Academics

'Leadership in Building Energy Efficiency' workshop for faculty May 23-25

Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

Leadership in Building Energy Efficiency (LBEE) is a course developed by faculty in Penn State's Department of Architectural Engineering with funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). It is targeted to graduate and upper-level undergraduate engineering students and provides hands-on learning about commercial building energy efficiency.

The course has been designed as a “flipped classroom” with most content delivered online, on-demand. The classroom time is devoted to building investigations, learning about tools used to assess energy efficiency and discussion. The course content is housed in an online learning management system (LMS). All course materials will be available through the LMS for those teaching the class at their institution.

On May 23-25,  at The Navy Yard in Philadelphia, Penn State is offering a three-day workshop (half day on Monday and Wednesday and full day Tuesday). The purpose of the workshop is to prepare higher education faculty and instructors to teach LBEE. These goals will be accomplished at the workshop by:

  • Having workshop participants teach one or more modules of the course to gain first-hand experience and obtain feedback from other participants and Penn State faculty

  • Incorporating lessons learned from Penn State faculty’s experience teaching LBEE

  • Showing participants how to manage the LMS and customize it for their course delivery

  • Participating in building investigations to gain an understanding of how to lead walk-downs with students and identify energy saving opportunities

  • Conducting building energy assessments and generating reports that identify energy saving opportunities for the building owners/management

The DEP is offering this workshop free of charge. Several travel stipends will be available for Pennsylvania-based faculty who travel more than 100 miles to Philadelphia. These stipends for meals, mileage and hotel expenses will be given on a first-come, first-serve basis. Any questions regarding the workshop or travel stipends should be directed to Lisa Shulock at lshulock@engr.psu.edu or 215-218-7582.

Apply for the workshop online.

More information: This course focuses on the identification and implementation of low to no cost energy savings opportunities in commercial buildings via a process called “re-tuning.” Re-tuning is a systematic process that identifies operational problems by leveraging data collected from a building walk-down and correcting those problems at no- or low-cost. This course is intended to provide the skills necessary to conduct building re-tuning. It introduces the topics of energy management through no-cost and low-cost operational measures in the following major focus areas: lighting, building envelope, hot water/steam systems, HVAC, compressed air, indoor environmental quality and plug loads. Students will learn how data is acquired through several on-site building walk-downs, conversion to graphical formats and interpretation for operational diagnosis. Each building re-tune is then summarized in a final report. Other tools including the Energy Star Portfolio Manager and Building Energy Asset Score are also utilized.

Last Updated March 23, 2016