September 11, 2014
By Stephanie West
Philadelphia, Penn. – The Consortium for Building Energy Innovation (CBEI) brings together 14 key organizations. This includes major research universities, global industrial firms and national laboratories, with the goal of helping reduce energy consumption in small and medium-size buildings throughout the U.S. by 2030.
Headquartered at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, the CBEI estimates that 95% of commercial buildings in the U.S. are small- or medium-size, and its Center for Building Energy Science provides a means to demonstrate how various retrofits and design and construction methods can substantially reduce energy consumption in this important sector. NECA-IBEW is working together and developing ways to take these new technologies from the drawing board to the real world.
"Rather than just changing the HVAC, or just changing the windows, or just changing the lighting, it's actually taking all these systems and making sure that they're all working together to create the greatest energy efficiency for the building," said Kat Hinkel, Marketing & Communications Specialist for CBEI
A recent edition of "Industry Today," describes how IBEW Local 98 and the Penn-Del-Jersey Chapter of NECA helped perform a complete energy retrofit at the Center for Building Energy Science, a 38,000-square-foot structure built in 1942, allowing CBEI to showcase the latest in cutting-edge, energy-efficiency technologies.
***The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, represents about 750,000 members in both the United States and Canada.
