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Policy innovations propel energy efficiency

October 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Policy innovations propel energy efficiency
NEEC report cover

Cover photos taken from report commissioned by NEEC. Photo at center courtesy of Diana Rothery; right cover photo courtesy of Nate Watters.

Policymakers take note: energy efficiency may be your best economic development strategy.

A recent report commissioned by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Council (NEEC) found that energy efficiency investments boosted the economies of Washington and Oregon by hundreds of millions of dollars more than if that money had been invested elsewhere. Not only does spending on energy efficiency generally remain localized, it also frees up capital that can be redirected towards other projects. Places that encourage investment in energy efficiency can then reap the long-term benefits of a stronger local economy, higher wages and lower unemployment.

We need a mix of market based tools to promote investments in energy efficiency. Here are three innovations that encourage broader adoption of efficiency and stimulate deeper, more persistent energy savings.

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Filed Under: Big Ideas, Home Tagged With: Economic Development, Energy, Energy Benchmarking, Energy Efficiency, Energy Policy, Energy Savings, Incentives, NEEC, Performance-based outcomes, Utilities

Moving beyond design—and toward performance

October 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Moving beyond design—and toward performance
Stone34 building in Fremont

McKinstry provided design-build mechanical and plumbing services for Stone34, a high-performance building in Seattle seen here. McKinstry has also measured and verified energy and water use ever since the building opened in August 2014. Stone34 is fully embracing performance-based outcome thinking, as project partners are still working to adhere to strict building performance guarantees. Photo by Doug Scott.

Today—more than ever before—building owners are pushing the construction industry to meet increasingly aggressive, socio-economic-driven energy performance targets.

Whether that push is motivated by a desire to save money or driven by more indirect benefits of lower energy use, owners are nonetheless demanding that building performance (in the form of energy efficiency) drive how their buildings are designed, built and operated.

Currently, the industry has two main strategies when it comes to constructing a building. The traditional approach is design-focused, siloed and—importantly—quite inadequate when it comes to guaranteeing building performance. As a result, the construction industry should be shifting and adapting to a new, performance-based approach across the board in order to meet the energy efficiency goals of building owners.

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Filed Under: Better Buildings, Big Ideas, Home Tagged With: Building Performance, Design, Energy Efficiency, Energy Savings, High-Performance Buildings, Performance-based outcomes

5 key takeaways from the DOE’s Quadrennial Technology Review

October 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment

5 key takeaways from the DOE’s Quadrennial Technology Review
Sun shining off a building

Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Quadrennial Technology Review (QTR) may be a mouthful, but here’s an easier way to think of it: it’s an important report covering energy technology that comes out every four years.

McKinstry is always on the lookout for the latest and greatest research and thinking in our field, so we’ve been taking a look at the QTR ever since it was released a few weeks ago.

Feel free to chime in with your own opinions and questions in the comments, but here are our five main takeaways from the whopper, 505-page document:

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Filed Under: Big Ideas, Home, Technology Tagged With: Data, DOE, Energy Efficiency, Power Grid, QTR, Waste

Why ‘Net Zero Commissioning’ could revolutionize building performance

August 13, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Why ‘Net Zero Commissioning’ could revolutionize building performance
NetZeroGraphicWP

This infographic demonstrates the growing prevalence of net zero energy buildings over the past few years. Infographic courtesy of the New Buildings Institute (NBI).

McKinstry’s Phillip Saieg and Josh Harwood are pioneering the concept of “Net Zero Commissioning”—a re-envisioning of the industry that posits the necessity of commissioning agents positioning themselves on the net zero energy frontier in order to stay relevant.

Though most in the construction industry are familiar with the concept of a net zero energy building (wherein the total amount of energy used by the building is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site), Saieg and Harwood think commissioning agents need to become a vital part of the net zero discussion.

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Filed Under: Better Buildings, Big Ideas, Home Tagged With: Building Performance, Commissioning, Energy, Energy Efficiency, Energy Savings, Green Energy, High-Performance Buildings, Net Zero Commissioning

Tunable LED lighting is illuminating the future

August 13, 2015 by Leave a Comment

From the moment you wake up to the moment your head hits the pillow, there’s one constant in your life—light. Whether it’s natural or artificial, in your home or your office, fluorescent or LED, light is always surrounding you.

