With energy efficiency goals increasing across the United States and Canada, program administrators are looking for new ways to achieve deeper, enduring energy savings. To respond to program needs, CEE is bringing its members together with key industry stakeholders to explore commercial building programs based on integrated systems at its October Industry Partners meeting.

“Member programs have traditionally mined energy savings in office buildings by encouraging more energy efficient components, for example, lamps or motors. For the first time, the energy efficiency industry will meet with building component manufacturers to identify ways to better promote building system interoperability. We believe this meeting will help us identify common approaches to meet bigger energy savings targets and our partner’s business objectives,” said Jason Erwin, the CEE Commercial Sector team lead.

Instead of separate end use tracks like lighting or HVAC, the Commercial Sector session is a single track exploring new program approaches that integrate electric and gas savings opportunities by addressing the relationships between several end uses in commercial offices.

“There are huge savings opportunities with integrated systems approaches,” said Fred Gordon, director of planning and evaluation at the Energy Trust of Oregon. “Now is the time to coordinate with industry to work towards improved technology and program approaches.”

The four-part session will explore trends in program design, highlight industry developments, investigate market and technological challenges, and inform the CEE process about mutual areas of interest and potential future steps. Invited industries include manufacturers, trade associations, and building design engineers and architects.

The CEE Fifth Annual Industry Partners meeting will be held Wednesday and Thursday, October 15–16, 2008, in New Orleans, Louisiana. For more information, contact Casey Erisman.

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