Insights and observations from our practice and elsewhere
Australia’s most likeable NABERS
Congratulations to our clients Brookfield, Charter Hall, Stockland and Property NSW for being rated among Australia’s best performing office portfolios …
Buildings Alive joins RACE for 2030 CRC bid
Buildings Alive has signed on as an industry partner to a major energy innovation research initiative application: the Reliable Affordable Clean Energy for 2030 Cooperative Research Centre (RACE for 2030 CRC). The vision of the RACE for 2030 CRC is to conduct...
It’s confirmed! Meaningful and science-based targets do make a difference.
Readers of our Insights blog may recall that Buildings Alive has been investigating ways to calculate targets for building energy performance. In 2017, we announced a new technique we have created to set empirically-based targets, and subsequently included this in...
We’re hiring – opportunities to join us
Our business is growing, and we have a number of opportunities to join us on our journey to optimise the energy and environmental performance of large, complex buildings. We're currently looking for: a communications and marketing lead a building systems engineer a...
The smartest way to keep tenants happy during extreme weather
No matter where you live, you’ve probably just endured a blistering few months of extreme weather. At times during the past week, we’ve seen temperatures exceeding 40°C (105°F) in southern parts of Australia and almost 40°C (-40°F) below freezing in parts of North...
What is a target range ?
Just as there is no such thing as a ‘perfect building’, there can be no such thing as a ‘perfect model’ of a building’s electricity use (or water, gas, etc.). At Buildings Alive we are obsessive (some might even say perfectionist!) about modelling, but we also...
Managing energy efficiency in summer
It is getting warmer and humid and we have already experienced some extreme weather conditions in Australia in late October/early November. It is a good time for facility managers to think about how to optimise building energy performance for summer - the potential...
Recognising the best of the best
Across the board, Buildings Alive’s clients consistently deliver good building energy performance, and are rewarded through reduced energy costs, maintenance costs and improved tenant comfort. These are all great performance measurements when looking inward - at the...
Energy efficiency opportunities in spring
Spring is already upon us and with it comes a great opportunity for achieving energy efficiency and improving tenant comfort. Outside temperatures are slowly increasing and occupant behaviour will start to change as warmer days become more frequent. Buildings...
ACEEE 2018 Take-aways
The 2018 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings brought researchers from around the world together to discuss emerging trends and challenges in the energy efficiency space. Over 900 people attended the conference over five days in Pacific Grove,...
4 ACEEE Summer Study 2018 Papers
Operating at the leading edge of building energy performance analysis, Buildings Alive commits a significant amount of resources to research and development activity. Several of Buildings Alive's staff have had research papers accepted to the prestigious American...
The evidence is in: peak demand is “manageable”
Owners and managers of large non-residential buildings usually pay around 15–30% of their (ever-increasing) electricity bills for network ‘capacity’ in most markets. But peak demand savings are rarely a focus for management. Why? Until recently there have been a few...