Opening Plenary: Financing the Decarbonization of the Built Environment – Public, Private & Tax Credit Resources
Decarbonizing the built environment requires technical and operational innovation. Beyond that challenge is the financial investment necessary to implement this transformation at scale. This conference plenary will bring leading voices together to explain how public (federal, state, and local) and private financing are being structured to catalyze this transformation.
Sponsor Breakout Rooms
Conference sponsors will be available for informal discussion in separate breakout rooms. You can ask questions, get information, and introduce yourself to key team members.
Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings as a Utility Resource
Nowadays, aligning electricity supply with demand, maintaining grid reliability while achieving ambitious decarbonization goals is increasingly challenging for utilities for multiple reasons – increased penetration of renewables, phasing out of fossil fuel-based generations, and electrification goals to name a few. Research studies have shown tremendous potential in grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) as an emerging resource to support the utilities. This panel brings together leading voices from utilities and national laboratories on how the new utility-customer relationship is evolving and how demand flexibility in buildings holds the key to utility system reliability and adequacy in the age of decarbonization.
Indoor Environmental Quality – Field Results Inform Operational Practices
If you attended SBX 2023, you know that this elite panel discussed some of the cutting-edge investigations into how the indoor environment affects human health, productivity, and well-being and the necessity for real building data on a variety of indoor air markers. SBX 2024 is pleased to bring back this group of internationally recognized experts to report on their progress in obtaining real building data and how that information can help building owners and operators provide healthy and productive indoor environments.
Campus Scale Decarbonization – Planning & Implementation for Healthcare, University & Corporate Campuses
Campus environments – be it university, school, healthcare or corporate – represent both unique challenges and opportunities for scaling carbon reduction. Multiple buildings often sharing central plant services with legacy fossil fuel sources require careful planning and innovation in technical execution. This panel will focus on real life experience of campus decarbonization efforts from road mapping to implementation.
Making Buildings Smarter – Live Demonstration
This session offers attendees a live demonstration of one office’s smart office approach – from the occupant experience at the entrance door through dynamic control of HVAC and lighting, to optimizing janitorial services. Following a live demonstration (presented virtually of course) panelists will discuss what is holding everyone back from acting and the specific steps needed to enable this approach.
Opening Plenary: Innovations for an Electrified & Decarbonized Future – Technology, Construction, Finance & Policy
Success in transforming the built environment from a carbon problem to a carbon solution requires innovation. This is especially true for existing buildings as they are retrofitted and re-purposed for an electrified and decarbonized future. The question is – are we innovating fast enough and at a deployable scale to get where we need to go. This panel will examine the technology innovations that can help lead the transformative process for the built environment.
Sponsor Breakout Rooms
Conference sponsors will be available for informal discussion in separate breakout rooms. You can ask questions, get information, and introduce yourself to key team members.
Building Owner/Manager Guide to Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings – Is Demand Flexibility Right for You?
Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs) and demand flexibility generally are key utility strategies for decarbonizing the electric utility system (see SBX 2024 Day 1 session on GEBs). The customer-side experience of GEBs deployment is the mirror image of this strategy. What is required of building owners and operators to do GEBs, what are the implications for daily operation, and what are the costs and benefits from GEBs deployment? This panel will look at three regions of the country where GEBs buildings are up and running.
Choosing the Smart Building Platform Right for You
It’s a jungle out there. There seems to be an endless choice of smart building platforms from which to choose, but how does an owner/manager make the choice that is best for their own situation? This session is designed to help you make a good assessment of your own needs and then select the type of product that works best for you – now and into the future. Spoiler alert – one size does not fit all.
Fault Detection & Diagnostics – Real World Lessons for Field Service
Fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) is now a rather common feature in commercial and institutional buildings. New research by a national laboratory provides key insights into the quantity, common occurrence, and persistence of faults in buildings that has big implications for both building operators and FDD software developers. This session will examine the field data and what it means for field service personnel from both third party providers and for resident building operations staff.
Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Reporting – Losing the Acronym, Improving the Result
ESG reporting is going through a much-needed re-examination in light of the necessity to show real and quantifiable progress in the area of energy performance and carbon emission reductions. This panel will abandon the hyperbole and politics of ESG terminology and focus a conversation on successful reporting metrics for building performance.
Registration & Networking
Building Performance Standards – How Jurisdictions are Structuring Requirements
An elite panel from jurisdictions in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington will discuss the implementation of building and carbon performance requirements.
The First Line of Defense – Connecting Building Performance Standards & Existing Building Commissioning
Maybe the first step to compliance doesn’t have to be difficult and expensive. This session will examine how existing building commissioning may offer an initial path to compliance.
Networking Lunch
Happy Hour Sponsored by Building Potential
Note: the first two days of SBX 2024 (Aug 27th & 28th) are fully virtual and the third day (Aug 29th) is in-person in Seattle. If you need help accessing the virtual conference platform, please click here.