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Don't we already get that with computer-aided drafting? Not quite. CAD creates 2-dimensional drawings, and it can produce a 3-dimensional rendering.

With building information modeling, or BIM, the very detailed 3-D representation is only part of the picture.

Architects and engineers gather a lot of information, during the design stage, about materials, construction methods, fixtures, you name it.

That information is useful in later stages. To keep from losing track of it, BIM serves as a vehicle for information -- the "I" in BIM.

As the project progresses, contractors and owners don't have to re-gather and recompile all that data. The model becomes a guide to construction, and a reference for operation and maintenance.

An energy model can be created directly from BIM, to show how a building is likely to perform. Designers can experiment to find the most energy-efficient design, then check the finished building against that model.

A basic premise of BIM is collaboration by stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of a building. Early collaboration reduces costly conflicts between the systems in a building, and generally makes for better design.

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

I help answer those questions in a commentary I did on Stephen Lacey's program for renewable energy industry insiders.

Social media is a new chapter in a familiar marketing book. In the commentary I recommend four homework assignments before rushing out on the dance floor to do the Twitter.

Inside Renewable Energy podcast:
"Renewable Energy 2.0: The Value of Online Marketing" (about 14 minutes into the program)

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

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Program notes & transcripts

This is the second of two Briefings on the Greenbuild Conference and Expo.

Lighting is one of the easiest sources of energy efficiency in a commercial building. It's also an important source of points for LEED certification.

Designers are using a technique called Building Information Modeling to predict how a building will perform with various lighting alternatives, among other things.

And utilities are eyeing the smart grid as a way to reach beyond the meter and "buy extra energy from buildings" in the form of energy savings -- by dimming lights, for example.

So we have a director from Siemens to talk about the interface between buildings and the smart grid. And someone from Autodesk to talk about the relationship between building information modeling and LEED certification.

And as promised, we have two more lighting products to report on from the Greenbuild Expo.

Part 1: Siemens -- Will Smart Buildings Mind-Meld with the Smart Grid?

» Transcript

Part 2: Lighting controls at Greenbuild 2009

New York Times Building Reduces Lighting Energy by 70 Percent

Lutron Electronics: Total Light Management Combines Strategies to Shave Energy Use

Convia Controls: Intelligent Power Loads Provide Flexibility and Energy Efficiency

Energy:Minute -- Building Information Modeling (BIM)

» Podcast & transcript

Part 3: Autodesk -- Will BIM Help Owners Manage Buildings more Efficiently?

» Transcript

This concludes year two for the Building Priorities Briefing.

Next year will bring some interesting topics -- the Winter Olympics in Vancouver BC, the development of carbon policies worldwide, the continued rise of sustainable energy as a central theme in business and, we hope, the spread of recovery throughout the global economy.

The Building Priorities Briefing is spreading, too. The more people we reach, the faster we can affect positive change. So if you hear this program on your local radio station, call and thank them. If you listen to it on iTunes, rate the podcast. If you listen at the web site, share the link through e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter.

You can follow us on Twitter, our name there is "@cleantech."

Our special thanks go to those who appeared on the program this year, like the US Green Building Council, the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee, Van Jones, Johnson Controls, Siemens, Autodesk, and too many others to list. You're what makes the show interesting. Thanks.

From all of us here at Energy Priorities Magazine, happy new year!

Links

These links correspond to the chimes in the podcast.

Greenbuild 2009

November's Briefing

Energy:Minute on LED lighting

Energy:Minute on daylighting in commercial buildings

New York Times Building background

Demand response in a nutshell

Worker productivity in green buildings

LEED in a nutshell

Siemens

Lutron Electronics

Convia Controls

Autodesk

http://twitter.com/cleantech

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

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The third strategy has to do not with the light sources, but with how you control them.

Lighting control systems are certainly not new, but they've been slow to get adopted in mainstream buildings. They do add to the first cost of a building, with the payback coming from energy savings -- from not having lights on when they don't need to be on.

The new New York Times Building (background) in Manhattan, the one that opened in 2007, has 18,000 individually-dimmable fluorescent fixtures and an automated system to control them.

I had a chance to meet with Glenn Hughes, the Director of Construction for The New York Times Company when the paper was building its new headquarters. After two years, there's actual data on the energy savings from a "total light management" approach that controls the electric lights and optimizes the available daylight.

