Blog - Smart Buildings Center

Register Today: Explore the Latest Innovations at the 2024 CalFlexHub Symposium

September 5, 2024 By SBC staff

In-person Registration open until 9/15!

Registration link (requires signing into Zoom).

The CalFlexHub 2024 Annual Symposium will be held on September 24, 8am-6pm PT in Berkeley, CA. This year’s event explores the latest innovations in policy, research, and products in load flexibility and showcases CalFlexHub’s portfolio of projects featuring keynote speakers from the California Energy Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy, California Public Utilities Commision, utilities, community choice aggregators, industry leaders, plus an opportunity to meet leading innovators on building and EV charging price-response automation technologies.

CalFlexHub is embracing a hybrid event with the option to attend remotely. If you are interested in joining us in person, please register by September 15.

When registering for in-person attendance:

Please take note of and answer the related background questions (such as birth country and citizenship). This important information is used to confirm your access to Berkeley Lab campuses with an official visitor’s pass. Please wait for confirmation of your in-person registration and additional details
Visit this site to learn more about “Getting to Berkeley Lab”
If any other transportation questions, please see Berkeley Lab’s FAQs

More info and the full agenda can be found at: https://calflexhub.lbl.gov/

Building Potential and Smart Buildings Center Education Program Named as Partners on Federal Grants

September 4, 2024 By SBC staff

Building Potential and Smart Buildings Center Education program are excited to announce the organizations were named as sub awardees on two federal grants with our partners the City of Seattle Office of Sustainability & Environment (OSE) and WA Department of Commerce!

City of Seattle’s OSE – Building Potential named as partner to provide technical help desk support and development of BOC curriculum to support Building Emissions Performance Standard

WA State Dept of Commerce – SBCEP named as partner to scale Climate Corps Fellow program and additional support for Clean Buildings Performance Standard compliance

We are proud to announce these partnerships and look forward to continuing to work with OSE and Commerce by creating and expanding access to technical resources and educational programs that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and expand the skills of our green workforce.

Community Energy Labs Job: Lead Backend Engineer

September 4, 2024 By SBC staff

Our friends at CEL want to tell you about an exciting job opportunity!

Climate change is one of the most important issues of our time. Community Energy Labs is working to meet that challenge by helping to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings with our innovative, machine learning-powered SaaS platform.

We’re looking for a Lead Backend Engineer with experience building resilient event-driven microservices, and a deep hands-on devops skillset, to help us architect, scale, and operate our platform.

In this role, you’ll be the first full-time engineer on our team and will partner with our Head of Engineering to design and implement solutions to our most important technical challenges as we move from successful prototype into production. This role will be rigorous and require a wide-ranging skill set (but we hope fun and rewarding) and our interview process reflects that.

Learn more about this role or apply here!

PSE Offers Help with Clean Buildings Compliance!

September 3, 2024 By SBC staff

Get expert help from PSE on Clean Buildings Law compliance

PSE supports building owners and operators to comply with Washington state’s Clean Buildings Law, even if they use electricity from other utilities like Seattle City Light, Tacoma Power or Snohomish PUD.

Our Clean Buildings Accelerator program unpacks the complex law, meets you where you’re at with your energy use and goals, and coaches you to comply through a hands-on series of virtual trainings. We use your own building(s) as examples and help you leverage PSE’s energy management and incentive programs to meet and exceed your benchmarking targets.

Space in the Clean Buildings Accelerator program is limited for these last 2 sessions of 2024 and compliance dates are quickly creeping up for the largest buildings. Visit pse.com/cleanbuildings to learn more and join one of our upcoming information sessions on Sept 18 or Oct 15. The next training cohorts begin Sept. 11 and Oct 29.

Uncertain about the Clean Buildings Law or our Accelerator program? Check out this short video. If you have questions or need more information, please contact us at [email protected].

BuildingEnergy NYC 2024 10/24

August 30, 2024 By SBC staff

One conference ends and another is on the horizon! Thanks to everyone who joined us this week for SBX 2024! We had an amazing show and an amazing 3-days with all of you, SBX wouldn’t happen without your involvement! As we prepare to share our session recordings and post event celebrations with you all we also want to spread the word about our friends at NESEA who are gearing up for…

NESEA’s BuildingEnergy NYC conference and trade show is a chance to immerse yourself in a full day of networking and intensive learning with your peers from the fields of design, construction, engineering, policy, finance, and beyond. This unique event is designed by and for our community of practitioners, ensuring that the content is useful, relevant, and on the leading edge. Conference sessions feature best practices and lessons learned from real case studies and proven data, as well as showcasing innovative technologies and programs. If you are a building sustainability professional in any stage of your career, please join us on Thursday, October 24, 2024 in New York City!

For more info check out their webpage at: BuildingEnergy NYC 2024 | NESEA

SBX Virtual Opening Plenary Sessions, Aug 27th & 28th

August 26, 2024 By SBC staff

Join us virtually for the Smart Buildings Exchange (SBX) 2024 Opening Plenary Sessions on Tuesday, August 27th from 8:45 – 10:00 am PT and Wednesday, August 28th from 9:00 – 10:15 am PT. Read on below for the full 3-day SBX schedule, also available here.

On Day 1, Ash Awad (McKinstry) will moderate a discussion on Financing the Decarbonization of the Built Environment between Elizabeth Wolfe (US Department of Energy), Marc Daudon (The Caspian Group), Scott Stogsdill (Ryan LLC), and Molly McCabe (HaydenTanner).

On Day 2, Poppy Storm (2050 Institute) will moderate a discussion on Innovations for an Electrified & Decarbonized Future between Allen Preger (Building Ventures), Celeste Tell (Epicycled), Lucas Toffoli (RMI), and Steve Ruby (McKinstry).

You don’t want to miss these sessions — register now!

Financing the Decarbonization of the Built Environment – Public, Private & Tax Credit Resources
Decarbonizing the built environment requires technical and operational innovation. Beyond that challenge is the financial investment necessary to implement this transformation at scale. This conference plenary will bring leading voices together to explain how public (federal, state, and local) and private financing are being structured to catalyze this transformation.

Innovations for an Electrified & Decarbonized Future – Technology, Construction, Finance & Policy
Success in transforming the built environment from a carbon problem to a carbon solution requires innovation. This is especially true for existing buildings as they are retrofitted and re-purposed for an electrified and decarbonized future. The question is – are we innovating fast enough and at a deployable scale to get where we need to go. This panel will examine the technology innovations that can help lead the transformative process for the built environment.