Participants at the Commercial Buildings Workshop learned about member programs.

At CEE’s Commercial Buildings Workshop, participants examined a number of key, whole-building program approaches to promoting and delivering energy savings within the commercial office sector.

Discussion included the leveraging of existing national programs like ENERGY STAR^® benchmarking, communicating and building off of emerging local and regional initiatives as well as new research efforts. Many of these workshop presentations are available on the CEE Web site.

Leveraging national efforts
Several CEE members are beginning to leverage EPA’s ENERGY STAR initiatives. Tracy Narel of ENERGY STAR provided information about two relevant initiatives: the national 10% Challenge and the on-line benchmarking tool.

Through its 10% Challenge, ENERGY STAR has connected with a number of commercial real estate stakeholders and more than 20 states to set energy-reduction goals, benchmark their buildings and continue to reduce energy usage across their building portfolios.

Narel also mentioned that ENERGY STAR’s benchmarking tool, which scores a building’s relative energy performance compared to similar building types, is gaining more users nationally. The tool now includes a database of almost 15,000 buildings, up from about 7,000 in 2004. For more information on these initiatives, visit www.energystar.gov.

The Northwest Energy Efficiency Council reported on its Building Operator Certification program (www.theboc.info), which is a nationally recognized energy-efficiency training and certification program administered by local efficiency organizations. At present, nearly two dozen CEE members have incorporated Building Operator Certification training into their commercial building programs.

Doug Gatlin of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) discussed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB) program. LEED-EB, a voluntary green building certification program for existing buildings, enables building owners to gain points toward certification by achieving high ENERGY STAR benchmarking scores.

While LEED-EB considers other sustainability criteria that do not specifically address energy performance, CEE’s Commercial Building Performance Committee will continue to monitor LEED activities and inform members about potential opportunities.

Other efforts
The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance discussed its Building Performance Services program, which employs a market sector focus to work with service providers, building market awareness, providing training and other on-line building operator tools.

Retrocommissioning, a process that seeks to optimize building operating performance in existing buildings, was an important topic of discussion. Phil Welker of Portland Energy Conservation, Inc. (representing the California Commissioning Collaborative) presented case studies and described the lessons learned from retro-commissioning projects in California office buildings.

The California Commissioning Collaborative (www.cacx.org) is a nonprofit organization committed to improving the performance of buildings and their systems. On its Web site, the CCC provides free guidelines for building commissioning and retro-commissioning.

A Southern California Edison project called “Office of the Future” is in the process of developing guidelines for the “next generation of leading-edge offices.” Southern California Edison’s Doug Avery is spearheading this project, which is run by a collaborative of six utilities.

For more information about CEE's work with commercial buildings, contact Jason Erwin.

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