Co-Chairs’ Introduction

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Welcome to the 14th Biennial ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings.

For many of the participants at the ACEEE Summer Study, energy efficiency has long been seen as a critical tool needed to reach lofty goals related to costs, comfort, and stewardship. Energy efficiency can help with goals as diverse as helping individual families cope with the high costs of energy, to contributing to national security, to protecting the Earth’s atmosphere. But the days of considering energy efficiency a “virtue” are probably over. Using hockey as an analogy, one could think of this as the era of the hockey stick. The hockey stick is turning out to be a very persuasive influence on thinking regarding energy efficiency, not because this game-day device would make a good persuader in a back alley, but because its shape represents the exponential curve that seems to define many of our most pressing issues.

From the price of oil, natural gas, and coal, to rising temperatures and melting ice sheets, change is happening exponentially. The result is unstable weather patterns, higher operating prices, growing demand for new energy sources, and growing calls for government action to solve these problems.

The search for solutions has led to a renewed interest in energy efficiency. Energy efficiency may represent our best hope to avoid the worst consequences of global warming and energy resource depletion. But to achieve this potential, the energy efficiency engine has to be greatly expanded. New programs, technologies, and financing sources must be developed. A new generation of energy efficiency practitioners, researchers, and policymakers need to be trained and deployed to solve the problems we face. In short, our energy efficiency “industry” must scale up through the same hockey-stick transition that describes the energy problems we face.

Finding new approaches and improving old ones is what the Summer Study is all about—301 papers, among the highest number ever, will be presented at the 2008 Summer Study. The authors, along with the participants who question and bring their own perspectives, are what make the Summer Study a valuable source of information and networking: providing in-depth analyses, introducing new technologies and ideas, evaluating how well technologies and programs accomplish goals, and examining policy options for the future.

As a community of researchers, engineers, designers, implementers, planners, and evaluators, we cannot afford to simply accept that energy efficiency will accomplish important goals. We must question our assumptions, set out our alternatives, and choose the best paths forward in each of our decision making capacities. The papers presented at the Summer Study provide the ideas and data that can support these decisions.

Our thanks go to the 25 panel leaders who evaluated abstracts, selected papers, and guided them through a rigorous peer review process. We also thank the authors who produced a great number of interesting and informative papers, and the peer reviewers who help ensure the highest quality proceedings possible. We’d like to thank the ACEEE staff, particularly Rebecca Lunetta and Glee Murray, who handle all aspects of the Summer Study, from the big picture to the smallest detail, with the greatest of ease. Finally, thank you to the participants who came to question the presenters, puzzle over the responses, converse with their peers, and help solve the problems confronting us all.

Have a great time at Asilomar!

Michael Baechler, Conference Co-Chair, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richard Brown, Conference Co-Chair, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory