Get With the Program

July 1, 2009
Announcing the EGB 2009 session lineup

Last month in this space, Editorial Director Mike Weil announced that HPAC Engineering's sixth annual Engineering Green Buildings (EGB) Conference and Expo will be held Sept. 24 and 25 in Nashville, Tenn., co-located with HVAC Comfortech and the Commercial HVACR Symposium to make up the first-ever HVACR Week. This month, I am pleased to announce the technical program for EGB.

Following the HVACR Week keynote event, “The Power of Service,” by motivational speaker, author, musician, entrepreneur, and environmentalist Robin Crow, hosted by Trane, EGB will begin in earnest with “Busting the Myth That Green Costs More” by James D. Qualk and Paul McCown, PE, LEED AP, CEM, CxA, of Nashville-based commissioning provider SSRCx LLC. Ben Erpelding, PE, CEM, of Optimum Energy LLC then will present several cases from varying U.S. climates in which 40- to 70-percent reductions in energy use were achieved by retrofitting chilled-water plants and variable-air-volume air-handling systems. Day 1 of EGB will conclude with Gerald J. Williams, PE, LEED AP, of McClure Engineering discussing the greenhouse-gas production of various central-chilled-water-plant technologies, an especially timely topic given that nearly 650 college and university presidents have signed the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, pledging to eliminate their campuses' greenhouse-gas emissions over time.

What immediately comes to mind when you hear the words “evaporative cooling”? Swamp coolers? Legionnaires' disease? A process with limited applicability? How about green? Mark S. Lentz, PE, of Lentz Engineering Associates Inc. believes evaporative cooling to be the greenest of HVAC processes and will kick off Day 2 of EGB discussing how it can be beneficial in all climates and how it plays a critical role in “opening the technological door” to net-zero-energy building performance, a topic with which Edward H. Brzezowski, PE, LEED AP, of Noveda Technologies is intimately familiar. Ed will discuss 31 Tannery in Branchburg, N.J., the first fully documented net-zero-electric commercial building in the United States, which he engineered and which serves as his company's corporate headquarters. EGB will conclude with two sessions on commissioning: “Commissioning: A Basic Ingredient for a High-Performance School” by Jim Seckel, PE, CxA, CBCP, LEED AP, and Colleen S. Smith, PE, LEED AP, CxAP, of SSRCx LLC and “The Role of Controls in Commissioning Green Buildings” by Ron Wilkinson, PE, LEED AP, of AKF Group LLC.

For more on the sessions and speakers — and to learn about an exclusive building tour for early registrants — visit www.egbconference.com.

Executive Editor Scott Arnold can be reached at [email protected].

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