2008 Winter Meeting State of the Society

Kent Peterson
ASHRAE President
State of the Society Address
2008 ASHRAE Winter Meeting

There is no question that we as an industry are in a period of change.  This change will bring about many demands and challenges on ASHRAE as the need expands for high-performance buildings that are environmentally responsible.

Let me also emphasize that this is also a wonderful time to be an ASHRAE member!

We belong to a great organization.  An organization that is rich in our body of knowledge as we are in our history.

In the past several years, we have embraced change and defined our priorities.  We have focused on what is important – improving the global built environment - while reducing its impact on the natural environment. 

We have learned to streamline our processes to develop guidance and tools quicker and better allocate valuable volunteer resources.  We have sought the cooperation of many other organizations in pursuit of common goals.

I can report today that sustainability principles have now been woven into the very fabric of ASHRAE.

The technical strength of our organization is noted around the world as I have traveled this year. It is you, our volunteers that create this strength in ASHRAE committees and chapters.  It is your dedication and commitment to improvement that are an inspiration to organizations all over the world.

We continue to improve the value of ASHRAE through our expanding knowledge base, our valuable research program, our network of chapters and student branches, and the precious interaction with and between associate societies.

ASHRAE continues to be the organization where members of the building and refrigeration community can come together, learn, share and collaborate – all for the greater good of society. 

It really is a wonderful connection of vision, talent, and experience with a whole lot of passion.
Since we last met in June, oil has hit the $100 per barrel milestone.  As you recall, we were concerned in 2004 when the price of oil roughly doubled in a year to $55 per barrel. 

Rising energy costs and the increased global awareness of the potential impact of climate change continues to drive home the message that low-energy, environmentally responsible, high-performance buildings are the future.

In my theme this year, I challenged all of us to be more innovative in our thinking, more elegant with our solutions and more determined to deliver buildings that perform. 

I have been encouraged by the collective efforts I am seeing around the world in this regard. In our global quest of sustainability ASHRAE has diversified its focus on energy efficiency and low-energy buildings to include rational exergy management and low-exergy buildings.

Sustainable building HVAC systems will need to be more efficient and move away from fossil fuel.

The international community has already taken important steps in this direction with contributions by ASHRAE members to IEA Annex 37-Low-Exergy Systems for Heating and Cooling of Buildings.  As a first but important step, ASHRAE has established a Task Group, TG-1, Exergy Analysis for Sustainable Buildings to better coordinate ASHRAE exergy activities. Today, building energy efficiency represents a vast and still underutilized energy resource in the world.  Buildings are the single largest user of primary energy and the single largest contributor of greenhouse gases.

According to the Fourth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global residential and commercial building sector has the greatest potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions using today’s technologies.

However, according to a poll published late last year by the American Institute of Architects, just 7 percent of U.S. voters knew that buildings were the largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. 

Improving our public educational efforts could have an enormous impact on public perception and, in turn, spur far greater interest and investment in energy efficiency.

I have spent time in the past few months informing both media outlets and legislators on the energy impact of buildings and the benefits of improving energy efficiency.

ASHRAE continues to be committed to providing aggressive energy efficiency improvements in both new and existing buildings through our standards, guidelines, and other publications.  The ultimate goal is to get to market viable net-zero-energy buildings to reduce the built environment impact. The good news is that we have many activities currently underway aimed at helping the industry improve the performance of buildings. 

We continue to develop and update ASHRAE standards while actively participating in the international standards arena. We are working to improve the energy efficiency requirements in Standard 90.1. Setting a more energy efficient baseline for building codes is a step that needs to happen, and we are working within our consensus process to make this a reality. We are also expecting the second public review of Standard 189.1P, Design of High-Performance Green Buildings, to be out this spring.

I have been on a mission this year to promote energy efficient performance in buildings.

The stated intent for energy efficiency at the design stage must transcend into the build, commissioning and operational stages if we are to succeed in substantially improving building energy performance.

ASHRAE and our partners are working together to develop better building performance metrics that will allow us to better benchmark performance. This effort will provide a consistent method of measuring, expressing and comparing energy use, water use, carbon emissions, and the indoor environmental quality of buildings.

I recently appointed a new Presidential Ad Hoc Committee to develop a program for ASHRAE Building Energy Labeling.  Europe has similar building energy labeling programs being implemented to improve the visibility of actual building energy performance. The goal of the ASHRAE Building Energy Labeling Program is to develop a program that will recognize actual building energy consumption and encourage the efficient use of energy.

How did you like our new magazine, High Performing Buildings?  Albert Einstein once said the best way to convince others is through examples. It is our goal to provide innovative case studies on building envelopes, daylighting applications, efficient lighting strategies, and low-energy HVAC systems used in High Performing Buildings.

We are looking for case studies for future issues – let us know if you have a High Performing Building project that has been in operation for at least one year and you would be willing to share the data and lessons learned.

As part of our effort to educate the marketplace on new innovative design methods, ASHRAE will provide a satellite broadcast on Integrated Building Design on April 16.  This broadcast will explain how integrated building design can help you and other members of the building team create high-performance buildings. This free broadcast will be available via satellite and webcast.

ASHRAE was privileged to be a title sponsor is the recent U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Competition held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.   Teams of students from across the world competed to design, construct and operate innovative, energy-efficient, solar powered homes. 

The Solar Decathletes - tomorrow's engineers, architects, researchers, and homeowners - shared with us a new vision for living in energy-efficient environments powered by renewable energy.  My thanks goes out to the numerous ASHRAE members who volunteered their time to work with the various teams and assist during the competition.

Our Advanced Energy Design Guide series continues to play a significant role in our net-zero efforts.  This series, now with three publications, has provided 30 percent energy reduction guidance for various types of buildings, including our latest for K-12 schools. And because we want more energy-efficient schools for our children, we sent the new K-12 guide to nearly 14,000 school systems across the United States.

We are also working on a new Advanced Energy Guide for Existing Buildings that will help building owners and managers achieve at least 30 percent energy savings in existing buildings.

We are serious about getting this valuable information into the marketplace. We have made all of the Advanced Energy Design Guides available for free.  Anyone can download a free electronic version directly from www.ashrae.org/freeaedg.

Our next step is to progress to the 50 percent energy reduction guides starting later this year. After the 50 percent Advanced Energy Design Guide series, we will progress straight to net-zero energy building guidance.

Let me now share with you a video on net-zero-energy building. This video illustrates how to take a typical two-story building and achieve net-zero-energy use with existing technologies.

Now more than ever ASHRAE needs to provide leadership.  This leadership will require a steady vision, technical credibility, proper direction, and collaboration with other organizations - with immediate action in many areas.

I know that we are ready for this challenge.  When we do what is right, burden changes to benefit.

It truly is a wonderful time to be an ASHRAE member.  Think about the difference we can make!

Let us go forward this year and demonstrate to the world we can engineer sustainable solutions to improve the environment in which we live.

We remain determined to make a difference!