Winter Semiannual Meeting Round-Up
IBPSA-USA held its semiannual meeting at The Pub in Orlando on Saturday, February 8th. Approximately 40 members, students, and spouses attended this casual get-together on the eve of the ASHRAE Winter Conference which took place a few blocks away at the Hilton Orlando.
The event was emceed by IBPSA-USA president Nathaniel Jones and sponsored by CCTech, the Centre for Computational Technologies. Sandip Jadhav, CEO of CCTech, opened the evening with a brief presentation on the product launch of Buildings AI.
IBPSA-USA vice president Neal Kruis presented highlights of recent and ongoing IBPSA-USA sponsored projects. IBPSA-USA is working on several projects to support the building performance modeling community. These include developing a software certification portal, outreach to AHJs and software developers on the benefits of a common reporting schema, and incorporating IBPSA-USA’s Climate Information Consensus Document into ASHRAE Standard 169.
In the area of education, IBPSA-USA is developing a BEMP training program and an education strategic plan. The BEMP training materials are undergoing final reviews and will be available soon.
IBPSA-USA is also working to align research activities with the needs of practitioners through an industry-led initiatives program. This program will award IBPSA-USA members who come up with good project ideas through a fun competition.
Finally, Jones announced the dates and venue for SimBuild 2026, IBPSA-USA’s biennial national conference. SimBuild 2026 will take place on May 20-22, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, preceded by HackSimBuild on May 18-19. The event is expected to be the preeminent building performance simulation event of 2026, after the 2024 conference in Denver drew over 300 attendees. Nathan Kegel of IBPSA-USA’s Minneapolis chapter took the microphone to welcome attendees to next year’s conference.
IBPSA-USA’s next semiannual meeting will coincide with the ASHRAE Annual Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, on June 21st, 2025. Mark your calendars and join us for another fun-filled event!
