CBS Newsletter
Fall 1994
pg. 1

The Applications Team is Here!

The Center's newly founded Applications Team (the A-Team) is ready to do business with the public and private sectors. It marshals LBL's unique capabilities and networks to conduct field projects aimed at deploying advanced energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality concepts in both the U.S. and overseas buildings sectors. Among the goals of the Team are:

The A-Team's philosophy calls for applying an integrated approach to retrofitting existing buildings or designing new ones. This approach encompasses the various stages of a building's life cycle as seen from the perspective of facilities management, addressing the areas of energy, illumination, comfort, and the indoor environment.

The A-Team assembles project teams drawn from the 250-person staff of the Center's three research programs, LBL's In-House Energy Management Program (IHEM), other research organizations and laboratories, and private firms. The IHEM program has managed a study and retrofit project slate of $18 million through 1994 for LBL's own facilities, including project planning, financial analysis, engineering, procurement, construction management, commissioning, monitoring, and evaluation. One of IHEM's recent notable achievements was its completion of the Department of Energy's first comprehensive performance contracting agreement with a private energy services company for retrofit of a laboratory building.

To accomplish its goals, the A-Team also draws on a rich pool of relationships with other professionals in energy efficiency implementation from R&D centers across the country, government agencies, electric and gas utilities, state energy offices, manufacturers of energy-efficient technologies, and technical committees that define energy-related standards and guidelines.

Bridging R&D and Practice
The A-Team forges a new link between existing DOE building R&D activities and deployment initiatives. A-Team activities will benefit R&D program planners by providing improved feedback and recommendations for eliminating inefficiencies and missed opportunities during the implementation of new technologies and methods in the field. More specifically, the A-Team will:

  1. Develop, implement, and evaluate proven, cost-effective energy efficiency measures in existing buildings.
  2. Assemble confidence-building demonstrations of emerging technologies and energy management practices not commonly used by building professionals.
  3. Develop and disseminate state-of-the-art field guidelines and protocols, for example, for measurement and verification.
  4. Demonstrate the potential for achieving energy savings while maintaining or improving indoor environmental factors influencing human productivity and well-being, such as reduced indoor air pollution, better lighting quality, and thermal comfort.
  5. Transfer design and application methods and tools to private-sector practitioners such as architecture and engineering firms that collaborate with the A-team on projects.
  6. Support energy savings performance contracting on a national level.
In the Field
The A-Team benefits private-sector building professionals by raising the marketĀ„s general awareness of the value of energy efficiency, for example, through high-profile demonstrations and independent verifications of performance and cost-effectiveness and by partnering with private-sector firms on specific projects. This kind of feedback will also prove valuable in product development and marketing.

Prospective clients for the Applications Team include federal agencies, utilities, states, regional or national efficiency program designers, and large public, private, or institutional building owners. To maximize their impact, the Team will choose projects very selectively, emphasizing high-visibility, replicability, and the specialized services and resources possessed by LBL and project collaborators. Current projects include creating the master plan for energy efficiency retrofits at the Presidio of San Francisco in cooperation with DOE and the National Park Service, and comprehensive audits of the Federal Aviation AdministrationĀ„s air traffic control towers and other facilities.

--Evan Mills


Evan Mills
Center for Building Science
(510) 486-6784; (510) 486-5394 fax

Dale Sartor
Applications Team
(510) 486-5988; (510) 486-5394 fax


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