Smart Buildings Exchange Conference – Sept. 2-3, 2020 • Important Tool Library Announcement

Smart Buildings Center

Energy Efficiency Innovation Center, Tool Library & Data Visualization

Job Opportunity: Sustainable Building Science Technology Bachelor’s Program Faculty, South Seattle College

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Position Summary
South Seattle College’s Sustainable Building Science Technology Bachelor’s of Applied Science program is hiring a full-time, tenure-track faculty position. This unique and innovative bachelor’s degree focuses on sustainable business management and building operations, and builds on an associate’s degree, the trades, and relevant work experience. This hybrid degree is designed for working adults to complete in two years. Currently, classes are held online and on designated Saturdays during the quarter. In addition to teaching, this position also advises and mentors students, procures and maintains relevant industry contacts, assists with marketing and outreach, attends division meetings, and works with the program’s Technical Advisory Board. This position also serves as the Faculty Coordinator for the department, organizing and completing administrative tasks as necessary. Starting quarter for teaching classes is fall quarter 2020, and this position is located at the Georgetown Campus.

Click HERE to view the full job description and application details. The position closes on 4/13/2020 at 4:59 PM Pacific.

3/26 Webinar: Learn How Seattle Partnered with DOE to Offer Accelerated Building Tune-Ups

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Accelerating Existing Building Tune-Ups in Seattle, Washington
Thursday, March 26, 9-10 AM PST

Building tune-ups aim to optimize energy and water performance by identifying low- or no-cost actions related to building operations and maintenance, that can generate 10-15% in energy savings, on average. The City of Seattle adopted the Building Tune-Ups Ordinance in March 2016. In tandem with the requirement going into effect for large buildings (>200K SF) in 2019, the City partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy to offer an accelerated tune-up process to the mid-size building market (approx. 50-100K SF), involving a variety of building owners, contractors, and energy auditors. Nicole Ballinger, Seattle’s Building Tune-up Accelerator Program Manager, and participating building owners will describe the tune-up program, benefits, and best practices discovered through the pilot process. Nora Wang of Pacific Northwest National Lab will describe the use of the DOE Asset Score tool in building assessments.

Register Now

Seattle Building Tune-up Accelerator Program highlights and case studies are now posted on the City of Seattle’s website and the final report will be posted later this spring/early summer.

Department of Energy Invests $74 Million in Building & Construction Technologies & Innovations

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On February 10th, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $74 million for 63 selected projects to research, develop, and test energy-efficient and flexible building technologies, systems, and construction practices to improve the energy performance of our Nation’s buildings and electric grid. Awardees include National Laboratories, universities, small businesses, and industry partners.

America’s 125 million residential and commercial buildings use more energy than any other sector in the United States, accounting for 40% of the Nation’s energy use and nearly 75% of its electricity consumption. The research partnerships announced today will pursue new technologies to enhance the energy productivity of buildings and improve the capacity of buildings to operate more flexibly.

“DOE is accelerating its quest to improve the energy productivity and flexibility of America’s residential and commercial buildings,” said Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Daniel R Simmons. “We’re renewing our commitment to develop state-of-the-art building technologies that will empower Americans with more options to enhance buildings performance quickly without disruption to their lives.”

Many of the projects announced today will advance technologies to unlock deep energy savings through grid interactive efficient buildings and advanced building construction technologies and practices, without sacrificing the comfort of building occupants or the performance of labor-saving devices and equipment. For example, the grid interactive efficient building projects will make advances in technologies to link buildings to one another across the internet and the power grid, which would enable a greater degree of flexibility over conventional buildings to reschedule operations to periods of the day when energy is cheaper and more efficient to use.

Crucially, those projects are also required to address the cybersecurity of flexible buildings and verify the performance of their equipment. Other projects will focus on developing novel thermal energy storage materials, advancements in non-vapor compression HVAC technologies, fuel-driven building equipment, and solid-state lighting.

Learn more about these projects from the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy HERE and HERE.

USGBC Workshop: Getting to LEED Zero Energy & LEED Zero Carbon – Seattle, Feb 24th

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Date: February 24, 2020
Time: 12:30-3:00 pm
Location: Smart Buildings Center, 1200 12th Ave S, Seattle, WA 98144

Description
How do you take LEED and your high performing building to the next level to mitigate the impacts of climate change?

This new workshop shows you how LEED Zero supports the goals of LEED and expands the verification life-cycle of high performing buildings. It teaches LEED Zero from the why to the what and most importantly, the how.

First, the workshop will review the critical need for action as global climate change and carbon emissions are bringing with them complex human health, environmental and economic challenges. LEED Zero provides a framework for building projects to transition from leadership in design to leadership in performance. LEEDv4.1 is already driving the built environment to higher levels of holistic sustainability performance; LEED v4.1 BD+C certification recognizes buildings designed for leadership; LEED v4.1 O+M certification rewards projects maintaining that leadership during operations. LEED Zero takes this one step further to certify net zero energy, carbon, water and waste performance levels.

