Public input is being sought into revision of an ASHRAE/IES standard that addresses retrofit of existing residential and commercial buildings to achieve greater energy efficiency.

The U.S. Defense Department is pursuing energy efficiency and other measures to lower its energy bill and increase its energy security, officials told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee in late March. The department spends $4 billion a year on energy, Dorothy Robyn, deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, testified at the hearing on planned energy investments. DOD operates more than 300,000 buildings, which have an environmental footprint six times greater than the General Services Administration and three times larger than Walmart, Robyn said.

Commercial buildings will soon be able to connect to the “Smart Grid” with ease thanks to a new strategic relationship between industry alliances LonMark® International and OpenADR, say the organizations. LonMark and the OpenADR Alliance, a nonprofit corporation created to foster the development, adoption and compliance of a Smart Grid standard known as Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR), are working together to enable interoperability between certified products that will better enable commercial buildings to manage their energy uses on the Smart Grid.

According to Andre de Fontaine of USDOE’s advanced manufacturing office, the DOE now has 110 U.S. companies and other organizations committed to a 20% cut in energy use by 2020. The pledges equal about 5% of the total “energy footprint” of the U.S. manufacturing sector.

U.S. EPA, policy advocates should improve job impact analyses, says report

The Continental Automated Buildings Association has completed a collaborative research study to identify, define and size the principle business opportunities presented by the growth of smart grids in relation to intelligent buildings.

Vaisala has added a new seminar to its Humidity seminar series. "Monitoring & Mapping cGMP environments" was created to help GxP-compliant facilities reduce the risk of deviations being observed during audits and inspections. The new seminar reviews the relevant GMP regulations and guidances around temperature and humidity mapping and monitoring and includes a workshop where participants will get hands-on experience of temperature and humidity validation by Vaisala's experienced validation expert, Paul Daniel.

The building industry now has greater flexibility in the design of high-performance buildings through a change impacting application of the green building standard from ASHRAE, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) included in the International Green Construction Code (IgCC).

Calling all engineers, designers and other interested parties to enter the Green Leaf Inn Green Building Challenge. The Challenge asks for participants to design an Energy Management Control System;  providing a strategy and product selection to control, manage and gather data on an integrated renewable energy system for the Green Leaf Inn (GLI), opening Spring 2013 as the first Net Zero Energy Hotel in North America. Interested parties must submit completed entry forms online by July 1 at www.thegreenleafinn.com.

Design and construction of a “shack” to demonstrate renewable and HVAC technologies, including solar thermal heating, photovoltaic power generation, high efficiency and green insulation options and wood pellet stoves, is being developed by undergraduate students in an ASHRAE Undergraduate Senior Project Grant.

On-Demand The presentation will be a discussion of current and emerging mechanical best practices informed by real world experience and project based analysis.