Glenn Hughes: ...We actually built a mock-up. This is back in 2004, before total light management systems were large-scale enough that you could go to other buildings and talk to the owners and find out what was going on. In other words, there weren't any real results or performance statistics out there at that time, so we actually built a mock-up on the southwest corner of our building--4,300 square feet.

And in it, we put their system, other systems from other companies, and when we found out that they could be 99 percent reliable, that's when we made the decision to go with total light management.

Denis: What sort of savings have you realized?

Glenn: In terms of savings, the energy savings that we're talking about are in the range of $1 to $1.50 a square foot every year, so that's the kind of target you can imagine if you use these types of systems, and we're driving it pretty much to the limit because we've pretty much picked every layer of control, every possible control algorithm you can come up with to get more energy savings. We took them all and put them into this system.

And that's one of the nice things about these is, they have--you have choices. You can pick the ones that are right for your building. You don't have to take every single module in the program. We went for everything, and we achieved 72 percent below code--72 percent below code, which I don't know anybody else that's done that yet. But, there'll be others now.

If you understand that you have an opportunity of $1 to $1.50, that affects the relationship between a landlord and whoever is leasing, because the cost of their utilities is going to be significantly less.

So, you put that into play, and if you think about the people in the space--which we did at the "New York Times," because we did a lot of...we read a lot of research -- we didn't do the research ourselves, but we read research like Carnegie-Mellon Institute, Volker Hartkopf and his wife, and they write as the results of their research that four to seven percent improvement and productivity is what you get with systems like this.

Just give me one percent. You give me one of those four to seven percent and our job pays back in six months. It isn't even a year. So, you add energy, you add people, productivity, and there's no job that it won't pay back in under a year.

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

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Denis Du Bois: In the building automation arena, there's a lot of talk about the smart grid. Siemens is in both industries, so I was interested in hearing whether they have a roadmap for the building-to-grid convergence...

Ari: ...As you decentralize the grid down to the building level--at the building level is where we're really sitting on one of the major keys to solving some of our energy issues and some of our environmental issues...

Denis: I was talking with Ari Kobb, the director of green building solutions for Siemens, to get an update about their building management system, when we got on the topic of the smart grid...

Ari [in background]: ...and another third in industrial. That's thinking a little bit outside the box, but I don't think it's all that far off.

Denis [to Ari]: So, what should be the priorities of a green building owner with regard to the smart grid?

Ari: I think whether it's a green building owner or not, we all want our buildings to be high-performing buildings. So I think the first step is to look at information management from a different light, because if you understand where energy is being consumed in a building, you'll know how to save energy. When you connect all that together and you connect that back into a smarter grid, the building is going to make smarter decisions.

So if you look at one of the major components of smart grid that's already out there, there's demand response. You understand the pricing signals, the load signals from the utility, your building is wired and connected, you know which systems you can turn on and turn off without sacrificing occupant safety, comfort, and productivity. You manage that against greenhouse gas emission savings and tie that into reporting systems.

That's where it's all going to ultimately go because that information helps you make better decisions, and ultimately helps you be greener, save money, and save energy. And the ultimate goal of what we're all trying to go after is a better-built environment.

I think it really all comes down to the existing building stock, and how do we make those buildings smarter, greener, and better. And one of the ways to do that is by doing a better job at managing the energy consumption of the building, and understanding its impact on price, and its impact on us -- the building occupants -- so that we're still able to be productive.

Denis: Smarter, greener, better, as you said, is what we all want in the commercial building space. Is that what utilities want as utilities move towards smart grid? I ask this because Siemens plays on both sides of that meter. Are the building owner's priorities and the utility's priorities consistent?

Ari: Let's look at it from the perspective of if there is some sort of a cap in trade or a carbon tax, the utilities are the ones that are going to be subject to that, clearly. And theoretically, every kilowatt-hour of energy saved is a certain amount of coal they don't have to pump into a new system, and how they manage it more effectively and cleaner is going to be the future of how the utilities have to operate.

I don't think that the building owner and the utility are necessarily on divergent paths. They can converge with the same goal of effectively reducing emissions, which will probably be mandated at some level, and then what role can we, as a building owner, play? But certainly, what I think comes out of green building, came out of the research we did, that from an attitudinal standpoint, C-level executives want this.

They want to save money, first and foremost, but they want to save energy. But we were very surprised that renewable energy came out at such a high desire level for the C-level executive in our research. They view the use of renewable energy as a clear environmental benefit and as a national security benefit. Energy independence is a good thing. I think we're beyond that argument, it's a matter of how we implement it now.