For being so omnipresent in our lives, it’s remarkable how lighting isn’t always focused on what’s optimal for people. Surprisingly often, the various lights in our lives are too harsh, too dim, building-centric, or one-size-fits-all.

One company—PLANLED, based in Federal Way, Wash.—is betting that people fed up with inadequate illumination will embrace the new concept of human-centric lighting (HCL). PLANLED distributes, markets, and sells a variety of different HCL solutions for indoor, outdoor/sports, and industrial settings.

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Filed Under: Better Buildings, Big Ideas, Home, Occupants & Operators, Technology Tagged With: Color Temperature, Energy Efficiency, Human-Centric Lighting, Kelvin, LED, Lighting, Tunable LED, Washington

Performance contracting: A strategy to address water woes in the West

August 13, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Performance contracting: A strategy to address water woes in the West
DroughtPhotoWP

Photo by Anthony Quintano, via Flickr.

As raging wildfires, barren fields, and dried-up waterways continue to dominate the landscape of the American West, it’s abundantly clear that drought and water scarcity are critical issues that require immediate action.

While there’s no comprehensive solution to the current drought, organizations and individuals throughout the region are looking to use every possible strategy to mitigate the drought’s impacts.

McKinstry explored how using a simple yet innovative procurement mechanism—performance contracting—could quickly help address water conservation in the seven Colorado River Basin states (AZ, CA, CO, NM, NV, UT, WY). What we found was that schools and public governments in those states could save big.

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Filed Under: Big Ideas, Home, Occupants & Operators, Technology Tagged With: Advanced Water Meters, Arizona, California, Colorado, Colorado River Basin, Drought, Energy, Energy Efficiency, Energy Savings, Nevada, New Mexico, Performance Contracting, Utah, Water Conservation, Wyoming

Why (and how) the construction industry needs to embrace big data

August 13, 2015 by 1 Comment

Why (and how) the construction industry needs to embrace big data
BigDataPhoto

Photo by Torkild Retvedt, via Flickr.

While building systems and technologies are capitalizing on opportunities to take advantage of the current technological revolution, the construction industry mainly continues to lag behind more advanced, innovative approaches used by other industries to leverage the most out of big data resources.

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Filed Under: Better Buildings, Big Ideas, Home, Technology Tagged With: Analytics, Big Data, Building Technology, Construction, Energy, Facility Services, IT, Self-Service Analytics

Supporting students, STEM and our communities

August 12, 2015 by Leave a Comment

It’s no surprise to educators that providing a strong foundation in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) creates long-term positive benefits for students as they prepare to join the workforce.

In the past 10 years alone, STEM jobs have grown three times faster than non-STEM jobs. A strong workforce, in turn, strengthens local communities. McKinstry believes that the private sector has an important role to play in supporting these advancements in education, and we have a long history of putting that commitment into action in our communities through investments of our time, talents and resources.

We care about the future of today’s students, and we want to see the next generation succeed. That’s why we’re dedicated to creating opportunities for students from all backgrounds. So, what do we do?

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Filed Under: Big Ideas, Occupants & Operators, Technology Tagged With: Community, Education, Great Lakes, Pacific Northwest, STEM

How creative engineering can solve your structural riddles

August 12, 2015 by Leave a Comment

How creative engineering can solve your structural riddles

engineering-image

Despite the popular perception of pocket-protector-clad engineers spending their days crunching numbers and running calculations, McKinstry believes that engineering is both a science and an art.

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Filed Under: Big Ideas Tagged With: Design, Engineering, Engineers, LEED

Washington Post: Next energy revolution will be in our brains

August 12, 2015 by Leave a Comment

Washington Post: Next energy revolution will be in our brains
BrainPhoto

Photo by Allan Ajifo, via Flickr.

Within the energy business, everyone is always looking for the next big thing. Often, that’s a new piece of technology, a new form of energy, or the most recent bit of analysis. salesforce service cloud . Those are all well and good, but what if the most significant factor when it comes to saving energy was inside all of us?

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Filed Under: Big Ideas, Home, Uncategorized Tagged With: Energy, Energy Efficiency, Energy Policy, powerED

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