 Hello everyone. Hello everyone. Can you hear me okay? Great. I'm Ellen Vaughn with the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, EESI. Thank you so much for being here and we have our energy-efficient buildings panel, the first of two, and I am delighted to introduce our speakers. So first, I'd like to introduce Tim Wentz. He's a professional engineer with ASHRAE, or the American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers, and he was president in 2016 and 17, a life member, also Professor Emeritus University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you and good morning for at least another three minutes, right? I have the honor today of talking about ASHRAE. That is a technical society that serves engineers, architects, contractors, manufacturers, generally in three broad areas. Human comfort, indoor air quality, and energy efficiency with respect to the first two. So we try and make sure that our buildings are as energy-efficient as possible to keep them healthy and comfortable. We are a volunteer organization, so I'm a volunteer from Nebraska. There's 57,000 of us in 130 different countries, so we're a technical society and we're a global society. We do research, and what we do is we publish standards and codes and guidebooks and handbooks that serve as a standard of care for design and construction professionals around the world. Now we know recent research tells us that the energy use of this planet is expected to go up 28% by the year 2040. That's a lot. A lot of it's being driven by population. And that is in spite of all of our great work. I mean that collectively all of our great work to make our buildings more energy-efficient. So that shows us how important our work is and how much more work we have to do. Because buildings use so much energy, it represents both a challenge and an opportunity to us. A lot of this challenge is being driven by technology, which is changing rapidly, everything from artificial intelligence to building information modeling. And this is all great. And this is really going to help us, but we have to make sure that we're focusing on how people operate the building. It's all people-based and that's part of what we're doing in ASHRAE. In fact, we had one of our researchers here recently tell us through his research that if we focused on human behavior, we could save anywhere from 10 to 20% of the energy used by a building. Of course, we're engineers, we're architects, we believe in physics. And so now hearing that we can dramatically change the amount of energy a building used by focusing on human behavior to us is exciting. And there's a lot of research going on there. My favorite one is on tip jars, right? There's some great research on tip jars. If you have a tip jar that's transparent and you spike it with some money, your tip revenue goes up. Why? Because we are wired as human beings to be herders. We've always operated in herd and that is called a herding trigger. And so we are using information like that now with some of our new codes and new standards. So I know we have a lot of policymakers in the room, so it's obviously incumbent upon policymakers to make sure that our policies, our regulations use motivation and incentivizes energy savings as well. But at the same time, we want to make sure that our policies don't forget the human aspect, the people that our buildings serve. I've got a couple of just quick examples about ASHRAE is doing this. We have a program called Building Energy Quotient and it is a building, labeling and disclosure program. So it creates a label that shows you exactly how much energy your building uses. And there's two different scales, one in operation and one as designed. And so in a quick glance, you can see where your building is compared to similar buildings and similar climate zones. Well, that is a herding trigger. You can visually see where your building is with respect to other buildings. And it's a great example of how we are using the human aspect to help motivate and incentivize energy efficiency in buildings. It is also one of the few tools that actually measures the difference between the amount of energy a building was designed and constructed to use and the amount of energy it is actually using. So it is a tool that gives us some idea of how the owner is using the building. We call that the energy gap. And it's one of the pathways, I think, to success in the future is trying to eliminate that energy gap. So the buildings are actually being operated the way we design them. More news there. We've just transformed our BEQ system. It is now fully compatible with Energy Star, which is, I think, a great thing. We have seen some legislation coming out using building benchmarking disclosure. The Federal Building Benchmarking and Labeling Security Act of 2007 is a great example required for federal buildings. We also know that there are a number of states that also have policies on building benchmarking and disclosure, which is great. Our studies show that a state that has a benchmarking policy will save 3 to 8 percent in energy usage across the state. And we figure that if we were to take this benchmarking program and extend it to all states, it would be equivalent to removing approximately 35 million cars from the road. So it is one of the pathways forward. Another pathway forward is in certification. ASHRAE is very strong in certification. We have guideline zero, guideline one, and our brand new standard on commissioning. Studies by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab showed that buildings that are fully commissioned will save anywhere from 16 percent on an existing building and 13 percent on an existing building. So commissioning is a big deal because that is another way of addressing that energy gap that has plagued all of us for so long. Also along those lines, ASHRAE has a certification process that we started fairly recently, including a certification on commissioning. So through this process, then we're trying to add some consistency in a very fragmented environment so that if you have a ASHRAE credited commissioning agent, then you know that you have somebody that has mastered those skills. So that is some of the new directions going on in ASHRAE. Look forward