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Smart Buildings Center

Energy Efficiency Innovation Center, Tool Library & Data Visualization

Case Study ā€“ Sunfresh Foods Freezer Upgrade

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Sunfresh Foods Inc. is a small, locally owned company based in Seattle that has coined the term ā€œFreezervesā€ to describe their signature freezer jam product.

The Sunfresh processing facility is an approx. 10,000 sq. ft. pre-fab concrete building built in the 1970s. Sunfresh wanted to reduce their high electricity bills and identified their extremely inefficient refrigeration systems as the biggest opportunity for improvement. Before beginning the project, they reached out to the Energy Conservation Program at Seattle City Light (the local utility) about possible incentives. City Light was able to provide a substantial rebate, making it cost effective for Sunfresh to upgrade to a new system. The new system achieves high energy efficiency while helping Sunfresh also attain the attendant social benefits of saving energy.

How did the Smart Buildings Center help?
City Light asked Bob Brennand of Energy Smart Industrial (ESI) to help with measurement and verification (M&V) of the actual energy savings to determine the amount of the incentive.

The ESI program, sponsored by Bonneville Power Authority (BPA), helps utility customers and their industrial end-users achieve cost-effective energy savings.

Bob borrowed the Dent ElitePro XC logging power meters from Smart Buildings Centerā€™s Tool Lending Library to measure consumption data after the upgrade, and the results were very impressive.

To continue reading, please download the full case study.

 

Webinar: Advances in Energy/Building Code Development for EV Infrastructure, Oct 28th

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Advances in Energy/Building Code Development for EV Infrastructure
Date: Wednesday October 28, 2020
Time: 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time

Why this topic: In the coming years, many new electric vehicles (EVs) are expected to be purchased and deployed by residents, businesses, and public fleets in Washington. Learn from state and local experts what is currently required, and how future code development and updates can support installation of EV charging infrastructure for these new EVs.

Who should attend?

  • Everyone is welcome, especially staff from public works and fleets throughout Washington
  • Planning officials at all levels of government
  • Energy/building code officials and inspectors
  • Fiscal managers, accountants, budget writers
  • Decision-makers in government
  • Policy makers in government

Host:Ā Jim Jensen, Director, Green Transportation Program

Speakers: Speaker details are provided below

  • Chuck Murray, Washington Dept. of Commerce
  • Andrea Pratt, City of Seattle
  • Kathleen Petrie, King County and the Regional Code Collaboration

How to Participate
This webinar will be presented as a GoToWebinar meeting. Register today using the link below. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with information about joining the webinar.

Register now!

 

Featured Speakers

Chuck Murray, Senior Energy Policy Specialist
Washington State Department of Commerce, State Energy Office
Chuck Murray has served the State of Washington for 29 years, providing original field research, project implementation and policy development in the energy efficiency field. Policy development has resulted in state legislation requiring incremental improvements in energy codes stringency, mandatory building energy benchmarking and a first-in-nation existing building efficiency standard. Chuck also helped the Governorā€™s office craft the EV charging infrastructure legislation included in the building code. Chuck supports development state capital funding for energy efficiency programs, including net zero low-income housing.

Andrea Pratt, Climate & Transportation Policy Advisor
Drive Clean Seattle Program, City of Seattle
Andrea Pratt has worked at the City of Seattle since 2011. In 2014, she authored the Cityā€™s Green Fleet Action Plan and managed a successful transition to biodiesel (B20) for over 1,000 fleet vehicles in 2015. Andrea was a lead developer of the Drive Clean Seattle initiative in 2016, which calls for a 50% reduction in fleet emissions by 2025. To that end, she is expanding alternative fuel use including biodiesel and renewable diesel blends, deploying green technology fleet wide and electrifying light-duty vehicles. Andrea manages EV infrastructure expansion, aiming to install over 400 charging stations at dozens of fleet locations, and spearheads green fleet policy and procurement efforts.

Kathleen Petrie, Green Code Specialist
Sustainable Cities, King County
Kathleen Petrie has worked with King County since 2017, where she leads development of the Green Building portion of King Countyā€™s 2020 Strategic Climate Action Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across King County. Kathleen developed zoning, energy and building codes administered by the Permitting Department in close alignment with King County’s 2015 Strategic Climate Action Plan. She helped King County achieve a nationally recognized honor for removing barriers to installing solar energy technologies. When she worked with the City of Seattle, Kathleen founded the Regional Code Collaboration, a collection of jurisdictions from the Puget Sound region sharing expertise and resources to develop building codes and policies that address material, water, energy conservation and sustainable transportation.

Inflection Point: a post-election Climate Leaders Live conversation, Dec 3rd

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Inflection Point: Climate Leaders Live
December 3, 2020; 4:00-5:30 PM PST

Register Now!

