Blog - Smart Buildings Center

Job Opportunity: Resource Conservation Manager, Puget Sound Energy

April 14, 2021 By Britton Rife

Location: Bothell, WA

Puget Sound Energy is looking to grow our community with like-minded, top talented individuals like you! With our rapidly growing, award winning energy efficiency programs, our pathway to an exciting and innovative future is now.

PSE’s Customer Energy Mgmt & Renewables team is looking for qualified candidates to fill an open Resource Conservation Manager position!

Job Description
Puget Sound Energy is looking for a Resource Conservation Manager (RCM) to lead energy efficiency improvements and resource conservation activities in company-owned & leased facilities. The RCM will promote energy efficiency best practices within PSE’s buildings, working collaboratively with multiple workgroups including Facilities, Energy Efficiency, Clean Energy Strategy, and PSE’s Green Team.

This role will focus on optimizing energy efficiency, cost-savings, and conservation measures through building audits, collecting data, conducting research, stakeholder engagement, supervisor guidance, and other appropriate factors. This role will develop pertinent documentation and key performance indicators (KPIs) to demonstrate achievement of energy efficiency goals. This role works with technicians and engineers to identify, plan, develop, design, and implement energy conservation measures. These solutions will balance needs between safety, lifecycle, operations, costs, comfort, and Return on Investment (ROI).

This role also prepares, maintains, and updates plans that identify operation & maintenance, capital, and behavioral energy savings opportunities at PSE sites and properties. This may include conducting site walk-throughs, energy audits, compiling ideas from PSE staff, and coordination with Green Team members.

Upholds the safety compliance standards inherent in PSE’s operating and/or field procedures related to work responsibilities. Promotes and supports a culture of total safety.

Click here for the full job description and application requirements

BOC Scholarship Opportunity — Deadline Extended!

April 14, 2021 By Britton Rife

Scholarship available: This scholarship was created by Grosvenor Americas, a privately-owned property group that has a strong commitment to sustainability and wishes to help promote green practices within the building operations industry.

One scholarship is available to a prospective Building Operator Certification (BOC) student in Washington in 2021. The scholarship amount is $2,180 and is to be spent on the BOC training and certification program. ($1,895 towards training and certificate completion, $285 towards certification examination). This scholarship is intended for a prospective BOC student who is currently unemployed.

Eligibility for the BOC program is two or more years of experience working in operations and maintenance of a commercial or institutional facility, or a minimum of one year of experience working in operations and maintenance of a commercial or institutional facility paired with at least one year of technical college level education in facilities engineering related program, or two or more years of experience in energy management of facilities with a focus on operations and maintenance.

Applications should be completed by April 20^th and submitted to britton.rife@neec.net. Questions can be directed to Britton via email or phone 206-588-4984.

Application

Name:
Are you currently a WA state resident? (y/n)
Are you currently unemployed? (y/n)
- If yes, where was your last employment (company & title):
- If no, current employer/title:
Please write a brief description of your experience in the operations field and reason for wanting to attend BOC training (please limit to 500 words)

The South Landing Development: Inspiring Tenant Engagement

March 30, 2021 By Britton Rife

The following case study is provided courtesy of BetterBricks

The actions of building occupants can impact how building systems run, especially if they are adapting to their environments in ways that negatively impact the overall building performance (i.e., covering sensors, adjusting or altering thermostats, bringing space heaters to the office, etc.). Training and actively engaging with building occupants can empower them to contribute to the performance goals of a building. Behavioral change programs or tenant engagement programs are becoming widely applied to achieve energy savings by teaching building occupants how to properly engage with their environments.

A tenant engagement program is a social intervention plan or campaign that encourages the occupants of a given building to participate in positive energy behaviors by using energy-efficient strategies [1]. In buildings with ambitious energy-performance targets, like the Catalyst building at the South Landing development in Spokane, Wash., engaging occupants through education and behavioral change is especially important to reach and maintain energy efficiency targets through the lifespan of a building. Engagement additionally can leverage individual motivations, green-lease agreements, or incentives to attract participation.

