E-News Letter

Dave Hewitt selected as Executive Director!

We are pleased to introduce Dave Hewitt of Vancouver, Washington, as the next Executive Director of New Buildings Institute. Dave brings with him an exceptional mix of leadership, strategic planning and business development skills. Combined with his extensive technical project experience and strong familiarity with NBI’s goals and relationships, Dave is uniquely suited to direct the Institute’s continuing success and growth.

In recent months, Dave had been working with us part-time managing the Advanced Buildings Guidelines and piloting research into the development of a post-occupancy Buildings Performance Assessment Protocol.

Prior to joining NBI, Dave was a Senior Manager, Commercial Sector Initiative, at the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance in Portland. He managed the Alliance’s commercial sector portfolio and directed the development of the Washington Sustainable Schools project. Under his direction, daylighting labs were established at five Schools of Architecture. Additional experience includes 12 years with Pacific Energy Associates in Portland serving as a technical consultant on several collaborative projects; Director of Research, Development and Evaluation for Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships; Director of the City of Portland Energy Office; and the first Executive Director of the Wisconsin Energy Conservation Corporation.

You can contact Dave at dave@newbuildings.org, or by phone at 509-493-4468, ext. 15.

Brief updates on a few projects and accomplishments:

Advanced Buildings: The full set of Advanced Buildings resources were completed in spring 2005. This influential new set of voluntary guidelines, created by NBI in partnership with Energy Center of Wisconsin, focuses on showing architects, designers and engineers how to deliver high performance new commercial buildings. Advanced Buildings provides designers with new tools and resources to incorporate integrated design strategies into future projects, thereby reducing energy usage and improving indoor environmental quality. NBI also worked to align the Benchmark with Energy Star as a way of assuring energy performance over time. The Benchmark is also referenced in the next generation of LEED New Construction and in LEED Commercial Interiors.

The Advanced Buildings Training Curriculum utilizes classroom-type technical training and assistance as a key element of promoting energy efficient building design to architects, electrical and mechanical engineers and lighting designers.

Advanced Buildings is currently in use in Wisconsin, Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts, and we are working with many other entities on applications for new construction programs and adoption by companies or governments as standards.

The Advanced Buildings resource package consists of six parts:

• Benchmark (what to accomplish),
• Reference Guide (how to accomplish it),
• Benefits Guide (why it should be accomplished),
• Profiting From Performance (how to sell it),
• LEED Guide (mapping AB to LEED), and
• Education and Training (how to accomplish this on your next project)

The Institute works with utilities and public benefit organizations to sponsor and guide the project and with a technical advisory group to build consensus on the criteria content. The entire suite of products is available for view-only download or hard-copy purchase at www.poweryourdesign.com.

Advanced Lighting Guidelines: We hit the 150,000 mark on view-only downloads of the Guidelines and continue with print copy sales. The Guidelines are an established tool for lighting efficiency project design, educational programs and technical referencing and are an important tool for utility efficiency programs. An updated edition is in the works and will be published in 2006.

Research and Development: NBI is involved in several research projects to move new technologies and practices into the market. For the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program NBI is directing market connection activities on: (1) HVAC Fault Detection and Diagnostics (FDD), and (2) HVAC systems for Hot Dry Climates. Our role is to help increase the market impact of research results and products and to leverage work in other parts of the country to increase the adoption of PIER products and tools. In addition, we incorporating PIER results into a statewide training and education effort for the University of California and California State University construction and operations staff.

On behalf of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance we are leading a lab and field performance assessment of the Desert CoolAire package rooftop system. This hybrid prototype combines indirect evaporative cooling with packaged Dx cooling and gas heating. The system is being installed at four northwest sites with extensive monitoring in late 2005-2006. The energy savings potential is 40-60% of cooling electrical energy use with max savings in hot/dry climates.

International Energy Code Council (IECC): In early 2005 NBI proposed changes to commercial building fenestration ratings (SHGC and U-factor) based on climate and framing categories (proposal EC63). This proposal, with floor modifications, was adopted at the fall IECC hearings and will be a part of the 2006 IECC.

NBI continues to provide the efficiency community with a unique combination of market-based approaches and tools to enhance building performance. For more in-depth information regarding the work of New Buildings Institute, visit our website at www.newbuildings.org.

From the Board of Directors and Staff
This e-news letter is an opportunity to let you know how New Buildings Institute is moving forward with new leadership, exciting progress on Advanced Buildings, and solid project activity to improve the performance of commercial buildings. It is also an opportunity to thank you for the tremendous support and recognition we received this past summer during a very challenging time of change for our group. We look forward to working with many of you in this next phase for NBI.