Feds Seek Energy-Efficient Building Projects

The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE), seeking commercial projects for its energy-efficient commercial buildings program, has extended a call for potential projects until noon Eastern on May 14. DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory had issued both a call for projects, aimed at commercial building owners and operators, and a request for proposals targeted at commercial building technical experts.The RFP deadline for the technical experts remains 3 pm Pacific on May 10.

DOE’s national laboratories will use money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to select and fund technical experts to provide technical guidance to improve the energy efficiency of the commercial building projects selected. Though building owners and operators receive no direct funding, they will have access to state-of-the-art technical guidance to implement energy-efficiency technologies throughout the design, construction, and evaluation of their building and retrofit projects, says DOE. This includes guidance with energy modeling, assessing and choosing appropriate energy-efficiency measures and energy performance verification.

Information about the call for projects can be found at www.nrel.gov/cbp . Information about the technical expert RFP can be found at cbp-forum.lbl.gov.

Nadine M. Post, ENR's editor-at-large for buildings, is an award-winning journalist with 45 years of experience covering trends, issues, innovations, controversies and challenging projects. Post has written about many industry giants, including 10 ENR Award of Excellence winners. And she has covered disasters, failures and attacks, including the 1993 bombing and the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center. Project stories include the redevelopment of the World Trade Center; the 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa; Los Angeles’ Disney Concert Hall; and Seattle's Bullitt Center and Rainier Square Tower. In 1985, Post wrote McGraw-Hill's book Restoring the Statue of Liberty (1986) for the restoration’s architects—Richard S. Hayden and Thierry W. Despont.

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60% of workers are exposed to heights greater than 5 ft daily, and workers' compensation from injury is more than $7B - it's time for construction leaders to take measures to reduce risk and create a safer work environment. We'll explore how technology can improve construction site safety and help prevent accidents before they happen.