Behavior-based energy efficiency (BEE) programs are becoming widely adopted by utilities and are a source of energy savings as more energy-efficient technologies are adopted [2]. Utility BEE programs consist of strategies that increase energy-efficient behaviors through targeted interventions and information delivery [3], but ultimately are designed to engage with residential customers [4, 5]. Utility motivations to reduce energy consumption stems from the costs of energy production and reducing environmental impacts [6], but little has been done to understand how to engage with building occupants who do not directly pay for their consumption [7-9].

Continue reading

Download case study

2021 Built Environment Social Equity Survey

March 30, 2021 By Britton Rife

The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) and 16 other organizations are collaborating on an important survey to better understand the diversity of the built environment and the experiences of people working in the built environment in the United States. The survey should take about 5-7 minutes, and as a thank you for completing it, you will have a chance to enter a drawing for one of four $250 Amazon gift cards.

Take the survey now

Eligibility: This survey is intended for people in the U.S. who are involved in real estate, design, construction, and/or maintenance of the U.S. built environment—that is, human-made structures, features, and facilities viewed collectively as an environment in which people live, work, learn, and play. You may receive an invitation to participate from more than one organization, but please only take this 2021 Built Environment Social Equity Survey once.

Privacy: The survey is being conducted by Avenue M Group, an independent market research company, and responses will be anonymous when collected and when shared with participating organizations. If you have any questions about this survey, please feel free to contact Trevor Schlusemann from Avenue M Group by emailing schlusemann@avenuemgroup.com.

Why This Survey Is Important: All people working in the built environment should have the support they need and opportunities to succeed. The survey will help partnering organizations better understand…

The degree to which the built environment is inclusive
Whether some demographic groups are underrepresented at certain levels or in areas of the built environment
How people working in the built environment define diversity

This survey is crucial towards improving social equity within the built environment. We thank you for your help.

RSVP Today to Help Provide Direction on High-Impact Commercial Building Technologies

March 30, 2021 By Britton Rife

What are the technologies of the future that will make commercial buildings more energy efficient and climate-friendly? The Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office Commercial Building Integration (CBI) team wants to hear from you as we review 2021’s most promising, market-ready, energy-efficient commercial building technologies.

CBI is hosting a series of discussions to collect feedback and comments on a prioritized set of cost-effective, underutilized, deployment-ready, energy-efficient technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and will support our market transformation programs. Each year we invite participation from federal technology managers, renewable energy/ energy efficiency organizations, utilities, local governments, and industry and non-governmental organizations. This year, we specifically request feedback and participation from diverse and underrepresented populations.

If you think you may have contributions to help guide CBI’s prioritization of commercial building technologies, join us!

Dates and Times:

Tuesday, March 30, 1:00-2:00 ET
Thursday, April 8, 2:30-3:30 ET
Monday, April 12, 10:00-11:00 ET
Wednesday, April 21, 1:00-2:00 ET
Friday, April 30, 12:00-1:00 ET

To RSVP, please email Tim Manganello at Timothy.Manganello@guidehouse.com. In your RSVP, please include your:

Name
Organization
Top TWO preferred timeslots (we will be assigning people to timeslots to ensure we can keep the number of participants relatively even)

For more information, please visit the BTO website here.

We want your opinion! SBC Lend & Learn Program Survey

March 26, 2021 By Britton Rife

The Smart Buildings Center, in collaboration with the City of Seattle Office of Economic Development, is piloting a Lend & Learn program to grow and diversify clean technologies and to expand SBC’s Tool Lending Library (TLL). The goal of the pilot is to:

Increase market access and awareness of local clean technologies specifically around energy efficiency and renewables.
Streamline product providers with business assistance such as user feedback on the tool experience.

We’re seeking input from current tool lending library users as well as those who are not current users.

Please participate in our 5-minute survey by clicking on this link.

Your feedback is valuable to us! You will have the opportunity at the end of the survey to provide your contact information to win one of four $50 gift cards from the Intentionalist, a diverse local business marketplace. You may also donate your gift card to support the Smart Buildings Center Education Program (SBCEP).

Stay tuned for more details on the SBC Lend & Learn Program and Tool Lending Library! Join the Smart Buildings Center mailing list for information about events and energy efficiency news by clicking here.

Thank you for your time & support!