Meeting/Event Information

The Golden Gate chapter will offer an all-day seminar on zero net energy (ZNE) buildings on October 19 at the Pacific Energy Center. The event is co-sponsored by Pacific Gas and Electric and the Center for the Built Environment.

The seminar will address many of the issues surrounding ZNE buildings, including on-site and off-site options for renewable energy; methods of energy accounting; building load characteristics (envelope and lighting); common HVAC solutions for ZNE; renewable energy technology and storage; utility interfaces; and methods for project delivery, as well as design review, commissioning, and performance verification.

The speakers include: architect and mechanical engineer Charles Eley who has 40 years of experience in energy efficient and sustainable building design, Cathy Higgins of the New Buildings Institute, former ASHRAE President Kent Peterson of P2S Engineering, John Andary of Integral Group, and Jim Kelsey of kW Engineering.

Register here

For information on sponsorship opportunities contact Charles Eley, Seminar Committee Chair, [email protected]. 

Agenda

Speaker Bios

Charles Eley

Charles Eley is an architect, mechanical engineer, and author with 40 years of experience in energy efficient and sustainable design. His latest book is Design Professional’s Guide to Zero Net Energy Buildings (Island Press 2016). During his career, Mr. Eley has made significant contributions to the California energy standards, ASHRAE Standard 90.1, and energy codes in Hong Kong, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa and Australia. Mr. Eley worked as the lead consultant to the California Energy Commission to update the state energy efficiency standards for five code update cycles.

In addition to his energy codes and policy work, Mr. Eley has also developed a number of important technical manuals and publications. He served as the founding executive director of the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, and was the technical editor of the CHPS Best Practices Manual. He has also developed a number of energy analysis software applications and has served as energy consultant for a number of landmark green buildings.

Mr. Eley currently writes, serves on non-profit boards, provides specialized consulting, and teaches classes on building energy efficiency and green technologies.

Cathy Higgins, Research Director, New Buildings Institute

Cathy Higgins is the Research Director at NBI where she works with industry partners to research and establish the market and technical basis for scaling low- and zero-energy building solutions across all building types and regions.

Cathy has over 25 years in energy efficiency large-scale project management, emerging technology research, strategic planning and policy. She is currently leading work on the energy aspects of radiant heating / cooling systems in conjunction with UC Berkeley and working on retrofit methods for small commercial buildings. She is also leading the commercial sector portion of the new California ZNE Research Roadmap. Cathy’s focus is also on market strategies to go beyond buildings to community and aggregated scale energy solutions. Cathy has been with New Buildings Institute for over 16 years with previous roles as the Director of the Oregon Municipal Energy and Conservation Agency and Commercial Conservation Manager with Bonneville Power Administration. Her undergraduate studies were in urban and resource planning, Spanish and graduate work in energy economics. She has been a LEED-AP and recognized as the Oregon, and the National, Energy Manager of the year by APEM.

Tom Williard, Sage Renewables, Principal and Co-Founder

Tom Williard has worked in the renewable energy industry since 2001. Prior to founding Sage, Tom was a Principal at energy consulting firms Sustainergy Systems and System Design. In 2005, he co-founded Solmetric, Inc., where he was Director of Research and Development for the initial SunEye product. Tom has expertise in modeling tool development, renewable energy finance, engineering and business development and construction oversight. Previously, Tom spent twenty years in the electronics industry as a management consultant, senior technologist and senior hardware and software engineer for a number of imaging and communications companies, most recently Ascend Communications. Tom takes an active role in his community and has served on several boards and foundations in Marin County, CA. He is an avid cyclist and plays drums in several bands.

Jim Kelsey, Principal, kW Engineering

Jim has been in the energy efficiency business since 1989. He founded kW Engineering in 1998 in order to do the work that he loves - exploring the technical side of energy efficiency to find innovative and reliable ways to save energy. Jim has a bachelor's degree in physics from Rice University and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin - Madison's Solar Energy Lab. He is a licensed mechanical engineer in California and Nevada, a LEED accredited professional, has conducted analyses for hundreds of projects, and taught extensively on HVAC and refrigeration. His work history includes field surveys of energy use, identification and evaluation of energy-saving projects, field measurement and verifications, and retro-commissioning of systems. He has extensive experience conducting computer simulations of commercial and industrial buildings using DOE-2 and other models. Jim is a past President of the San Francisco Bay Area Association of Energy Engineers, is a former recipient of AEE’s Energy Engineer of the year award, and has been on its board since 1999. He currently serves on ASHRAE’s Technical Committee 7.6 on Systems Energy Utilization (Existing Building Energy Performance), is active on the committee to update ASHRAE Standard 100 – Energy Conservation in Existing Buildings, and sits on the board of the California Energy Efficiency Industry Council.

John Andary, Principal, Integral Group

Leading the bioclimatic design practice at Integral Group, John has more than 25 years of engineering experience in education, healthcare, commercial and laboratory design. Throughout his career, his focus has been on green buildings and energy efficiency in the high tech industry. With an eye on the triple-bottom line (people, planet and profit), John focuses on opportunities that yield the greatest environmental and social results without affecting the economic bottom line. John believes that sustainable design is an engineer’s social responsibility. He has served as Project Manager and Principal-in-Charge on numerous LEED projects including several that have achieved LEED Platinum and Net-Zero energy.

Kent Peterson, Vice President, Chief Engineer, P2S Engineering

Kent Peterson is a leading expert on energy efficient green buildings. He recently completed a project working with NIBS and US DOE to develop a common definition for Net Zero Energy Buildings. Mr. Peterson is a past ASHRAE Society President and past Chair of SSPC 189.1. In 2011, he was appointed to the new Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings Advisory Committee for federal agencies as a representative of the engineering profession.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS