SBC News Archives - Smart Buildings Center

PSE Elevate Your Business’s Energy Efficiency Challenge

September 24, 2020 By Britton Rife

Enter to win a custom grant covering up to 100% of your project with the Elevate your Efficiency Challenge.

Invest in energy efficiency, we’ll cover up to 100%

Puget Sound Energy’s (PSE) Custom Grants program is launching something exciting for 2020 (we could all use some good news!).

The Elevate your Efficiency Challenge is a limited-time-only extension of PSE’s standard custom grants program, which normally offers incentives for energy savings at $0.35 per kWh and $5 per therm, up to 70 percent of an energy-efficiency project’s costs.

With the Elevate your Efficiency Challenge, PSE business customers can earn $0.50 per kWh and $7 per therm, covering up to 100 percent of a project’s costs. This is a chance to tackle an entire energy-saving upgrade, earn a bigger grant and possibly have the bill covered entirely. That’s a big deal!

Read more about this exciting new challenge, and then get your project proposal submitted by Dec. 1, 2020.

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Ask the Lighting Experts: What 1:1 Replacement Means for Energy Savings and Light Quality

September 24, 2020 By Britton Rife

There’s a lot of buzz about the benefits of luminaire level lighting controls (LLLC), from space flexibility to simplicity of installation and beyond. Now, a new research study shows LED retrofits with luminaire level lighting controls have the potential for big energy savings and high quality of light – but without the big price tag.

For this first-of-its-kind research, experts from the University of Oregon and the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) studied a 1,000 square foot office space, analyzing the amount of energy saved when fluorescent lights were individually retrofitted with an LED equipped with LLLC compared to a complete redesign.

Join us for a free, virtual event on Thursday, October 1, at 10 a.m. PT as the researchers behind the study unveil the results and discuss the lighting implications as we look at the future of commercial spaces.

To attend, you must register in advance HERE.

Have questions you want to ask? Feel free to submit them ahead of time in the questions/comments box when you register. Or, send them to nshaddy@cplusc.com.

Commercial Window Upgrade Opportunity

September 24, 2020 By Britton Rife

For a limited time, buildings owners who upgrade their low-performing single or double pane windows with secondary windows can receive an incentive of up to $10,000 by participating in a field test run by Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA), in partnership with local utilities. In addition to this incentive, owners will receive special pricing from the six participating manufacturers, 15-30% off the material cost depending on the manufacturer. Additional participant benefits may include incentives, professional photography and marketing, and technical support from NEEA. If you’re looking to improve your envelope, increase tenant comfort, and reduce outside noise and air infiltration, this is a great opportunity to leverage technical support and product discounts, while the building is empty or partially empty.

To see if your office or hospitality building qualifies for the field test or to learn more, email Jordan Pratt from Energy 350 at jpratt@energy350.com.

Seattle 2030 District Vision Awards…reimagined!

September 24, 2020 By Britton Rife

This year’s Seattle 2030 District Vision Awards will be held online on October 15th at 4 pm PT! If you haven’t had the chance to attend one of their annual in-person events, now’s your opportunity. The hour-long program will feature the inspiring work from the Vision Award winners who have led notable sustainability projects or have significantly reduced emissions in transportation, water, and energy use in buildings. There will also be raffle tickets for some exceptional items and a silent auction to bid against other participants. This event is free; register here to save a seat: https://2030districts.ejoinme.org/register

GridFWD 2020, Oct 6-15 (Virtual)

September 24, 2020 By Britton Rife

GridFWD 2020 will once again bring together a wide range of stakeholders to address the challenges and opportunities facing our energy community. The theme for this year’s virtual event, Power to the Community, reflects our industry’s commitment to not only reliable, affordable and clean electric power, but also the welfare of our customers, co-workers and communities during these unprecedented times. Scheduled from October 6 to October 15, the event comprises many virtual sessions of varying size and format to allow attendees to explore and share ideas, best practices and novel solutions to modernize the grid and ensure power to the community. Start at GridFWD.com. NEEC members can use the promocode, Partner2020 to save 25% off the ticket price.

Building Tune-Up Accelerator Program – Final Technical Report Published

September 3, 2020 By Britton Rife

In 2016, as part of its Climate Action Plan, the City of Seattle passed a mandatory Building Tune-Ups requirement (SBTU) for commercial buildings over 50,000 square feet gross floor area, with a focus on optimizing energy and water performance by identifying low or no cost solutions related to building operations and maintenance.

The Tune-Up Accelerator (TUA) Program was an opportunity for building owners to meet the requirements early and receive incentives from the utilities for the corrective actions implemented to optimize building performance. 102 buildings completed the TUA program representing 6.9 million SF total and about 18% of the target market buildings with 50,000-100,000 SF. The final technical report for TUA program is published on the City of Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment (OSE) website.

The Smart Buildings Center (SBC) was a program partner and served as a primary provider of training & curricula, Tool Lending Library (TLL) support, project tracking and help desk support for the Tune-Up Accelerator (TUA) Program.

SBC along with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and OSE led the development of the curriculum, which was centered around a customization of PNNL’s Building Re-tuning training for SBTU requirements. To track deliverables required by each participant and evaluate savings resulting from corrective actions taken by buildings, a robust custom database was created by SBC.

SBC also conducted Measurement & Verification (M&V) services on 10% of the participating building population which included onsite verification and data analysis. The aim of M&V was to evaluate the energy and cost savings resulting from energy measure implemented by the buildings.

Read more about the findings of the Building Tune-Up Accelerator Program in the final technical report here!

To Learn more about our Tool Lending Library, click here!