Denis: We're talking about a Siemens Smart Building and a Siemens Smart Grid. Does Siemens have a road map for dissolving that building-to-grid interface?

Ari: The good thing about Siemens is we're involved in the upstream and the downstream part of it. There's Siemens Power Generation making large wind turbines that are used in grid-based, clean energy generation in the wind market. There are power transmission and distribution technologies that reduce transmission loss getting to the building.

And at least, the part that we're here about, which is the building technologies division of Siemens. Once that energy gets into the building, isn't it about how you use it, how you manage it, how you reduce the amount of CO2 that's coming out of the building, yet maintaining optimal levels of inner air quality? That's where we all want to be.

So we're sitting on a very excellent opportunity in our minds, because at the end of the day, energy prices and energy security are critical issues within a building. But at the same time, there's this awareness of environmental responsibility. And when you couple those together then you're really creating opportunity, for us as a player in this market, to play a bigger role, even.

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The lights are connected to daylight sensors -- little devices about the size of a quarter that attach to the ceiling. When there's a lot of daylight -- in a cubicle, for example -- the artificial lights are dimmed to save energy.

Those components also communicate with automated blinds that raise and lower to reduce heat gain but still get the most out of the available daylight. And of course occupancy sensors, so if a room's vacant, the lights turn themselves off.

Lutron's Michael Jouaneh says, managing the total light in a building can reduce lighting energy use by 70 percent.

Michael Juaneh: ...To get the 70 percent, you need to combine several light management strategies. Occupancy sensing definitely being one--key one. Daylight harvesting is another key one. We also, with our digitally addressable dimming ballast, can do light level tuning. That's where you set the target light level in this space--so, you tune the lights down to meet a specific foot-candle level in this space.

Denis: You also need scheduling, preferably with an astronomical clock to adjust for the seasons. And "high-end trim" ...

Michael: High-end trim is where you set the maximum light level in a space, so instead of 100 percent full light, set it to 80 percent full light, which is not really noticeable at all by the occupants, but you save about 20 percent in energy.

Denis: And incidentally, many of these also prepare your building to participate in demand response.

But the even stronger justification for integrating a lighting control system into a building is worker productivity.

Michael: The productivity improvements are tremendous because the salary of the workers in this space represents over $300 per square foot in costs, OK. So, if you just simply improve productivity by a little bit, that adds up to a lot of money.

Denis: Lutron's coming out with a wireless daylight sensor in January 2010. Wireless devices make it less costly to retrofit lighting controls into existing buildings.

And here's an interesting stat for you: 100 percent of the buildings in the United States are existing buildings. Think about it.

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

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Their control system extends to temperature and even plug loads, like desk lamps and computer monitors.

They've taken advantage of the falling cost of microprocessors, and the rise of very lightweight communication protocols, to build a plug-and-play system that's simple to program, and easily reconfigured when workspaces are rearranged.

(Greenbuild 2009 expo floor interview)

Jane Chadesh, Convia Controls: ...The system was designed to do three major things. The first thing it does is it distributes power throughout a space, and it does so using modular plug and play connections. So it's a power distribution mechanism that creates very flexible power. So that is power delivery.

The second major function is then control. It acts as a control system that allows you to deploy different energy management strategies. All of the components are fully dimmable on the system, and you can deploy strategies like timed shutdowns, occupancy-based lighting, daylight harvesting, etc.

Which gets to the third major function outside of flexible power delivery and control: metering. Each one of the microprocessors that sits next to the load has a chip that is measuring actual voltage. At a very granular level you're given a view of your facility, and you can see which areas are performing the way they are supposed to.

That's kind of, in a nutshell, what Convia is designed to do. We've also taken the Convia technology and built it into Herman Miller workstations. What will happen when he walks away is the workstation plug loads will power down. ....[booth staffer leaves workstation] Thank you! That happened just on cue. Now I'll sit down in the workstation and everything turns on. My desk light and screen come on.

When you're deploying an energy management strategy, it's a more broad approach to energy. It doesn't just incorporate lighting, it takes into account plug loads as well.

Finally, it allows for HVAC control because you may want a single occupancy sensor to control lighting plug load, but it makes sense also to adjust the temperature when somebody is not in a space. It allows for temperature setbacks on thermostats.

Denis: Now, does this qualify for financial incentives, tax incentives, grants, rebates?