to meeting you and answering questions or urge you to stop by our booth. And we have a lot of information on the things that we're doing there too. Thanks very much for inviting me to the forum. Thank you so much. Do we want to take questions after each, or do we wait till the end? At the end? Okay, it's always tempting to go right into questions, but thank you. And you mentioned some things there, Tim, that reminded me. Yes, all this good work represented here on this panel and by many in the building industry to reduce the impacts of building energy use is also pushing uphill against population growth and new buildings being constructed. I checked and I think many of you know, I know this panel knows that the building industry in the US, the building sector, uses about 40% of our total energy and over 70%, 75% maybe of electricity. Despite all the good work and codes and standards are a huge part of that and standards like ASHRAE referenced in building codes and federal projects as well. So our next speaker is Tom Wright. Tom is the President and Chief Operating Officer of GreenStar Products. Tom, thank you for joining us. Okay, well good afternoon everyone. So we just went from the morning to the afternoon. It's my honor to be here and speak to you today and tell you about an American success story in the renewable energy and energy efficiency market. GreenStar is a 100% veteran owned company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. We focus on providing energy efficient solutions and so as a 10-year-old company today, our focus has been strictly LED outdoor specification grade products. We have offices in Monterey, Mexico, New Delhi, India, and Sao Paulo, Brazil. So we are truly a global company, probably a lighting company that you've never heard of before. We're focused in this municipal utility and Department of Transportation space, okay. In San Antonio, if you've never been to San Antonio, I highly encourage you to come. It's a really, really wonderful city and it's an innovative city. Approximately eight years ago, San Antonio chose to leverage their buying power and they created what's called the New Energy Economy Consortium, basically turning San Antonio from a military city predominantly with four bases to a more diverse economy. GreenStar Products was a charter member of this New Energy Consortium and what this consortium does is it leverages the buying power of the city with the utility, which is owned by the city. So the utility called CPS Energy is the largest publicly operated utility in the country, okay, owned by the municipality. GreenStar as a charter member has been afforded the opportunity to not only sell products to the city of San Antonio, but to innovate and find solutions. So as the energy efficient technologies are becoming more and more available, there's solutions that have to be engineered to make it work with existing infrastructure and things like that. And that's where our company has really come into play. To date, we have over 150,000 smart, ready street lights deployed in San Antonio and over a million deployed around the world. We recently concluded a project in Kolkata, India for 50,000 LEDs outside of Mexico City in a project in Chalco, Mexico for about 100,000 LEDs. South America, the list goes on and on. So suffice it to say that we're not a regional manufacturer or distributor. Some examples of this evolution. So when people approach me and they want to learn about GreenStar and say, oh, well, you're a streetlight manufacturer and that sounds pretty boring. This is true eight years ago. That's what we were, was a streetlight manufacturer. Today, I like to describe the company as having evolved into a technology solutions provider for infrastructure applications, which include lighting. And so I want to share a few exciting examples that the team at GreenStar has developed. So everyone's heard about smart city and you can ask a person, what does that mean? And every person will give you a different answer and it's hard to define. What is quite common, though, is the expense. And this is where most cities, so from a policy standpoint, the struggle begins. I understand the technology or the potential applications, but I can't afford it. So we've taken this approach of providing an affordable, basic smart city technology. I often joke with specifiers and I ask if they have their iPhone 3s with them. Of course they all laugh, right? The same is true with smart technology. This technology is evolving so rapidly that a city can't purchase and capitalize it the way they would purchase and capitalize traditional infrastructure. So you have to change the dynamic. That's what our company is about. As smart technology gets deployed in the field, we deal with power quality issues. So as our aging power systems and distribution systems are struggling to keep up with a demand and then be the aging infrastructure, whether it be poles, wires, or transformers, this, what's commonly called dirty power, can negatively affect these electronics. The little chips on the little green boards can get burned up. And so now that municipality or that transportation agency or utility that's invested in this new technology has had it destroyed due to a power quality event. We've created a device that's patented by Greenstar from San Antonio that's called a voltage interrupter where we're sensing voltage, incoming voltage to the device. And if there's an event that takes the voltage on the low side or the high side, we open the circuit. No power is provided to the camera or the smart module or the light that's connected. When the power quality event is abated and it comes back in range, we automatically reclose the circuit. This extends the life of the equipment. And so we can put money, future money to use on new projects instead of replacing existing technology. So these are some examples. Now I want to take one final minute when we talk about technology and what our company as a technology company has done and really cause your minds to stretch. Everyone knows about Wi-Fi, right? And Wi-Fi is the ability to transfer data with radio signals effectively, basically. How many people have heard about Wi-Fi? So there's a few young people that have their hands up. So Wi-Fi is very exciting. And to make a really in-depth explanation simple, imagine a fiber optic cable without the cable. And that's what Wi-Fi is. And so what we're developing is an outdoor peer-to-peer application to move heavy bandwidth, think video, streaming video, things like that data through the air on top of streetlights. The reason that that's important is because now I don't need the cabling, the connectivity that's associated with moving heavy bandwidth data. Number one, number two, from a cost of implementation standpoint, it's a lot cheaper. And then finally, it provides an alternate to the whole 5G dynamic. 