More than two dozen representatives from the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville attended the Federal Energy Management Program’s Energy Exchange Aug. 21-23 in Cleveland.
The U.S. Department of Energy combined the Energy Exchange with its Better Buildings Summit to create the largest DOE training, trade show, and peer-to-peer knowledge sharing event of the year.
Energy Division attendees represented Huntsville Center’s Commercial Utility Program, Energy Engineering Analysis Program, Energy Savings Performance Contracting, Utility Energy Services Contracting and Resource Efficiency Management.
Huntsville Center representatives from the Office of Counsel and Engineering Division attended as well.
Mike Norton, Energy Division Planning Branch chief, said the forum provided Energy Division personnel opportunities to interface personally with key federal leaders from the federal, state and local government as well as private industry and education sectors to discuss best practices in adoption of energy/water efficiency, integrated resilience, emerging and secure technologies, and renewable energy solutions.
“These are the people who make policies and provide direction to agencies and organizations we support,” Norton said.
Norton said attending the event also enabled the staff to stay abreast of current technologies and best practices by participate in committee activities and meeting with and listening to nationally known experts speaking on their technical expertise.
During the event there were more than 120 technical sessions with more than 85 percent of the sessions awarding continuing education credits.
Teresa Whalen, a project manager with the Huntsville Center’s REM program, attended many of the REM-specific sessions including an Army-wide meeting in which REMs learned about the current Army’s Energy Resiliency policy, guidance and directives.
“(In the meeting) REMs were informed about additional energy resilience policies, guidance and directives that will be issued in fiscal year 2019,” she said. “Energy resiliency is a priority for the Army and must be considered in every project developed and executed and REMs will be key in implementing these Army directives.”
The Energy Department's Federal Energy Management Program is charged with helping federal agencies reduce their $16 billion annual energy bill, meet energy and water-related goals, and provide global energy leadership.