BuildingEnergy Boston 2024 Sessions
Tuesday
| Session Title | Speakers | Room | Areas of Focus |
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Tuesday Keynote — Climate Changed: What Will You Do When Your Project Floods? In light of the catastrophic flooding which occurred throughout the Northeast region in 2023, we must challenge ourselves to confront the increased likelihood of extreme weather events and diminished water resilience that our projects now face.... Full Description |
Harbor Ballroom |
Design and Construction Process Building Systems Energy Production and Storage Policy, Codes, and Standards |
| Session Title | Speakers | Room | Areas of Focus |
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Biomaterials: A Regional and Global Movement for Climate Justice and Resilience Building with bio-based materials allow us to address the combined crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequity. Workforce development, housing access, regional supply chains, and sustainable food and forest systems are all... Full Description |
Harbor 1 |
Justice and Equity Materials Training and Workforce Development |
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Learn to Create Your Own Manual J Energy Model When used early in the design process, energy modeling is a powerful tool for decision making, not only for sizing equipment but also for shaping buildings and selecting materials. Iterative energy modeling results in reductions in construction... Full Description |
Harbor 2 |
Design and Construction Process Building Envelope Building Systems Training and Workforce Development |
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Go All Electric: Decarbonizing Public Housing in Boston BHA and Arup will present the results of a decarbonization study that lays out a plan to fully electrify 10,000 public and affordable housing units throughout the Greater Boston area by 2030 to meet an ambitious fossil free housing target. As the... Full Description |
Harbor 3 |
Justice and Equity Building Envelope Building Systems Policy, Codes, and Standards |
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Equitable, Data Driven, Domestic Hot Water Decarbonization While electrification of domestic hot water is picking up steam, outdated sizing guidelines result in oversized, expensive, and inefficient systems, especially in affordable multifamily housing. New Ecology’s data, from over 20 affordable... Full Description |
Marina 1 |
Justice and Equity Design and Construction Process Building Systems |
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Mitigating Refrigerant Leakage in Residential Electrification With rapid heat pump deployment and increased use of refrigerants, mitigating the global warming impact of refrigerant leaks is critical to achieving the climate benefits of electrification projects. We will discuss the importance of preventing... Full Description |
Marina 3-4 |
Design and Construction Process Building Systems Health and Comfort Operations and Maintenance |
| Session Title | Speakers | Room | Areas of Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
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Global Passive House: Extreme Climates and Cultural Challenges What does it take to meet the Passive House standard in countries with extreme climates? Can Passive House be adapted to specific cultural demands that seem at odds with Passive House principles? What can we learn from vernacular architecture?... Full Description |
Harbor 1 |
Justice and Equity Design and Construction Process Building Envelope Health and Comfort |
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Beyond Anthropocentrism: Practical Design for Resilient Building Enclosures As part of a whole-building design approach, building enclosure is a key lever in reducing operational carbon emissions. With early phase detailing, precise thermal modeling can be performed to set achievable envelope performance criteria and... Full Description |
Harbor 2 |
Design and Construction Process Building Envelope Materials Health and Comfort |
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Resilience and Sustainable Design for Laboratories: Harvard Science and Engineering Complex Case Study This session will present a case study of the 544,000 sf Harvard Science and Engineering Complex, one of the most sustainable and resilient buildings ever constructed. The project employed a highly integrated design process to satisfy the... Full Description |
Harbor 3 |
Design and Construction Process Building Envelope Building Systems Health and Comfort |
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Energizing Tomorrow: Navigating the Identification and Evaluation Processes for Successful Geothermal Projects Join us for an enlightening panel session that delves into the pivotal role geothermal can play in commercial and network scale building decarbonization, energy consumption reduction, and climate resiliency in our communities. We will guide you... Full Description |
Marina 1 |
Design and Construction Process Building Systems Operations and Maintenance |
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The Green Upgrade Calculator: A New Economic Modeling Tool for Home Decarbonization This session will present RMI’s new freely available economic modeling software for different home decarbonization technologies (e.g., rooftop solar, battery storage, weatherization, air-source heat pumps, heat pump water heaters), demonstrate... Full Description |
Marina 3-4 |
Building Envelope Building Systems Energy Production and Storage |
| Session Title | Speakers | Room | Areas of Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
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A Revolution in Embodied Carbon: Four Pivotal Materials Learn about the "Fab Four" top embodied carbon materials and how we can reduce their environmental impact. The Federal Government is focused on this topic through a pilot procurement process to shift the market, as is NYS through EO #22. Let’s... Full Description |
Harbor 1 |
Design and Construction Process Materials Policy, Codes, and Standards |
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Pretty Good Reno: The Greenest House Is an Existing House An existing house represents an enormous amount of “up front” carbon that has already been committed. The more we can re-use it, the less carbon we are releasing per unit of housing. But when is enough enough? This session is about finding the... Full Description |
