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Smart Buildings Center Q2 Quarterly Recap

July 10, 2026 By SBC staff

SBX ‘26

SBX Registration is OPEN – Smart Buildings Exchange Nov 9-10 2026 register today and use this link to direct your colleagues to the registration site. Early Bird registration is open through 8/15, don’t miss the discounted rate!

SBX+, our webinar series leading up to the 2 day in-person event, will be happening virtually from February to October. You can get access to both the webinar series and the in-person event for a bundled rate. Recordings are available.

Next up: Sept. 16 – Retrocommissioning as a Tool for Compliance with Building Performance Standards

Building Operator Certification – Fall Courses

Registration is now open for our Fall BOC courses. Building Operator Certification® (BOC) is the leading training and credentialing program for Operations & Maintenance and energy management professionals looking to make their buildings more comfortable, efficient and environmentally friendly, all while reducing energy bill costs. Find training here. Or grab a seat at our informational webcast on August 5th to see what BOC training can do for you (and your building)! Come with questions, leave with answers. Save your spot here.

Building Operator Certification Releases Revised Skills Standards and Curriculum Assessment

The Building Operator Certification program has published a revised Skills Standard and Curriculum Assessment, reflecting the latest critical work functions; knowledge, skills, and abilities; and workforce needs—an essential step in ensuring that the program continues to equip our students with the competencies required to manage increasingly complex, high-performance facilities.

Read more about the Skills Standard and Curriculum Assessment on the announcement blog post here.

Benchmarking Helpdesk

Congratulations to the more than 88 percent of covered buildings that have achieved compliance under Seattle’s Energy Benchmarking law for the 2025 data year! Owners of buildings that remain noncompliant should see the Penalties page for more information.

To support the transition to the new Seattle Building & Energy Portal, the Benchmarking Help Desk will be suspended from June 18 through July 16. During this time, OSE customer support via phone, email, 1-1 scheduling, and weekly office hours is unavailable. However, customers are still able to work directly with utilities to obtain data and complete self-guided updates in ENERGY STAR® Portfolio Manager®.

Help Desk services will resume on July 16, alongside the launch of the new Seattle Building & Energy Portal. Stay tuned to seattle.gov/energybenchmarking in the coming weeks for more information on how the Help Desk experience will change moving forward.

Tool Lending Library

The TLL continues to offer a wide array of tools to service professionals in Washington and Oregon. You can always find an updated list of tools here along with instructions on how to request a tool and videos and guides for tool use and care.

A New Event Calendar and Call for Shared Content

Smart Buildings Center and Building Potential now have a sync’d calendar for events, trainings, conferences and more! Click the links above to be taken to their respective pages. You can scroll the existing content, add the calendar to your own calendar app, and adjust the settings or print for a physical copy.

This resource is intended to be a shared hub for information and one that you can contribute to. With that in mind we’ve created a simple Google form you can fill out to send in your suggestions for content. You can find a link to the form at the bottom of each page or simply click here.

And with the same spirit of collaboration in mind, we are always looking for new posts, listings, news and content to share on our blogs and newsletters. Please reach out to us using this form with any content you would like to see shared on TheBOC.info, SmartBuildingsCenter.org, or BuildingPotential.org. We’d love to hear from you and help get the word out!

Filed Under: Featured Event, SBC News, SBX, Webinars

AESP Announces Nerdy Energy Bar Talk

July 9, 2026 By SBC staff

Our friends at AESP are excited to announce a new regular series, Nerdy Energy Bar Talk, coming to the Olympic Bar next week. Check out the full announcement below!

Please join us July 14th 4-6 PM for our first Nerdy Energy Bar Talk in celebration of PNW Climate Week! Grab a drink and geek out with the AESP Evergreen Board Members where we will swap ideas, explore hot takes, and discuss “did-you-see-this?” moments from across the energy sector. No slide deck required—just good conversation with people who speak energy.

 

Where: Olympic Bar, Seattle WA

When: July 14th 4-6pm

RSVP here: Nerdy Energy Bar Talk · Luma

 

We hope to make Nerdy Energy Bar Talk a regular series. Let us know if you would like to host a future Nerdy Energy Bar Talk or have suggestions for future locations!

