“Sustainability is the long-term goal and green buildings are one of the ways to get there... the briefest definition of green buildings is that they are common sense buildings.” 

A guest post from NYSERDA’s Craig Kneeland

BuildingEnergy is an annual interdisciplinary renewable energy and high-performance building conference and trade show. Highlights included case studies from resilient cities, electric grid security, and a discussion of LEED standards for neighborhood development.

An interview with Michael Blasnik about understanding the actual performance of buildings using measured data.

Senior Building Analyst Jim Fitzgerald explains the latest technological and regulatory trends.

"The greenest building is the one that is still standing."

An interview with Bernice Radle, Program Coordinator at Buffalo Energy.

In DC electricty, the current of electrons flows in one direction, from - to +.  AC is a bit more complicated: the current flows in both directions, alternately reversing direction at regular intervals.

Building science research has implications outside the energy world. To protect building occupants, consideration of energy efficiency and indoor air quality should go hand in hand. To get a better idea of why indoor air quality is one of CEE’s major research areas and how it overlaps with energy efficiency, I interviewed Director of Research Martha Hewett and Director of Indoor Air Quality Dave Bohac.

The Minneapolis-St Paul axis forms a central core, and the suburbs radiate outward in tiers. The interesting implication for energy retrofit programs is that these different cities have distinct housing types, built to the code and style of that era. These housing types will often differ in which retrofit measures should be a high-priority.

The Innovation Exchange hosted a forum featuring ACEEE’s Senior Fellow Marty Kushler, who discussed his recent study of historical trends of the boom and bust price cycles, coupled with rapid growth in demand for natural gas. He demonstrated that despite today's low gas prices, it's still cost-effective to invest in energy efficiency.

During the late 80s and early 90s, the term “house as a system” pervaded the home energy field. This led the community to consider the interconnected systems of the building, but fell short of a systems thinking approach. Yes, the house is a system, but we do not practice systems thinking until we understand and define the system patterns and consider the entire system, including its occupants.

A guest post from Rick Carter, Senior Vice President at LHB's Minneapolis office:

"As an architect practicing in the building realm, I can safely say that many individuals and businesses feel that they are too small to make a difference in the big picture. Although we have discussions at the global and national scale, very little seems to be accomplished. For a community (city, town, neighborhood), we can track most of this information with accuracy and see changes when actions take place."