Harbor 2 |
Design and Construction Process Building Envelope Building Systems Materials |
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Systems Thinking for Resilient Homes, Communities and Organizations This session will explore the use of systems thinking to accelerate decarbonization in homes and organizations. Through a case study of a single family property being redeveloped as a Passive House infill project, we will illustrate how the... Full Description |
Harbor 3 |
Design and Construction Process Business and Finance Training and Workforce Development |
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Hot Water Electrification: Methods to Reduce First Costs, Embodied Carbon, and Operating Costs Producing domestic hot water is costly in terms of energy required to physically heat water, and financially when opting to use electricity to do so. Advances in DHW system efficiencies and industry best practices can mitigate these operational... Full Description |
Marina 1 |
Building Systems Policy, Codes, and Standards |
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Energy as a Human Right: Virtual Microgrids in Low-Income Communities What was once a vision by the Green Justice Coalition (GJC) to support environmental justice communities by making them resilient and removing fossil fuels in their neighborhoods is becoming reality. The goal is simple: How can you provide a... Full Description |
Marina 3-4 |
Justice and Equity Energy Production and Storage Policy, Codes, and Standards Business and Finance |
| Session Title | Speakers | Room | Areas of Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
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The Deep Energy Retrofit Controversy Revisited Our window to avoid catastrophic climate change is closing. Existing buildings are one of the largest sources of emissions and among the hardest to decarbonize. At BuildingEnergy Boston 2023, Rachel advocated for “moderate” retrofits as a... Full Description |
Harbor 1 |
Building Envelope Building Systems Policy, Codes, and Standards |
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Heating with Ice for Cost Effective Electrification, Resilience and Optimization Building electrification using air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) is costly and requires a significant amount of space. Ice heating has the potential to reduce the capacity of ASHPs needed for full electrification by 50%, while also allowing for grid... Full Description |
Harbor 2 |
Design and Construction Process Building Systems Energy Production and Storage Policy, Codes, and Standards |
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Building as Teacher: Education, Resilience, and Sustainability from the Inside Out Franklin Cummings Tech is transforming from a technical/vocational post-secondary school into a 21st-century hub for workforce development, offering technology-focused, vocational, and green economy-driven higher education. The panel will present... Full Description |
Harbor 3 |
Justice and Equity Building Envelope Building Systems Training and Workforce Development |
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Thermal Resilience as a Retrofit Metric This session will discuss thermal resilience as a benefit of passive building strategies, and its impact on occupant safety during an outage situation. The session will explore modeling methods to determine how the building will “float” during an... Full Description |
Marina 1 |
Building Envelope Building Systems Energy Production and Storage |
Wednesday
| Session Title | Speakers | Room | Areas of Focus |
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Wednesday Keynote — The Power of Systems Thinking: Designing Equitable and Resilient Infrastructure Made possible by Daikin. Our built environment is often developed in silos, with individual owners, engineers, and designers identifying opportunities, constraints, trade-offs, and costs solely within their project boundary, and with limited... Full Description |
Harbor Ballroom |
Justice and Equity Design and Construction Process Energy Production and Storage Policy, Codes, and Standards |
| Session Title | Speakers | Room | Areas of Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
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Scaling Residential Decarbonization MassCEC’s Decarbonization Pathways pilot has tested and refined a protocol for a home decarbonization assessment with a goal of eliminating the use of fossil fuels in small residential buildings. The pilot also tested approaches to providing... Full Description |
Harbor 1 |
Justice and Equity Building Envelope Building Systems Policy, Codes, and Standards |
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Inside and Out: Insulating Our Existing Masonry Buildings In the Northeast, we have a large stock of uninsulated masonry buildings. Leaving these buildings as-is is not compatible with efforts to reduce carbon emissions and will not address climate shifts, the fabric of the community, or occupants'... Full Description |
Harbor 2 |
Design and Construction Process Building Envelope Materials |
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Efficiency is Decarbonization Our most abundant and easiest decarbonization effort is the often-neglected investment in efficiency. Sometimes referred to as the “negawatt,” many programs (primarily weatherization) stress making the building more efficient first, so that the... Full Description |
Harbor 3 |
Building Envelope Building Systems Health and Comfort |
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The RESNET Carbon Trifecta: HERS Index + CO2 Index + Embodied Carbon The "trifecta" of RESNET standards concerning operations (HERS Index), the grid (CO2 Index), and embodied carbon together provide the capacity to analyze Carbon Usage Intensity. This session will explore time-of-use, load reduction and carbon... Full Description |
Marina 1 |
Justice and Equity Materials Energy Production and Storage Policy, Codes, and Standards |
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Tools for Connection: Practicing Inclusion in Your Workplace Have you, or the company you work with, expressed interest in being more diverse, equitable, and inclusive? Do you work at a company already committed to DEI work that wants to pursue that work with other like-minded folks? Is this the first time... Full Description |
Marina 3-4 |
Justice and Equity Training and Workforce Development |