Filed Under: Featured Event

SBX 2026: Event Format, Early-Bird Deadline & Call for Speakers

June 22, 2026 By SBC staff

The SBX 2026 conference theme, “Accelerating Performance at the Speed of Innovation,” reflects both the urgency of the moment and the opportunity in front of us. As technologies advance and pressures on the built environment intensify, buildings are being asked to do more: reduce costs, improve resilience, respond to grid needs, support occupant outcomes, and deliver stronger performance in an increasingly complex operating environment. SBX 2026 will create space not just for inspiration, but for debate, problem-solving, and clearer pathways to action.

Each day of the event features a different format, outlined below, designed to provide opportunities for building solutions together through hands-on collaboration in workshops, and inspiring industry-wide action with real-world applications, scalable solutions, and lively discussion and debate.  

Event format

DAY 1: Workshops — Roll Up Your Sleeves
November 9, 2026 | Half-day (11am-5pm)
Day 1 is a highly interactive, workshop-driven format designed for participants who want to actively shape the future of the smart buildings market. Participants will engage with peers, share real-world experiences and perspectives, and identify barriers slowing market growth and the tools, strategies, and approaches to overcome them. Day 1 sets the stage by doing the hard work: aligning perspectives, surfacing friction points, and creating actionable insights that inform the rest of the conference.

DAY 2: Big Ideas, Applications & Broader Perspectives
November 10, 2026 | Full-day (8am-5pm)
Day 2 is a dynamic, full-day conference featuring keynotes, engaging panels, lively debate and networking. With a focus on building owner needs, real-world applications, financing models and scalable solutions, Day 2 will be valuable for building owners, executives, and decision-makers looking for insights they can apply across portfolios. While Day 1 is about doing the work, Day 2 is about sharing it, challenging it, and scaling it—bringing together big ideas and practical insights in a format that encourages debate, inspiration, and action.

Early-Bird Deadline Aug 15th – Register Today!

 

Call for Speakers – Deadline July 17th

This year’s agenda topics center on one question: what will it take to move smart buildings from promising projects to genuine, repeatable scale? The agenda digs into the practical barriers and opportunities that matter most right now—financing structures, policy alignment, AI-driven operations, and what it will take to make smart buildings the norm rather than the exception.

SBX is built on practitioner knowledge and real-world experience. We’re actively looking for speakers, panelists, and moderators who can bring grounded, honest perspectives to our attendees — not polished sales pitches, but genuine insight from the work you’re doing in the field. We’re especially interested in voices from:

  • Building owners, managers, and operators
  • Engineers, commissioning professionals, and energy managers
  • Sustainability and decarbonization leaders
  • Utility and policy experts
  • Technology providers with real-world deployment stories
  • Finance and capital professionals working on building performance

Interested in speaking or have speaker suggestions? We want to hear from you!
Ready to share your expertise or know great speakers who should be considered? Complete our speaker suggestion form to tell us about yourself or the suggested speaker(s), areas of expertise, and which topics would be a good fit. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and our programming team will be in touch with those whose experience aligns with our conference themes.

Submit Speaker Suggestion Form by July 17th!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

SBX 2026 is where the Pacific Northwest’s smart buildings community comes together to do the hard work of figuring out what’s next. Whether you join us as an attendee, a speaker, or a sponsor, we hope to see you there.

Questions? Reach us at [email protected]

More information: www.sbxconference.org

Filed Under: Education & Training, Featured Event, SBC News, SBX

May Monthly Wrap-Up

June 11, 2026 By SBC staff

SBX Plus and a Call for Speakers!

SBX Registration is OPEN – Smart Buildings Exchange Nov 9-10 2026 register today and use this link to direct your colleagues to the registration site

SBX+, our webinar series leading up to the in-person event, is well underway. You can get access to both the webinar series and the in-person event for a bundled rate. Recordings are available of all the webinars to this point. May was marked by the Efficient Energy Management with ISO 50001 webinar, which is available to view now!

Next up: Sept. 16 – Retrocommissioning as a Tool for Compliance with Building Performance Standards

Also, don’t forget that the SBX Call for Speakers is now open! Don’t miss your chance to shape the conversation, if you or someone you know is interested in speaking at SBX this year we want to hear from you. Check out the blog post for all the details.

AEE West

We took a little trip over to the east side and set-up shop at AEE West. Here’s some highlight photos of us talking with the attendees and our very own Rebecca Sheppard presenting!

 

Operator of the Year 2026 – Nominations Closing

We’re coming to the end of the Operator of the Year nominations! Please check out the blog post for all the details and get your nominations in at this form by midnight (PT) tomorrow, 6/12. We have some excellent candidates this year and can’t wait to announce the winner in the weeks to come.

