Building Energy Efficiency through Engaged Scholarship

Buildings represent significant opportunities to reduce energy consumption through reductions in waste, improvements in efficiency, and changes in operations. The characterization of energy saving opportunities in buildings can be a labor-intensive process and needs to be undertaken in a manner that balances investments in auditing effort and energy savings analysis with the likelihood of actual investment in action. This research examines an integrative approach to the characterization of energy savings opportunities in buildings through the preparation of students to conduct "building retuning" assessments as an embedded engaged scholarship activity in a college-level engineering course. The motivation of this approach is the simultaneous accumulation of hands-on experience in energy assessment and evaluation by students and added values for building owners and managers. This will lead to more informed investments in low cost and no-cost energy savings actions as well as increasing the likelihood of making investments in more detailed auditing services. The rationale and design for course objectives and learning modules are presented. A case study in which trial building walkthrough assessments were used to assess the confidence of students as value-adding contributors to commercial building energy auditing are also described, and the evaluation of the alignment of the approach within a large campus of a research university are presented. The relationship between this effort and emerging auditing practices and credentials for building energy efficiency professionals is also presented along with a set of shared resources available to colleges and universities seeking to adapt and build upon this approach on their respective campuses.