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On May 7-9, 2014, the U.S. Department of Energy hosted the Better Buildings Summit in Washington D.C. Speakers and attendees from the commercial, industrial, multifamily, and public sectors discussed how to achieve energy savings across their organizations, and Partners were recognized by Secretary of Energy Ernest J. Moniz for their results and accomplishments in 2013. A description of the event can be found here: http://www4.eere.energy.gov/alliance/sites/default/files/uploaded-files/....

In case you missed the Summit this year, 180 presentations covered everything from emerging and high impact technologies, energy data management best practices, employee engagement and incentive programs, mobilizing capital and workforce training.

New Buildings Institute’s annual zero energy status update and zero energy buildings list.

Designed as a resource for those who want to develop community solar projects, from community organizers or solar energy advocates to government officials or utility managers. By exploring
the range of incentives and policies while providing examples of operational community solar projects, this guide will help communities to plan and implement successful local energy projects. In addition, by highlighting some of the policy best practices, this guide suggests changes in the regulatory landscape that could significantly boost community solar installations across the country.

Older, inefficient commercial rooftop unit (RTU) air conditioning systems are common and can waste from $1,000 to $3,700 per unit annually, depending on the building size and type. By replacing or retrofitting them, you can save money, improve your energy efficiency, make your building more comfortable, and help the environment. The Advanced RTU Campaign (ARC) encourages commercial building owners and operators to replace their old RTUs with more efficient units or to retrofit their RTUs with advanced controls in order to take advantage of these benefits. This website shows updates to the campaign including resources and progress towards the campaign's goal.

ASHRAE Standard 202-2013—Commissioning Process for
Buildings and Systems. https://www.ashrae.org/technicalresources/
bookstore/commissioning-essentials. Available
for purchase.

Through the Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines, industry now has national guidelines from which to develop high quality and nationally recognized training and certification programs, helping to address challenges found in the energy efficiency workforce with quality, consistency, and scalability across certification and certificate programs.

The Department of Energy worked with the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) and industry stakeholders to develop the Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines, voluntary national guidelines to improve the quality and consistency of commercial building workforce credentials for four key energy-related jobs: Building Energy Auditor, Building Commissioning Professional, Building Operations Professional, Energy Manager.

The Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines aligns all elements of the Better Buildings Workforce Framework, with the goal of supporting high-quality industry and government-recognized credentials for 4 key commercial energy-related job titles. Together, the Job Task Analyses (JTA) documents and the certification schemes comprise the content of the voluntary, industry-developed, and industry and government-recognized Better Buildings Workforce Guidelines.

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.

"Building Commissioning is the professional practice that ensures buildings are delivered according to the Owner's Project Requirements (OPR). Buildings that are properly commissioned typically have fewer change orders, tend to be more energy efficient, and have lower operation and maintenance cost."

A case study of the overview, process, and results of the re-tuning that was conducted in a building in Arlington, Virginia by Vornado Realty Trust in October 2012. Re-tuning provided the facilities management team with the ability to identify and understand building scheduling opportunities that drove significant, low-cost energy savings. Five measures were conducted, many of which pertained to the HVAC system.

This case study details the successful achievement of zero energy and Living Building Challenge certification.