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This Fact Sheet provides an overview of the Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines project. The Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) are working with industry stakeholders to develop voluntary national guidelines that will improve the quality and consistency of commercial building workforce training and certification programs for five key energy-related jobs.

While the availability of “big data” about building energy performance is increasing in response to market demands and public policies, the lack of standard data formats is a significant ongoing barrier to its full utilization. To overcome this barrier, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) developed the Building Energy Data Exchange Specification (BEDES).

BEDES is designed to enable the exchange, comparison, and combination of empirical information by providing common terms and definitions for data about commercial and residential building’s physical and operational characteristics, energy use, and efficiency measures.

This paper describes the BEDES development process, scope, structure, and plans for implementation and ongoing updates.

The Smart Monitoring and Diagnostic System (SMDS) is a low-cost technology that helps building owners and managers keep rooftop air conditioner and heat pump units (RTUs) operating properly at peak efficiency. The SMDS technology has the potential to significantly benefit small commercial buildings, which predominately use RTUs for space conditioning. Through the Better Buildings Alliance, a field demonstration was conducted at four sites using two SMDS prototypes. This case study provides a summary of the field demonstration results.

The full report is available at: https://buildingdata.energy.gov/cbrd/resource/1927

The Building Controls Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB) is a software environment that allows expert users to couple different simulation programs for co-simulation, and to couple simulation programs with actual hardware. For example, the BCVTB allows to simulate a building in EnergyPlus and the HVAC and control system in Modelica, while exchanging data between the software as they simulate. The BCVTB allows expert users of simulation to expand the capabilities of individual programs by linking them to other programs. Due to the different programs that may be involved in distributed simulation, familiarity with configuring programs is essential.

Develop a simple document and Web-based information guidebook to help commercial building software developers, energy managers, and control companies implement strategies for commercial building energy analysis and performance monitoring. This project will use the following book as a model for the design of the handbook: Builder's Guide to Mixed Climates: Details for Design and Construction by Joseph W. Lstiburek. February 2001. Taunton Press. ISBN 156158388X.

A set of specifications for continuous performance monitoring systems that can be easily adapted and routinely used by a variety of organizations for both new construction and control system retrofits

Internal DOE Report

The purpose of this handbook is to furnish guidance for planning and conducting a highperformance building charrette, sometimes called a "greening charrette." The handbook answers typical questions such as, "What is a charrette?", "Why conduct a charrette?", "What topics should we cover?", "Whom should we invite?" and "What happens after the charrette?". Owners, design team leaders, site planners, state energy office staff, and others who believe a charrette will benefit their projects will find the handbook helpful.

This paper illustrates the challenges of integrating rigorous daylight and electric lighting simulation data with whole-building energy models, and defends the need for such integration in order to achieve aggressive energy savings in building designs. Through a case study example, we examine the ways daylighting – and daylighting simulation – drove the design of a large net-zero energy project.

It is still early in the collection and analysis of energy performance data, but it is already clear that high-performance commercial buildings—some "almost net-zero buildings"—can be constructed cost effectively, providing productive environments for occupants, reducing operating costs, and enhancing the competitiveness of commercial properties.