Jane: It does. There is up to a $1.80 per square foot of tax incentives that are available for hitting certain ASHRAE standards and those would qualify under that. And because again it does metering, it makes it easier for companies to apply for those tax credits because you can show the before-and-after effect.

We also have partnerships with different power companies to allow for demand response strategies. We partnered with Southern California Edison, and they actually gave us the specs. Because what sometimes happened in California is when companies get the signal to reduce load by 30 percent they will shut things down and send people home.

With this, people can stay in the space, and the space is smart enough to adjust the loads based on what's happening and that is based on the priorities that the facilities managers have set for all the different loads. That's the dynamic load balancing capability.

Denis: Chadesh says Convia customers have been seeing a 4- to 5-year payback on the system.

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

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The company's own BIM product was used in the retrofit of its own LEED-CI Platinum building in Massachusetts.

I think we'll be seeing much more about the relationship between BIM and LEED. Erin Rae Hoffer is the Industry Programs Manager for Autodesk's architecture division. I asked her if she sees the same trend.

Erin Rae Hoffer, AIA, LEED AP, Autodesk: Well, it's a great question. I think both of the titles or terms, BIM and LEED, each signify two of the three big trends that seem to be converging. It seems to be important, particularly for sustainable projects, because you have all the intelligence in the room from day one to make the most sustainable decisions. So the connection between BIM and LEED is part of this bigger picture, but it's maybe a little bit more prevalent.

You do have more and more professionals moving towards a BIM process, which is building information modeling, thinking about design technology as information-rich, thinking about what I'm doing in front of my computer as not just doing a drawing, but I'm essentially building the project. So when I make those decisions, I'm thinking about architectural elements. I'm thinking about construction processes. So that's what's really connected to LEED.

We have all these existing buildings, we're going to do some renovation. We need to understand the current situation of the building, so having a building information modeling of an existing building can really be helpful to say where are the gaps? How can we close those gaps? How can we do better?

The map between BIM and LEED is something that we've actually studied in a very specific way with a research group at Carnegie Mellon to look very closely at elements in a building information model and elements in the LEED rating system to understand which of those questions about LEED could be answered by a model, so that we can move forward to an accelerated process of making the buildings more sustainable.

Denis: One of the promises of BIM is, potentially, to be able to do continuous commissioning on a building. LEED is leaning this way toward looking more at the performance of a building after it's occupied rather than solely at the attributes of the building at the point where the plaque is hung in the lobby.

Erin: That's a critical point. What's not clear yet and what's still being developed, but is an exciting area I think as the trend in the future, is the role of the owner in being the person that has that model at their disposal to make the right decisions once they move in and own the project.

The AEC team is the one that runs the project until they hand the keys over to the owner, and at that point, this question of commissioning and performance is really the owner's issue to manage.

So one of the pieces that I am really focusing on, as well, is how can we provide better information to owners? How can owners be better educated as to how to utilize what they have access to now, if their projects are being completed in a building information modeling process?

Many owners who are sophisticated are using facilities management products, so what I think we need to see is the closer connection between the BIM process that has generated data about the building and then moving into this facilities management and particularly the management of energy. That's where we're going to get the benefits we absolutely must get. The energy reduction construction is really important, but ultimately it's the 20-year lifecycle of the building.

Denis: One thing I'm curious about is, ultimately, who benefits the most from the application of BIM? Is it the designer? Is it the contractor? Is it the owner?

Erin: I guess there's a gut feeling that people have in the industry that the ultimate beneficiary really will be the owner who can manage the building more effectively, or it's an energy services company perhaps that is responsible for the energy piece.

Denis: You're an architect. In your perception, is it hard for a firm to learn BIM, to get their arms around it, to change their workflow?

Erin: I think it is a challenge. I think it's a firm-level change. In a way, we call it "practice transformation." That's a term that we've been using because it's not just get the latest rev of something or upgrade. It's a really different thought process to be effective.

Any firm can adopt something and just use it the same way. I think that firms that make the decision that we're going to look at our overall business model. We're going to look at our design process. We're going to think about how we're organized as a company and make a commitment to this new way of working because we see the benefits. We know our clients will benefit.

Denis: Do you see BIM, and things like BIM, ultimately having more radical impacts on the LEED rating system? Do you see something like USGBC creating requirements for an individual building based on the attributes of the model?