5G, yes, is going to be effective in certain pockets, but can it truly be a fully deployable technology in every city, you know, around the country, around the world? So these are some exciting things other than streetlights that our company is doing. Our products that are sold in the western hemisphere are assembled in San Antonio, Texas with U.S. labor and, you know, we use as many local domestic suppliers as we possibly can. Our products that are assembled in India are for the Middle East, India, Africa and Central Asia. So again, we kind of focus regionally in that aspect. In the lighting industry, our industry domestically has been devastated by the predatory pricing and distribution policies that offshore, predominantly Chinese manufacturers have done. And we are continuing to drive this initiative forward of having U.S.-made, U.S. technology solutions providing right here in our country. On the renewable energy side, we're just moving into this space now and we're moving in in a big way. We are about to begin an 84-megawatt solar field installation in Mexico. And this is our first renewable project where we will be a true turnkey solution from sourcing to commissioning and everything in between to include potentially financing if the projects fit the model correctly. So this is the unique approach that a full-service engineered technology-minded company can bring to bear and deliver this American ingenuity that exists all around us, that exists in this room. And we just have to tap into it, leverage it and work together to solve it. And so, you know, in conclusion, I really appreciate your time. I hope I've peaked your interest. If you have an opportunity to come by and speak to Terry or I at our table, I certainly would love to see you. And if you find yourself in San Antonio, which I highly recommend, please give us a call. I'll show you a little Texas hospitality and we'll have a good time. Okay? All right. Thank you. Great. Thanks so much, Tom. So buildings are complex systems, right? Products, materials, HVAC, and put together and how they're designed and constructed, how they're maintained, how they're operated, all play a role. And so with everything coming together, I think that's a great way to think about the Passive House standard and that is looking at the building as a system to really make sure that it operates well as a whole. So I'm very happy to introduce Katrin Klingenberg, who is the co-founder and executive director of Passive House Institute US. Thank you, Ellen. I'm very glad to be here today and have the opportunity to talk to you all about the Passive Building Standard, what we do at the Passive House Institute US. Our vision really is zero energy and zero energy ready buildings to be affordable for all. And we set out to do so and facilitate that by defining Passive Building Standards, very stringent energy standards for building energy efficiency that are also cost effective that will actually make this possible that everybody can achieve a zero energy or zero energy ready building. Our organization has developed standards to govern building energy efficiency. We offer a voluntary quality assurance for buildings, all building types really not only residential but also commercial to these standards. Quality assurance through the sort of design process as well as through the on-site verification process to make sure that these buildings actually perform at these very high energy efficient levels that we envision. We've trained about 3,000 consultants and designers, architects, energy radars nationwide and those energy consultants professionals then have gone out and have talked to their clients and they have promoted the Passive Building Standard over the last 10 years let's say. And most recently we have seen incredibly success and incredible spike in these certifications that are coming into the office. Most of those are driven by, believe it or not, affordable housing developments multifamily and initially we started out seeing only like single family homes. But now we're seeing some very large affordable project come into the office for certification. A lot of them located in New York State and New York City because New York State and City they have been at the forefront of also pushing legislation and code and have incorporated Passive Building design strategies and targets into their energy codes. So on that note maybe just a few words on one of the most incredible projects that got finished about two years ago. It was for a little while the largest passive affordable project in the country. It is located in Queens and the Rockaways. We now have measured data for this project. It is performing at an incredible 24 KBT use per square foot in year performance site energy. So those of you who are familiar with those numbers will understand that this is really very, very low energy consumption for such a building. That building has 100 units in it. They are all low income. The apartments in Queens are renting for an incredible $600. So the building really starts to address like the complexity not only of energy but also energy justice, indoor health. These buildings have very good filtration and heat recovery systems. It also addresses resiliency because those buildings are very well insulated and they can coast through power outages without the temperatures going up high or low, summer or winter. So we really have seen an incredible success. I mentioned certifications are going up exponentially now. We have been for the third straight year in like more than doubling our certifications, which is incredible for a voluntary, very, very stringent energy standard. And