Then, diving into the details of LEED Zero, we break down the definitions, key concepts, equations and other requirements to achieve LEED Zero Energy and Carbon Certification. The workshop will explore connections to relevant LEED v4.1 BD+C and O+M prerequisites and credits which set up project teams for the path to LEED Zero. ​

While this workshop focuses on energy and carbon, we briefly introduce LEED Zero Waste and Water certification to recognize other valuable net zero goals. Join us to go from comprehension to action for LEED Zero so you can be part of a global effort to transform the built environment in the era of climate change.

GBCI Credit: 3 CE hours (LEED-specific BD+C and O+M), Intermediate level

Learning outcomes

  • Describe the transition from design to performance that results in the achievement of net zero energy and net zero carbon goals during building operations.​
  • Recognize LEED Zero as an imperative for the betterment of the health of people and planet. ​
  • Identify key energy and carbon management concepts reflected in LEED v4.1 BD+C and O+M credits as the foundation for projects to design for and achieve net zero energy and goals for buildings.
  • Examine energy use and carbon emission profiles of diverse building types.


    Use the discount code SBC-10-2020 for a 10% discount on registration!

REGISTER HERE

SBC Video Training: Verifying Proper Operation of Outdoor Air Damper Controls

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Have you seen our new SBC Video Training Series on Diagnostic Tool Applications yet? If not, check out the series on our YouTube Channel or click the link below to watch the second video in the series.

Identifying Fan Operation During Unoccupied Hours
This video demonstrates the use of a motor logger to verify the operating schedule of fans, applicable to any motor driven device such as exhaust fans, supply/return fans, terminal unit fans and pumps. The training covers programming and deployment of the data loggers as well as data analysis.

Thank you to Puget Sound Energy and Seattle City Light for their support in developing the video training series!

Smart Tech for Buildings Summit Recap

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ATS Automation sponsored a well-attended and informative Smart Tech for Buildings Summit on Thursday (1/30) in Seattle. Smart Buildings Center (SBC) staff attended all the sessions and were impressed by the quality of the speakers. The summit started with a primer on smart buildings and helped ground us all in both terminology and in the issues that are part of the here and now of smart buildings. Lucy Gedney of ATS promised that the sessions would focus on three of the pillars associated with the International Well Being Institute’s “well standard” – air, light, and comfort. The summit delivered on that promise.

One overarching theme throughout the summit was that occupant experience is becoming more and more at the forefront in the design and operation of buildings. But, tenant comfort, energy efficiency, and equipment life extension are not mutually exclusive; in fact, smart buildings technology makes it possible to achieve all of these benefits.

Melanie Danuser, Britton Rife, and Melissa Sokolowsky exhibiting at the Smart Tech for Buildings Summit

Jennifer Wagner of Onsite, LLC gave an impressive presentation documenting her research on the value of data driven solutions to infection prevention and control in hospitals. In other sessions, speakers presented data showing the improvements in occupant satisfaction, test scores, and worker productivity in commercial and education settings.

A very nice session on data analytics drove home the opportunity and challenge of collecting, storing, analyzing, and – most importantly – acting on the information derived from the analysis of building performance data. A representative from Amazon described their Alexa for Business products which reduce the annoying downtime associated with meeting room start up procedures – a ubiquitous frustration for us all. A representative from Roby explained how the Roby AI workplace concierge can help improve tenant satisfaction and operational efficiency by streamlining facility management requests through their app.

Throughout the summit speakers offered assurance that even with smart technology’s inherent ability to automate processes, there will always be a need for human interaction in the operation and maintenance of buildings. We appreciated the event for its content as SBC plans to build out a Smart Buildings curriculum and credential through the Building Operator Certification program. The session content framed the progress in the field of smart buildings and how it impacts the knowledge and skills facilities professionals need to succeed in an industry that is transforming as smarter technologies and practices are being deployed in buildings.

In the end, the summit offered attendees the opportunity to connect with others in the industry to share best practices and lessons learned from implementing smart technologies and practices. The event also served as an inspiration for the now-under-development agenda for SBC’s Smart Buildings Exchange (SBX 2020) conference scheduled for September 2nd-3rd at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle. The SBC in tandem with a growing list of sponsors – which now includes McKinstry, Siemens, Seattle City Light, Puget Sound Energy, MacDonald-Miller, ATS Automation, and BOMA – is using this conference to expand on many of the themes heard at the ATS summit. Focusing on today’s issues of why, what, and how in the smart buildings space, this conference will be of interest to building owners and managers, facility professionals, engineers, architects, utilities, government, and energy efficiency professionals. Event registration is now open. We hope to see you there!

CONTACT US
info@smartbuildingscenter.org
206-538-0832

Smart Buildings Center is a project collaboration with Northwest Energy Efficiency Council

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