No matter the outcome of the upcoming election, it’s clear we’re at a critical juncture for climate, clean energy, and a just economic recovery.

Join two incredible thought-leaders for a timely post-election conversation about what’s ahead moderated by Victoria Paykar, Climate Solutions’ Oregon Transportation Policy Manager.

  • Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson: a marine biologist, policy expert, and Brooklyn native. She is founder of the non-profit think tankĀ Urban Ocean Lab, founder and CEO of the consultancyĀ Ocean Collectiv, and co-creator and co-host of the Spotify/Gimlet podcastĀ How to Save a Planet. She co-edited the anthologyĀ All We Can Save, and co-founded The All We Can Save Project in support of women climate leaders. Her mission is to build community around climate solutions. Follow herĀ @ayanaeliza.
  • Majora Carter:Ā a real estate developer, urban revitalization strategy consultant, MacArthur Fellow and Peabody Award winning broadcaster. Majora is responsible for the creation and successful implementation of numerous economic development, technology, green-infrastructure projects, policies and job training & placement systems. Follow her @MajoraCarter.
  • Victoria (Vee) Paykar:Ā Vee works on developing a strategic and equitable transportation agenda for electrification, lower carbon fuels, and a reduced need to drive, seeking to build a powerful, networked coalition of leaders and partners to urge action at multiple levels of government. Prior to joining Climate Solutions, she was an Environmental Equity Fellow at the Greenlining Institute and the Transportation Equity Associate at Center for Sustainable Energy. In those capacities she worked on programs and policies to deliver equitable climate benefits to low-income and communities of color.

While free to tune-in, this is also a virtual fundraising event for Climate Solutions and part of the launch of a multi-week giving campaign to help support our upcoming work in 2021 to accelerate the transition to a 100% clean energy economy.

For over twenty years, Climate Solutions has been working to accelerate the solutions to the climate crisis, and with your help and support, we can keep going. Now more than ever as we experience climate impacts, it is clear we need to accelerate the transition to 100% clean and efficient energy in the region and beyond. We need solutions like 100% clean electricity for our grid, cleaner fuels and electrification to power our transportation, and clean and energy savvy buildings where we work and live. With your help, we can accelerate the transition to a clean energy future.

Register Now!

Is the Workforce Ready for High Performance Buildings? Report Finds Major Skills Gaps

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Melanie Danuser and the Smart Buildings Center team contributed to the ACEEE report “Training the Workforce for High-Performance Buildings: Enhancing Skills for Operations and Maintenance.”

By Mariel Wolfson, Editor/Writer

We know that improving the energy efficiency of the U.S. building stock can reduce building-related carbon emissions byĀ as much as 50%. High performance buildings, which are energy-efficient, durable, resilient, and offer excellent indoor air quality, will be critical for cutting emissions and meeting our climate goals. Yet these buildings also require highly specialized knowledge to optimize performance.

This specialized knowledge is the focus of a new ACEEE report released today. The report ā€” based on an original survey and expert interviews with professionals who work with high performance buildings as owners, managers, and technicians ā€” identifies the precise skills that education and training programs should prioritize to ensure that the workforce can meet current and future demands.

The vast majority of respondents ā€” 92% ā€” said that operations and maintenance (O&M) is the most critical skill area for the buildings workforce of the future…

Continue reading the blog post

Download the report

City of Seattle Fossil Fuels Transition Jobs Study

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Seattle’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory shows that city-wide emissions have stopped decreasing, and in some cases are beginning to increase; the City of Seattle will not be able to make significant progress towards emissions reduction without decarbonizing our energy supply. The City is exploring policies and programs that would transition Seattle away from fossil fuels to zero-emissions energy in our cars, trucks, buses, and buildings.

The City of Seattle is seeking input from you on how such a transition may affect your business or employment and what you may need for this transition.

If you identify as either a fossil fuel-related or clean energy-related business or organization, or an intensive user of either, please complete this 10 to 15 minute survey, linked below, by Thursday October 8th. Your perspective will provide invaluable input into policymaking processes. All information will be treated as confidential and not shared with any third party.

Survey Link: https://arcg.is/eCGmK0

Every Day, Commercial Lighting Gets More Complex – and Much More Beneficial

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The advent of LED technology brought an unprecedented year-over-year proliferation of commercial lighting options and applications. And while this fast-paced evolution has made commercial lighting more complex than ever, it also offers building operators and managers a wide variety of nuanced solutions to provide long-lasting energy- and cost-savings for building owners and every-day benefits to occupants.

Learn more >

Contact Us

Smart Buildings Center
Pacific Tower
1200 12th Ave. S., Suite 110
Seattle, WA 98144

206-538-0832

[email protected]

Smart Buildings Center is a project collaboration with Building Potential