Education

ACEEE (American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy) will host its biennial Summer Study in Buildings virtually. The theme for the 2020 biennial Summer Study in Buildings will be “Efficiency: The Core of a Clean Energy Future.” This theme recognizes the rapidly evolving ecosystem of the energy industry. From resilience to health, from distributed energy resources to renewables, grid integration, and virtual batteries - energy efficiency remains critical to our success. Whatever the surrounding goals for expansion of clean energy systems and services, the ability to design and operate efficient buildings is an essential requirement.

There will also be a continuation of the 'Energy Efficiency and Equity' panel, focusing on how low-income communities and communities of color stand to benefit from energy efficiency upgrades, healthier housing, and local job creation, yet have not typically received explicit attention as stakeholders. This panel will focus on efforts to reach historically under-served households with energy efficiency investments.

As well, there will be an exciting new panel this year: "Scaling Whole-Building Retrofits". Although significant progress has been made in certain areas, such as efficient lighting, other areas, such as building envelope retrofits, are still in need of scalable and cost-effective solutions. Developing, implementing and adopting whole-building solutions that significantly improve the energy efficiency of our vast number of existing buildings is critical to attaining a clean energy future. We expect that this Summer Study will be fertile ground to tackle this challenge.