Through its BetterBricks Initiative NEEA focuses on promoting energy-efficient design and operations of commercial buildings throughout the Northwest. NEEA targets portfolio building owners and managers within the most “energy-intensive” markets, such as  healthcare and office real estate, to promote strategic energy management. Through its BetterBricks Initiative, NEEA influences building owners and managers to create strong market demand for high-performance building design and operations, as well as energy-efficient business practices and products. 

At the same time, NEEA trains and builds the technical market capability of the commercial market’s design and service professionals to meet this demand.  As in all of its sector work, NEEA collaborates with its utility partners in the Northwest to overcome key market barriers and achieve sustained market transformation through strategic partnerships with industry leaders, technical and business advisory services and existing market trade groups such as the American Institute of Architects (AIA) or the Buildings Owners and Managers Association (BOMA).

NEEA uses the following approaches in the commercial sector through its BetterBricks Initiative:

Strategic Energy Management: NEEA works to overcome a variety of barriers in the office real estate and healthcare markets, including a lack of understanding of the “bottom-line benefits” of energy efficiency by healthcare and real estate executives. These executives may not see the immediate business value of investments in energy efficiency. Likewise, their employees may also be in need of training in energy efficiency best practices. 

To overcome these barriers, NEEA builds demand for energy efficiency services by working with the most influential company executives in healthcare and real estate, typically those who own or operate multiple buildings within these target markets.  Once they understand the value, NEEA works with them on strategic energy management plans (SEMP). As these influential organizations improve their business practices, NEEA captures these best practices and assists in spreading them across the region, through its utility stakeholders and other trusted industry partners including BOMA and a variety of state and national healthcare groups.

Building Market Skills/Capacity: As building owners and managers start changing the way they manage their energy use, they start asking for more energy-efficient products and services. To meet this demand NEEA provides tools, technical advice and trainings to those who design and operate commercial buildings.  NEEA works with leading architectural, engineering and service contractors to improve both their technical skills and service offerings.  This has helped introduce integrated design practices into 50 percent of the design firms servicing the healthcare and office real estate markets. These firms are changing their business offerings to design high-performance buildings. In addition, NEEA works with leading industry partners like the AIA and the International Facility Managers Association (IFMA) to spread best practices and technical capacity throughout the Northwest region.

BetterBricks’ Integrated Design Lab facilities are a trusted resource for the design community. NEEA partners with the region’s top architecture schools, utilities and in some cases state energy offices to establish and operate these facilities. The labs work with designers to bring the highest energy performance considerations directly to the design table, helping lock in the savings from the ground up.

The Northwest consumes nearly one average megawatt every year due to inefficient computer power supplies. NEEA set out in 2004 to become the first funder of the 80 PLUS power supplies initiative—an electric utility-funded incentive program to integrate more energy-efficient power supplies into desktop computers. At the time, efficient power supplies were not a priority for manufacturers. To overcome this barrier, the immediate hope was to jumpstart the next ENERGY STAR specification for PCs. In 2007, the 80 PLUS Initiative did just that and the Environmental Protection Agency officially adopted 80 PLUS criteria as part of its new ENERGY STAR specification for desktop and laptop computers. The Initiative helped recruit manufacturers and by 2008, more than 60 were on board offering more than 200 80 PLUS-qualified power supply models.

But these accomplishments are only the beginning. It is projected that 80 PLUS computer power supplies could save the region nearly 18 aMW of total regional savings over the next five years—enough conservation to power nearly 13,140 homes each year. Moving forward in 2010, NEEA will continue to monitor and track the number of 80 PLUS qualified power supplies that are shipped to the region, as well as the number of computers shipped to the region that meet the new ENERGY STAR specification.

Raising energy codes for commercial buildings is a strategic area of focus for NEEA and its partners because of the long-term energy savings higher codes deliver. But codes cannot work without a holistic approach—a comprehensive market strategy that provides the push of markets with the pull of codes. Better codes deliver the most value when they follow voluntary energy efficiency programs.

Over the past 10 years, thousands of builders and architects within the commercial sector have received NEEA’s energy code training, which is not readily available by any other source. Click here for more information on NEEA’s work with codes and standards.