Energy Data Available Anywhere, Any Time
(NREL news feature) – Having rapidly established itself as a “go to” site for transportation and other related energy information, the Virtual Information Bridge to Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (VIBE) is expanding its reach to attract new users across the widest range of energy issues. A sister site to VIBE, called Open Energy Information, has been launched to allow organizations around the world to both post their own energy data and download data, for free.
At the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), VIBE is known as a state-of-the art presentation studio on the third floor of Building 16. Its walls are covered with flat-screen monitors aglow with widgets, home pages, Web links and sundry visual cues of the virtual world, all smattered among scores of more conventional pie charts, myriad bar graphs and a plethora of energy data sets.
To the world beyond the Laboratory, VIBE and Open Energy Information (OpenEI) contain that same treasure trove of information and a lot more — with every tidbit of data just a mouse click away from any internet-connected device, anywhere.
http://www.nrel.gov/features/20100108_vibe.html
(from the ASHRAE Press Room) – As publication of the nation’s first code-intended high-performance green building standard draws nearer, a Webpage providing the detailed information about the standard, including a draft copy of the document, has been launched.
Proposed Standard 189.1, Standard for the Design of High Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, moved one step closer to publication in December. It was approved for publication by the Boards of Directors of ASHRAE, IES and USGBC, the three groups that are partnering in its development. ASHRAE is going through the final stages of the American National Standards Institute consensus development process and is hopeful the standard will be available in January.
“Given that this standard will set the foundation for green building codes, it is vital that the building industry is familiar with its requirements,” Kent Peterson, chair of the Standard 189.1 committee, said. “ASHRAE, USGBC and IES recognize the potential of this standard to change the marketplace and are working to educate the industry. Given its impact, we also are working to make the standard available as quickly as possible.”
www.ashrae.org/greenstandard serves as a one-stop resource for information on Proposed Standard 189.1, Standard for the Design of High Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings. The page contains an easily readable version of the standard, along with more information on the areas addressed by the standard and other resources for high-performance building.
Proposed Standard 189.1 is being developed by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) in conjunction with the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IES) and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The standard, slated to be the first code-intended commercial green building standard in the United States, is expected to be published in early 2010.
