Category: Energy Management and Lighting

Is Your Facility Blackout-Ready? Ensuring Safety and Continuity During Power Failures

Between extreme weather events, an aging power grid, and the transition to renewable energy, power interruptions are becoming a much greater risk in all parts of the country. Many will remember the highly publicized 2013 Super Bowl blackout when the power shut down the biggest game in American sports for 34 minutes, plunging the New […]

Mitigating Workplace Hazards with Smart Facility Design

Workplaces of all shapes and sizes have potential safety hazards lurking around almost every corner. From slippery floors and poor indoor air quality to excessive noise and inadequate emergency preparedness, the number of employee safety and well-being risks is quite high. Facilities managers everywhere have a duty of care to mitigate these dangers for the […]

State Farm Stadium: Star Player for Men’s March Madness Final Four

Glendale, Arizona’s State Farm Stadium, home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals, is about 10 miles from downtown Phoenix and will be the home of the ultimate thrill of victory and the agony of defeat for the remaining four teams of March Madness, as the NCAA Basketball Men’s Final Four and championship games will be held […]

How to Better Maintain Facilities with Thermal Imagery

Facilities managers looking for ways to better maintain their properties while saving money should consider investing in thermal imagery. This topic was discussed during the Feb. 29 Facilities Management Advisor webinar “Getting Started with Thermal Imagery: A Beginners Guide to Thermography for Building Inspections,” sponsored by Zeitview, a company that builds advanced inspection software. The […]

Major Bronx Zoo Energy Upgrade to Benefit Animals and the Bottom Line

One of the largest zoos in the U.S. isn’t monkeying around when it comes to sustainability! The New York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), the New York Power Authority (NYPA), and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced the completion of mechanical work to the heating system at the Bronx Zoo, marking a significant […]

Energy Group Slams International Code Council Over Model Building Rules

On March 18, the International Code Council’s (ICC) board of directors made determinations on a series of appeals to the draft 2024 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), thus finalizing the latest model code that sets minimum energy efficiency requirements for new commercial and residential buildings. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a nonprofit […]

DOE Offers Public Schools $180M for Clean Energy Upgrades

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has opened applications for the 2024 Renew America’s Schools Prize, which will award $180 million for clean energy upgrades at public K-12 schools to lower costs and improve indoor air quality. Funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this new round of funding builds on $178 million in grants awarded […]

UT Southern Plans Major Campus Security Upgrades

The University of Tennessee Southern has been awarded over $4 million by the state, part of a larger $6 million allocation to the University of Tennessee System for one-time investments aimed at enhancing safety and security across UT Southern’s main and east campuses in Pulaski, Tenn. This funding initiative comes in the wake of a […]

EPA Names Most Energy-Efficient Manufacturing Plants of 2023

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized 103 U.S. manufacturing plants that earned the agency’s ENERGY STAR certification in 2023, a designation reserved for manufacturing plants in the top 25% of energy efficiency in their sector. Together, these facilities prevented more than 8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to the emissions from […]

5 Benefits of Using Building Information Modeling in Facility Construction

Building information modeling (BIM), a digital representation of the physical and functional characteristics of a facility, creates a shared knowledge resource for information, making it easier for facilities managers to make decisions, according to the Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG). The WBDG notes that while some might think of BIM as just 3D modeling and […]