we, of course, hope that this trend will continue. This is supported by various other jurisdictions. It's not only New York. New York was the first one, but also Massachusetts has now adopted fees plus standards as an alternative compliance path into their energy code and Washington state is on its way and also DC has adopted fees plus standards as an alternative compliance for the new zero energy code that is coming out. So we're seeing some really great success. So the reason that I think that these passive building strategies are so successful really are because they address a core element of solving all of our critical issues. Our critical issues right now that everybody's talking about our grid vulnerability or environmental issues and resiliency. Buildings are at the core of all of those problems. And at the core of that is really load reduction. So the success story of fees plus and passive building standards that we are now seeing taking off on a voluntary basis around the country is because we tapped it to something that is crucial to solve all the other problems as well. And that is load reduction. Load reduction comes first. And once we do that on like the level of the entire building stock, I'm not just talking new construction. New construction is easy. This building in Queens that I mentioned that was constructed for 2% additional cost. These targets really have been optimized to be cost effective. But we can also do this for the retrofit sector and we can do it for the existing building stock. Once we do that, once we reduce the loads to passive building levels for the entire building stock, the renewable energy transition is going to be so easy. It is amazing. We can see this in our models. As soon as you have buildings that are low load, they can actually, a large amount of them can provide energy production onsite for themselves. And those that cannot, they have a very small energy delta and that can be provided by solar renewable energy credits and offsite. So the renewable energy transition with passive buildings at its core is becoming a reality and we can see it emerging in front of our eyes. So that's what I would like to kind of leave you with. And I hope that you will join us in promoting passive building load reduction, stringent energy targets that are cost effective, that that is step one in the renewable energy transition. We are going to have our 14th annual Passive House Conference here in Washington DC in December. Please join us for that. There will be presenters from all over the country showing off their projects again from single family to multi-family, affordable market rate. We have a large-scale commercial buildings now coming online. It is really, really exciting to see and I think it is very quickly evolving into the solution that we need to make the energy transition happen. Thank you. Thank you so much, Katrina. And yes, I'm glad you mentioned load reduction because this is our panel, Energy Efficiency. And maybe some of you saw the panels this morning about renewable energy, which will also help make buildings perform better be zero energy because we can use energy from the grid or on site that is from renewable resources. And so we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but it starts first with energy efficiency. And it Katrina also mentioned just the impacts that buildings have. So in its energy use, it is the greenhouse gas emissions. And it is also the effect of the building on people. This room was pretty warm for a while. I think it is getting better. But you know, you have heard of things like sick building syndrome where you don't have proper ventilation and toxins build up inside. So all these things come together. Basically, buildings are really important. So I am delighted to introduce Alex Smith from Renew Air. I think you all work together in incorporating efficiency and indoor air quality. So Alex, thank you. For room seeing people doing this. That's exactly what I am going to talk about. Well, good afternoon, everyone. My name is Alex Smith and I am the Mid-Atlantic Regional Sales Director for Renew Air. Renew Air is a Wisconsin-based manufacturer of energy recovery equipment for the heating, ventilating and air conditioning industry, HVAC for short. Our company founders wanted to make a positive impact on our planet for the people who live on it. And in the 35 years since, Renew Air has been reducing energy, reducing energy, saving energy, reducing our carbon footprint. And we are committed to better indoor air quality to prevent things like this that is happening right now. We are committed to human health and we are committed to the elimination of sick building syndrome. Planet, people, profit. These are our driving forces and I'll come back to those in just a minute. Today we've heard speakers discussing clean, sustainable energy, current grid system, numerous other energy related topics and they're all undeniably important and they're all deserving of our attention in one form or another. As a matter of priority, of course, energy sustainability is directly affected to how we use it. Modern society tends to be convenience-driven, we take things for granted and it's somewhat wasteful. That's certainly true with respect to energy consumption. But all of us associated with the energy industry have a responsibility to use the technology at our disposal to conserve and prevent the needless waste of energy resources. If it is sustainable, it's up to us to develop technology solutions that ensures that and apply them. It's up to us to set the standard and set it high wherever and whenever we can. As I mentioned, one of Renew Air's driving forces is improving people's lives. In an average day, human beings drink four pounds of water and eat four pounds of food. There are many federal regulations that control the quality of both drinking water and food. By comparison, humans breathe 31 pounds of air every day and yet there is little regulation of general indoor air quality. As a result, our health and our buildings suffer. Think about that for a minute, 31 pounds of air. One-third of commercial buildings are affected by indoor air pollution. EPA Commission studies reveal the average indoor air quality is two and a half to five