| Session Title | Speakers | Room | Areas of Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
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IRA One Year In: The Fast-Evolving Facts of the Inflation Reduction Act It's still early days for the Inflation Reduction Act, but projects are already applying for funds. Providing massive funding for many categories of energy projects, the IRA is especially prioritizing solar and geothermal systems, as well as... Full Description |
Harbor 1 |
Design and Construction Process Building Systems Energy Production and Storage Business and Finance |
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How Building Professionals Can Harness Geothermal Energy for New Climate-Resilient Housing at Scale Space conditioning accounts for more than 40% of home energy consumption. Geothermal heat pumps are the most efficient way to heat and cool a building, making them the most impactful way to reduce energy use while eliminating fossil fuels from... Full Description |
Harbor 2 |
Design and Construction Process Building Systems Health and Comfort Operations and Maintenance |
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Resilient Design for Facilities, Communities, and Climate In October 2022, Boston Medical Center opened an 82 bed behavioral health center unlike any other. This session explores how a former 1960s nursing home was transformed into an NZE inpatient facility that engages both physical and social... Full Description |
Harbor 3 |
Justice and Equity Design and Construction Process Energy Production and Storage Health and Comfort |
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Monitored VRF Performance in New Multifamily Buildings Speakers will review findings from a DOE-sponsored study of VRF performance in three new, multifamily buildings in New York City. Two of the buildings are affordable Passive House properties. The study focused on humidity control in apartments,... Full Description |
Marina 1 |
Design and Construction Process Building Systems Health and Comfort |
| Session Title | Speakers | Room | Areas of Focus |
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Rivermark: Occupied Rehab and Facade Replacement for Climate Resilient Communities This session will showcase the implementation of a high-performance façade assembly on an existing high rise concrete multi-family housing building complex, and the resulting measured data of operational energy and water consumption. In addition... Full Description |
Harbor 1 |
Justice and Equity Design and Construction Process Building Envelope Health and Comfort |
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Quality and Quantity: Strategies for Accelerating Single Family Passive Houses This session will present three case studies showing various aspects of the rapid development of single-family passive buildings. Each uniquely addresses the ability to a) expedite the process of certifying multiple single-family units within a... Full Description |
Harbor 2 |
Design and Construction Process Policy, Codes, and Standards Business and Finance |
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Lowering Total Carbon Emissions in a Dorm: Strategies for Design and Construction Discover how two innovative dormitories in Vermont, 17,000 square feet each, set new standards in low carbon emissions, both in construction and operation. This presentation delves into a comparative study of these buildings: as built, optimized... Full Description |
Harbor 3 |
Design and Construction Process Building Envelope Materials |
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Massachusetts Stretch and Specialized Codes This panel will discuss the Massachusetts Stretch and Specialized Codes, including key provisions such as thermal bridge accounting and mitigation, thermal energy demand intensity (TEDI), ventilation energy recovery, and efficient electrification... Full Description |
Marina 1 |
Design and Construction Process Policy, Codes, and Standards |
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Leveraging the Logic of Offsite Construction: A Gamified Training This will be a fun, fast-paced and interactive session that invites designers and architects to try their hand at deploying the logic of panelization to adapt a design for offsite construction and Passive House performance. Participants will work... Full Description |
Marina 3-4 |
Design and Construction Process Building Envelope Materials |
| Session Title | Speakers | Room | Areas of Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
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Buildings as Power Plants: The Growing Role of Virtual Power Plants in the Northeast Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) are aggregations of smaller aggregated Distributed Energy Resources (DER) like solar and batteries that act like a traditional power plant. This session will define the growing impact of VPPs in helping the Northeast... Full Description |
Harbor 1 |
Building Systems Energy Production and Storage Policy, Codes, and Standards Business and Finance |
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They're Making Me Do What? BERDO 2.0 from the Building Owner Perspective Building performance standards are no longer a theory. Programs that have been in development for years are now being implemented and building owners are being asked to improve the performance of their buildings. To make the task easier and... Full Description |
Harbor 2 |
Justice and Equity Policy, Codes, and Standards Operations and Maintenance |
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Passive House Verification: Get It Done Right, and Early With the continued adoption of the MA Specialized Energy Code, the certification of Passive House buildings in MA and the wider region will continue to expand in all markets. Effective completion and certification to Passive House standards will... Full Description |
Harbor 3 |
Design and Construction Process Policy, Codes, and Standards |
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What We Wish Everyone Knew: Using Commissioning Discoveries to Make Buildings Better Audience participation will be welcome during this interactive session exploring avoidable issues found during commissioning, how they result in brand new systems being installed in ways that compromise building performance from day one, and how... Full Description |
Marina 1 |
Design and Construction Process Building Systems Health and Comfort Operations and Maintenance |
