The Smart Buildings Center Announces New Initiative that Will Provide $350,000 to Accelerate Deployment of Innovative Building Efficiency Technologies
Seattle, WA (PRWEB) November 03, 2014 -- The Smart Buildings Center (SBC) has announced a new initiative to help launch innovative smart building and energy efficiency technologies in the Pacific Northwest. The SBC will work with companies to match cutting-edge technologies with buildings that are a good fit for initial product deployment and testing. The organization will provide $350,000 in technical assistance funding for industry-leading contractors to help get the new products and services deployed and evaluated by a third-party.
A central goal of the SBC’s Accelerated Technologies Deployment program is to allow technology companies to gain reference customers while obtaining independent evaluations of their solutions. It also gives the marketplace a better understanding of what is possible in the smart buildings space; thereby, helping to stimulate adoption by building owners and increase utilization of new technologies by service providers.
“The smart buildings technology market is expected to grow rapidly over the next four years—from $7.3 billion in 2014 to $21.9 billion in 2018—as there is increasing market awareness of the business value generated through the convergence of information technology and building automation,” says Jill Feblowitz, Vice President at IDC Energy Insights, which has recently released a report on the topic. “Demonstration projects, like those announced today by the Smart Buildings Center, build the business case for adoption and will help spur the industry’s boom.”
“Washington state has been a leader in energy efficiency for decades. At the same time, we have a world-class information technology industry and a number of the world’s leading smart grid companies,” says Marc Cummings, CEO of the Smart Buildings Center. “As energy efficiency solutions become ‘smarter,’ we see a huge opportunity for the region to lead in the development of those products and services. By helping companies to find a partner to help them test and evaluate their product, this initiative will help companies in our region get to market more quickly.”
The funding for the SBC’s Accelerated Technologies Deployment program comes from the US Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration’s i6 Green grant program with matching funds provided by Washington State Department of Commerce.
The initiative is an outgrowth of work done by the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), which identified building efficiency as a significant economic development opportunity for the region. “Energy efficiency and building efficiency is an important emerging cluster for the Puget Sound region,” says Sarah Lee, Principal Economic Development Manager at the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC). “Organizations like the Smart Buildings Center are indispensable as we look to support this growth, attract new companies to the region, create jobs, and provide leadership for the nation.”
The Accelerated Technology Deployment program comes on the heels of a similar effort to deploy and evaluate software-based virtual baseline and auditing technologies in commercial buildings with the aim of determining whether operational changes and capital upgrades can occur faster and at lower cost with virtual tools than with traditional building assessments. The results of this study will be available in November 2014 on the “Initiatives” page of the SBC’s website.
About the Smart Buildings Center
The Smart Buildings Center (SBC) was launched in 2013 with state and federal funding and is now part of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Council (NEEC). The SBC serves as a hub for industry activities, raises the visibility of energy efficiency companies and projects, and creates resources to help industry tackle a range of important issues. One of the SBC’s primary goals is to increase building owner and investor confidence in building energy projects by catalyzing the industry shift from predicted to measured, performance-driven energy savings. The Smart Buildings Center is currently leading initiatives to:
• Create a vendor-neutral platform to help industry monitor and exhibit the performance of projects, buildings, and technologies
• Establish a regional partnership to evaluate innovative energy efficiency technologies under real-world conditions in operating buildings
• Showcase innovative companies’ products and services, including transforming the historic Pacific Tower in Seattle into an iconic smart buildings demonstration center
• Work with building owners, regional leaders, and policy-makers to increase confidence in energy efficiency project savings
Discover more at http://www.smartbuildingscenter.org.
Media Contact:
Eric Gertsman, Smart Buildings Center
[email protected], C: 202-294-0424
Eric Gertsman, Windchange Consulting, +1 (202) 294-0424, [email protected]
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