Filed Under: Featured Event, SBX, Webinars

Help Shape the Conversation at SBX 2026!

May 25, 2026 By SBC staff

Agenda Topics & Call for Speakers

Smart Buildings Exchange Fall Conference | November 9-10, 2026 | Downtown Seattle

What’s on the SBX Agenda?
We’re excited to announce the SBX 2026 agenda. Grounded in our theme, “Accelerating Performance at the Speed of Innovation,” this year’s topics center on one question: what will it take to move smart buildings from promising projects to genuine, repeatable scale? The agenda digs into the practical barriers and opportunities that matter most right now—financing structures, policy alignment, AI-driven operations, and what it will take to make smart buildings the norm rather than the exception.

SBX is built on practitioner knowledge and real-world experience. As noted in the grid below, we’re actively looking for speakers, panelists, and moderators who can bring grounded, honest perspectives to our attendees — not polished sales pitches, but genuine insight from the work you’re doing in the field.

We’re especially interested in voices from:

  • Building owners, managers, and operators
  • Engineers, commissioning professionals, and energy managers
  • Sustainability and decarbonization leaders
  • Utility and policy experts
  • Technology providers with real-world deployment stories
  • Finance and capital professionals working on building performance

We’ve designed this year’s program to be direct, substantive, and honest. We’re interested in hosting multiple perspectives; disagreement is ok and leads to progress. If you have real experience, a grounded perspective, or a passionate point of view on any of these topics, we want to hear from you.

Interested in speaking or have speaker suggestions? We want to hear from you!
Ready to share your expertise or know great speakers who should be considered? Complete our speaker suggestion form to tell us about yourself or the suggested speaker(s), areas of expertise, and which topics would be a good fit. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and our programming team will be in touch with those whose experience aligns with our conference themes.

>> Submit Your Speaker Suggestion Form Here <<

___________________________________________________________________________________________

SBX 2026 is where the Pacific Northwest’s smart buildings community comes together to do the hard work of figuring out what’s next. Whether you join us as an attendee, a speaker, or a sponsor, we hope to see you there.

Questions? Reach us at [email protected]

More information: www.sbxconference.org

Filed Under: Education & Training, Featured Event, SBC News, SBX

ICYMI This Week at the Smart Buildings Center & Building Potential

April 16, 2026 By SBC staff

This week we hosted our third session in our SBX Plus webinar series, How to Utilize Diagnostic Tools to Identify Energy Savings. The presentation showcased how modern diagnostic tools uncover hidden inefficiencies in building systems and pinpoint actionable energy-saving opportunities. You can catch this recording, register for future sessions, and find more information and registration opportunities for Smart Buildings Exchange webinars and in person conference here.
Jorge Melendez, Senior Specialist of Conservation and Efficiency Programs at Southern California Edison, Robby Martin, Building Analytics Business Development Lead at ATS Automation and Britton Rife, Senior Project Manager at the SBC and Building Potential covered practical approaches to utilizing specific diagnostic tools, analyzing data, prioritizing improvements, and validating results. Many regions have access to commercial tool lending libraries, check them out here:

Washington & Oregon

Smart Buildings Center – https://www.smartbuildingscenter.org/tool-library/


Idaho

University of Idaho – Integrated Design Lab – http://idlboise.com/about-erl


California

Pacific Gas & Electric – www.pge.com/tools

Sonoma County – http://sonomacounty.ca.gov/General-Services/Energy-and-Sustainability/Tool-Lending-Library/

Southern California Edison – https://www.sce.com/business/consulting-services/energy-education-centers

San Diego Gas & Electric – https://www.sdge.com/energy-innovation-center/tool-and-book-lending-library


New York

CUNY Building Performance Lab – https://nycenergytools.com/

Filed Under: Featured Event, SBC News, SBX, Webinars

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News & Articles

Smart Buildings Center Q2 Quarterly Recap

July 10, 2026

AESP Announces Nerdy Energy Bar Talk

July 9, 2026

OSE: 2026 Building Decarbonization Grants, Applications Open Through 8/10

July 7, 2026

Portland OR Job Openings at Franklin Energy!

July 2, 2026

Happening This Week at the Smart Buildings Center

July 1, 2026

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

        

Smart Buildings Center · Pacific Tower, 1200 12th Ave. S., Suite 110, Seattle, WA 98144 · 206-538-0832

© 2026 · Northwest Energy Efficiency Council