Chris Balbach, PSD’s Vice President of Research & Development, was recently selected by the DOE’s Building Technologies Office to join a peer review panel to evaluate the efficacy of the DOE funded Rooftop Unit (RTU) campaign. As a reviewer, Chris will evaluate 5-10 projects within BTO’s Commercial Buildings portfolio to determine their relative contributions to the mission and goals of the program. Chris and other panel participants will provide the DOE with market based feedback and suggest ways to improve the success of the RTU program.
About the RTU Campaign
RTUs are used in nearly half of all cooling conditioned commercial floor space in the United States (source: EERE.gov). As a part of the Obama Administration’s all-of-the-above energy strategy, the DOE introduced the RTU Challenge in January 2011, to stimulate the market penetration of cost-effective and high-performance commercial rooftop unit air conditioners. According to the DOE, if all 10-20 ton commercial units were replaced with units built to the new [RTU efficiency] specifications, businesses would save about $1 billion each year in energy costs (source: EERE.gov). The RTU program’s mission is to eliminate barriers preventing the replacement of existing inefficient rooftop unit equipment, and to assist manufacturing partners in providing cost-effective high-efficiency alternatives. To learn more about the DOE RTU campaign click here.
About Chris Balbach:
Chris is an expert in using energy modeling and analysis software to analyze the investment potential of existing buildings, with a focus on energy efficiency, building durability and occupant health and safety. Chris is proficient with over 20 different energy modeling tools, and works closely with PSD’s internal software development team to test and improve PSD’s energy modeling and calculation tools. To learn more about Chris click here.
