Whole-building energy simulation has become more common over the last two decades, but it’s not necessarily having a big impact on design decisions. Many design decisions are made during the early phases of a project with regards to passive strategies or envelope and system selection. Performance analysis is crucial during those phases. But is it done on all the projects? What are the challenges faced by the design teams and how do they overcome them? Dan Stine, Melissa Kelly and Brett Horin discuss these challenges and their process to ensure performance analysis helps with the design decisions.

The IBPSA-USA Wisconsin Chapter welcomes the City of Madison Sustainability & Resiliency Manager, Dr. Jessica Price, to present on the Building Energy Savings Program for the City of Madison. Cities across Wisconsin are playing an increasingly important role in addressing the climate crisis. The City of Madison has set the ambitious goal of reaching 100% renewable energy and net zero carbon emissions for city operations by 2030 and community-wide by 2050. This means we need to move quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors. Currently, buildings are responsible for nearly half of our greenhouse gas emissions, making them an important part of the solution. Come learn about how the City of Madison is creating policies and programs to improve the energy efficiency of our building stock. Examples include a new Building Energy Savings Program that is aimed at helping commercial building owners identify opportunities to increase energy efficiency and save money and a pilot project to bring renewable energy and efficiency upgrades to naturally occurring affordable housing. Questions, suggestions, and collaboration in this space are always welcomed.

Since its inception 20 years ago, The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon® has blended a learning experience with the advancement of building science.  Through a competitive exercise of designing and building high-performance, low-carbon buildings, student teams have had the opportunity to connect the academic themes of their study with real-world implementation. This webinar would focus on how Solar Decathlon is creating the next generation of building science professionals, including energy modelers and see some of their design. We will speak about some student led design models, how students are designing for underserved communities, and see highlights of up-and-coming technologies not yet seen in widespread adoption.

Boston University’s new Center for Computing and Data Science is opening this month. The new 345,000 square foot, 19 story academic center and technology incubator is all-electric and will operate at net zero carbon. In this month’s IBPSA Boston-USA’s session you’ll hear from members of the design team who will discuss the various ways building simulation were used to help this remarkable building meet BU’s aggressive goals.

EPSI is back with yet another interesting session – “Tool and Software Development”. Ever wondered how some of the most established tools for the building performance industry started, how they got their funding and found answers to all their questions? If you have a software idea, a grasshopper script, or a python code ready but wondering how to take it forward in the industry or are just excited to learn more about building simulation tool development, this webinar is for you.