ATLANTA - The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has appointed its first Building Energy Codes ASHRAE Fellow in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The new Fellow, Mike Erbesfeld, will assist the DOE in assessing the impact of updating state energy codes to meet the 2010 version of ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1.

“The fellowship is valuable in that I get to bring my industry perspective to the federal government, where I can illustrate the obstacles and pitfalls on the path to net-zero-energy buildings,” said Erbesfeld. “At the same time, this collaboration will hopefully ease the communication among owners, designers, and building code officials, creating a more efficient and streamlined process from design to certificate of occupancy.”

Erbesfeld will be placed in the DOE’s Office of Building Technologies, Building Energy Codes Program. He will analyze energy code updates based on EnergyPlus analysis of benchmark buildings and cost databases, as well as perform compliance testing of COMcheck using benchmark buildings and recommend program and front end changes to simplify COMcheck use. COMcheck is a software program from the DOE developed to simplify energy code compliance by offering a flexible computer-based alternative to manual calculations.

Erbesfeld’s most recent role was as an ASHRAE Congressional Fellow in the office of Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), where he worked on legislative efforts that included tax credits and deductions to assist homeowners and businesses make energy efficiency improvements and with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to ensure that their energy efficiency mortgage (EEM) program was utilized to its full potential.

ASHRAE launched its Washington Fellow program in 2007 to allow participants to work in the federal government in a technical advisory role for limited terms. The Society is accepting applications for additional DOE ASHRAE Fellows. For more information on the program, contact Doug Read, ASHRAE program director of government affairs, at dread@ashrae.org or 202-833-1830.

Publication date: 05/18/2009