Explore trends and issues impacting our industry
The American building stock as a whole turns over at a rate of only one percent per year. Transformation that takes a century to complete is not transformation. That means the existing building stock needs to be retrofitted for efficiency and resilience—and those retrofits need to be deep. With the lack of federal leadership, states
With Congress and the Administration still plotting their next moves in the wake of the federal courts’ vacating of SNAP rules 20 and 21, many states are pledging to regulate HFCs themselves. And while the risks of this approach, particularly the fracturing of the U.S. HVAC market, have been well documented, one aspect remains relatively
In order for the world to meet the climate goals of limiting global warming temperature rise to no more than 2oC, we will need to make a significant investment in energy efficiency and renewable forms of energy. On the other hand, the cost of doing nothing would likely run into the many trillions of dollars
The dialogue on buildings and energy is quickly shifting. Not that many years ago the focus was on the push for more efficient equipment—an HVAC unit with a higher SEER. Then came the recognition that such progress had both practical limits and limits written into the laws of physics. Attention began to shift to systems thinking—how
Currently, 282 cities have signed on to the ‘We Are Still In’ Group, and in support, the C40 Cities initiative (now actually 94 cities around the globe) and American Cities Climate Challenge are just two of the organizations that provide for cities to share best practices. Among those best practices are energy benchmarking and disclosure
If you’ve been in facility management long enough, you’ve encountered a few of these problems before: variable speed pumps that run close to 100% much of the time; a chiller that labors with low Delta T; or, worst of all, complaints of hot and cold spots in occupied spaces. So, what do you do? Look
One of the barriers to the new refrigerants is the recognition of flammable refrigerants in building codes. Codes dictate so much about building construction and what mechanical equipment can be used. There are codes for fire protection, building construction, mechanical systems, and other aspects of buildings; all affect the HVACR system. A good article on
Henry Ford once said, “You can have any color you want as long as it’s black”—a slogan that launched the early industrial model. And still today industry relies on economies of scale—and scaling means as little product differentiation as possible within a product line. Industrial efficiency thrives on product commoditization, but in a competitive global
In a previous post, we considered the incremental efficiency improvements possible for supermarkets through existing technologies. However, even bigger energy savings can occur when technologies and services make connections outside the store. In fact, managing multiple stores across the enterprise multiplies the energy savings. Option 2: Efficiency improvements through connectivity To get actionable, real-time
Over the last two decades, residential HVAC systems in the US have gone from 10 SEER to 15 SEER — a 25% improvement. For commercial buildings, the source and site-energy-use efficiency improvements in ASHRAE 90.1 standards have increased more than 40% — with corresponding reductions in CO2 emissions. But, HVAC and refrigeration equipment use 50-60%