times more polluted with numerous carcinogens and volatile organic compounds and can be up to a hundred times more polluted than outdoor air. Now, this is very bad news because Americans spend 90 percent of their time indoors. In addition to discomfort, this pollution is known to be a leading cause of allergies and respiratory illness. It adversely affects sleep, cognitive decision-making, but we should not just be concerned about our health. It also adversely affects productivity. In fact, RMD recently estimated that poor indoor air quality cost the U.S. economy $168 billion every year. So what can we do about it? The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers sets the standards upon which building HVAC codes are based. ASHRAE, as it is known, has taken steps to improve indoor air quality and developed a ventilation procedure based upon building type, square footage, and occupancy level. There is clear evidence that when outdoor air ventilation is increased, absenteeism, industrial and commercial productivity, and even school test cores have improved. But how does that tie in with energy savings and having a positive impact on our planet? Increased outdoor air ventilation presents a challenge to traditional HVAC systems. This is because most HVAC systems are designed to only heat and cool recirculated air that is already conditioned. They are not designed to cope with the additional load that the heating and cooling of outdoor air places upon them. It requires a lot more energy to heat freezing winter air and cool summer air, which anyone who has spent any time in a place like D.C. in July knows can be very hot and very humid. Another sobering statistic, 20% of all global energy consumption comes from HVAC systems. Up to 80% of that is attributable to high occupancy institutional buildings such as schools and hospitals. About half the energy HVAC systems consume is used to heat and cool outdoor air needed for proper indoor ventilation. That accounts for millions of tons of CO2 emissions each year. But by applying energy recovery technology, it's possible to save 20 to 40% of those emissions. Since 2015, the energy recovery manufactured by a renewer alone has reduced our carbon footprint by nearly 50,000 tons per year. Put in perspective, that's the equivalent of taking more than 8,000 cars off the road or planting 126,000 trees to soak up that much CO2 every year. How do we do it? Energy recovery technology recovers waste energy. That is energy that would have been exhausted from a building and reuses it to remove heat and humidity in the summer and add it back in the winter. This vastly reduces energy load as we've just been discussing. So the HVAC system does far less work to heat and cool the fresh air needed to maintain healthy indoor air quality. When I mentioned profit earlier, I was not talking just about renew air or not even just about money. We all profit from better health and a greener planet, but money is a critical factor. So consider the economics of saving 20 to 40% of the energy consumed by an HVAC system. The positive ripple effect extends beyond cost savings of energy generation, transmission and distribution. It reaches us all. Imagine the cost savings for schools and hospitals in their utility budgets. I'm sure we can all agree that their money is far better spent on educational resources and teachers or medical professionals and disease research than on their electric bills. Furthermore, energy savings can offset the cost of energy recovery equipment within a very short time frame. At the institutional level, payback is often immediate. And long term, reduced operational costs result in a high return on investment. As our company founders saw 35 years ago, energy recovery is the gift that keeps on giving and everyone profits. The bottom line is this. Energy recovery technology is the key to achieving superior indoor air quality and reducing energy consumption. But making greater headway with the energy revolution at national level demands that the combined effort of federal and state energy agencies, service providers, utility providers, manufacturers, trade organizations and program initiatives like Passive House to make it happen. For example, statewide code adoption of latest ASHRAE standards for both commercial and residential buildings is patchy. The U.S. Department of Energy has issued a mandate for all states to review their HVAC energy codes with a goal to adopting the latest ASHRAE standards by February 2020. Some may, some may not. There is no requirement that they must. The industry needs their commitment. It needs more service providers to offer rebate incentive for buildings with high efficiency HVAC and energy recovery equipment installed. Our industry cannot solely rely upon government and utility companies. The private sector must do its part as well. Manufacturers must continue to educate consumers and strive for even higher efficiency, more cost-effective solutions. Trade organizations like the Air Conditioning Contractors of America already have helped shape policy by lobbying for the 2017 HEAT Act. As a result of this act, building owners can recoup some of their initial cost outlay by expensing certain HVAC equipment for accelerated cost recovery, providing it complies with the latest design standards. Energy recovery falls into this category, creating a major benefit for institutional and private building owners alike. Finally, initiatives like Passive House takes a holistic view of the environmental impact of all aspects of building construction and materials. Passive House furthers progress by certifying houses that zero out their carbon footprint. Renewer is proud to be associated with Passive House. Our recovery equipment is installed on many Passive House products nationally. Passive House is a growing movement that needs all of our endorsement and support. That's why we're here today. Only by working together can everyone benefit. Together, we can improve the health of people, protect our planet, and everyone profits. Please come by the expo if you'd like to hear more about this subject. Thanks very much. Thank you very much, Alex. So energy efficiency is a huge untapped resource, and there are certainly policies that can encourage that.