We’ve recently seen an uptick in city and county building inspectors asking for mechanical acceptance forms prior to granting an occupancy permit. This trend demonstrates that perhaps code enforcement is catching up to code. As of the 2013 California energy code, effective July 1, 2014, mechanical...
You shop for the best gas prices, why not your electricity rates? If you’re considering buying an electric vehicle (EV), or are already an owner, it’s important to know what you’re paying to charge your EV so you can minimize your costs. With changing electricity...
Many lighting retrofit designs fail to fully consider egress and emergency lighting systems. These systems are usually required by state code and often superseded by local code or the requirements of the local authority having jurisdiction. Failure to provide adequate egress and emergency lighting controls...
San Francisco was one of the first cities in the U.S. to require mandatory, periodic energy audits for existing building stock. While those of us who perform energy audits, initially saw the requirements as a good opportunity, for a number of reasons mandatory audits have...
The world can finally see the real beauty and value of energy efficiency now that one of the world’s largest cities cast its spell and announced its Green New Deal. Energy efficiency has long been the Cinderella in Earth’s climate change story – overlooked because...
We, in the energy industry, have long used engineering calculations, aided by simple linear regression models, to estimate the energy saving potential of proposed interventions. However, as data sensors become increasingly ubiquitous and data storage costs continue to decline year over year, a shift away...
Many of us who work with commercial and industrial facilities are familiar with utility programs that pay cash incentives to encourage energy efficiency projects. The more energy you save from an eligible retrofit, the more cash incentive the utility will pay you—usually with a cap...
I’ve written before about the special challenges of benchmarking lab buildings’ energy usage. It’s always been worth the extra effort, but I’m happy to report that we’ve finally made lab benchmarking a little bit easier. It’s my great pleasure to introduce the brand new Lab...
At kW Engineering, we create a lot of detailed building models to characterize the energy use of new and existing buildings, which can be a time and effort-intensive task. With recent advances in building energy modeling tools, modelers now have a code-based access point that...
A few years ago, I helped put together an I2SL guide for facilities staff who find themselves conducting energy projects in lab buildings – a daunting prospect for many! The guide contained a host of strategies for helping retrofit projects proceed successfully and to the...