Erin: That's a very intriguing question. I guess I've never thought about it going in that direction particularly, although it could. Let me think about that. I guess the image that I've had is more along the lines of wanting to see BIM help people to accelerate their achievements which they're getting through LEED. We know that there's a bit of a lag right now, that if you go through the LEED process and complete your project, you have to wait a while to get your answer.

So what I'm hoping is that as more practices and contractors and the whole AEC industry moves towards a BIM process. You saw Ecotect. You've seen that you can get some insights through software, let's just say. If we can use those insights to somehow accelerate that process, then that would mean a couple of really good things.

If it were a faster process, that might mean it could create more benefit for the owner because I would think there would be market value in that. There might be a more rapid understanding of being able to leverage that you have a LEED building because maybe you can market to tenants, or a whole number of things that would be really important for the owners.

Denis: Erin Rae Hoffer, this has been a fascinating conversation. Thank you very much.

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

It acts like a bank -- it provides low-interest loans and interest-free credit to developing countries for a wide array of purposes, including the construction of electricity generation.

It also acts like an NGO, issuing grants for education, health, public administration, infrastructure, financial and private sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management.

The World Bank Group was profitable in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009, with net income of $3.1 billion.

The Group is comprised primarily of two development institutions: the IBRD and the IDA.

The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is what most people refer to when they say "the World Bank." It aims to reduce poverty in middle-income and creditworthy poorer countries. It lent US $32.9 billion in fiscal 2009 for 126 new projects. This amount represented half of the World Bank Group's financial activities in dollar terms, and was more than double that of any of the preceding four years.

The International Development Association (IDA) focuses on the world's poorest countries. It committed $14 billion in fiscal 2009 for 176 new projects, more than half of it in Africa.

Thirteen percent of the combined commitments of IBRD and IDA in fiscal 2009 -- $6.3 billion -- were for energy and mining projects. Another 13 percent were for transportation projects, of which 47% were in Europe and Central Asia.

World Bank Group energy sector financing by category, in 2007 US dollars.

The work of IBRD and IDA is complemented by that of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), all part of the World Bank Group.

The United States is IBRD's largest shareholder. The total U.S. capital subscription (the maximum obligated amount that can be called) is $31.9 billion, of which $2 billion was called in 2009. Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom make up the rest of the top five Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shareholders in IBRD ranked by capital subscription.

IBRD diversifies its sources of funding by offering its securities and bonds to institutional and retail investors around the world.

Sources:
World Bank Annual Report 2009 and full financial statements; Bank Information Center.

By EP at Energy Priorities

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Program Notes

The all-electric Nissan Leaf car prototype visited Seattle's Qwest Field this week.

Kate Quigley, of the Nissan Leaf Road Crew, gives an on-camera interview at a media drive day.

The Leaf has no internal combustion engine, which makes it a zero-emissions car. (The electricity that charges it, however, is not necessarily emissions-free.) Nissan expects the Leaf to be the first affordable, all-electric car.

This prototype is the Leaf powertrain, batteries and regenerative braking system under the body of a Nissan Tida.

Initially it's a lot like driving a Toyota Prius hybrid... until the straightaway, where Dean persuades me to floor it.

The acceleration is quick -- and almost completely silent. The Leaf has 107 horsepower and tops out at 90 miles an hour -- although I don't come close to that.

You can't buy this, or any production all-electric car, in the US today. Nissan will begin taking reservations for the Leaf in the spring of 2010.

It has all the creature comforts -- air conditioning, cruise control, stereo, and a navigation system that shows the locations of the nearest public charging stations.

In some cities, Leaf drivers won't have to wait for the charging infrastructure to catch up. Mark Perry, Nissan North America's Director of Product Planning, says Seattle is part of a DOE project to place 2,500 charging stations to the Puget Sound region this summer. Perry says there will be a public charging station within five miles of any spot in the Puget sound area.

But Nissan expects most owners to charge at home, overnight. The charger is built into the car, with a timer so you can control when it charges itself.

The ideal car battery would have a long range, and minimal residual waste at the end of its useful life. Nissan is taking advantage of battery technology developed for consumer electronics.

The Leaf's battery is a LiMn chemistry. Nissan expects it to have a ten year life. As Nissan improves its battery technology, car owners will be able to upgrade. At end of life, Perry says Nissan has planned to recycle the battery.

The Leaf itself contains quite a bit of recycled materials. The one thing it doesn't have is a tailpipe. It is completely emissions-free -- no carbon. And, in places like Seattle, where the energy utility gets its power from renewable energy, is carbon neutral, even the charging source is carbon neutral.

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities