Bill Babbitt
Chris Olmsted
Gary Engleson
Darren Schwend
Ian Siadak
Ron Fues
Norm Menter
Jesse Sycuro
Moe Salem
Perry England

An Introduction to SBC’s Tool Lending Library

May 6, 2015 By Vamsi

Last week we mentioned that Smart Buildings Center was planning our space to support a Tool Lending Library. This probably makes you imagine going to your local public library and borrowing a hammer and a saw, and while that isn’t quite what we had in mind, it is rather close. The Smart Buildings Center Tool Lending Library will lend high quality building diagnostic tools to building operators, facility managers and design professionals for use in commercial or industrial buildings. The use of the tools will be free of charge as long as they are returned in the same condition in which they were lent. In cases where you aren’t in or around Seattle we will be able to ship the equipment to you at a small charge.

SBC has already started procuring tools for the library. We have over 50 Dent Motor Loggers and Dent ElitePro XP Power Loggers to track motor run time in your facility, this can help measure which motors get the most use. If you have a series of pony motors, this can help you determine if a VFD or downsizing a motor would reduce energy usage. Smart Buildings Center is also expecting a shipment of over 100 HOBO loggers that will allow you to log: Temperatures, Humidity, Light levels, Occupancy, CO2, Pressure, Current, and anything else you may have a sensor for. We also will be stocking Fluke Power Meters in our inventory. Stay tuned to see what the next equipment shipment brings, or feel free to email or call 206-971-7401 if you have any specific equipment needs.

Smart Buildings Center is moving!

May 5, 2015 By Vamsi

For the past year we have called Seattle’s Impact Hub our home. Smart Buildings Center loved being a part of The Impact Hub’s community and we will surely miss Pioneer Square, but it’s time to say goodbye.

Impact Hub building — Impact Hub in Pioneer Square

We have started work on our new space inside the historic Pacific Tower and hope to move in nearing the beginning of 2016. Many of you have seen this iconic Art Deco building on top of Beacon Hill. It’s been previously known as the old Amazon Headquarters, the Pacific Medical Center, and that creepy building overlooking downtown Seattle. Putting aside all rumors of it being haunted (we’re not scared) Smart Buildings Center couldn’t be more excited!

Pacific Tower in Seattle — We’re moving to Pacific Tower

View of Seattle through our window With the design help of SSL, McKinstry, and their subcontractors our space will be ready to support a wide variety of activities and events. We’re aiming to have several state of the art event spaces and conference rooms (which will be available to the building efficiency community) as well as office spaces, and of course room for our new Tool Lending Library! We are really looking forward to all the natural light our new space has; did we mention the views of the city?

We have already begun the demolition process, in fact you can see the imprint of the old Amazon set up. We look forward to bringing you more updates as we progress.

Interior under construction

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