Here at MEEA, we think our Building Operator Certification instructors are everyday rock stars. They are at the frontlines, teaching building operators how to cut costs and energy usage in their facilities. Our amazing pool of facility and energy managers are why BOC has the reach and impact it does in the Midwest.

We sat down with one BOC instructor who has gone above and beyond this year. Doug Lafever has been an instructor since 2014 and continually impresses us. This year alone, he has instructed eight classes in four states: Indiana, Kansas, Michigan and Nebraska.

Energy efficiency improvements can be expensive and burdensome for residential homeowners, renters and building owners. Luckily, there are an increasing number of financial options to help cover the up-front costs of efficiency upgrades. Below, we lay out several financing options to make our homes and workplaces more energy efficient.  

1. On-Bill Financing

On-bill financing is an umbrella term for a financing program where a charge is added to a customer’s energy bill to repay a loan from a utility for energy efficiency upgrades. The utility acts as the lender and incurs the upfront costs of the improvements.

How It Works

Building efficiency experts from around the Midwest convened in Ann Arbor, MI on November 15-16 for the 8th Annual Midwest Building Energy Codes Conference. This was the first time this conference was hosted in Michigan, which helped MEEA and attendees understand the unique challenges to the Michigan building community and provided critical local perspectives to better inform future building energy code policy. In past years, MEEA had the opportunity to host this conference and learn from local groups in Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois.

Ted Brokaw, now the Street/Water Commissioner for the City of International Falls, MN attended BOC in 2014 while he was working as the Head of Building and Grounds for the city. Between 2001 and 2011, his fleet of buildings grew from three to 12, and he sought out training through Minnesota Power that would help him learn his buildings in and out. Ted has learned firsthand that understanding every aspect of a building is essential.

Net-zero energy (NZE)buildings come in all shapes and sizes and can be found in every climate zone. The Midwest is home to many NZE buildings, and public buildings are helping to lead the way.

The New Buildings Institute compiled the 2016 List of Zero Net Energy Buildings report, which lists the current net-zero energy buildings across the country. Below are a few Midwestern NZE public buildings discussed on a recent MEEA policy webinar.*

Scott Davis is a Facility Supervisor for Michigan’s State Facilities Administration (SFA) Building Operations Division. He is responsible for multiple large facilities located at the State Secondary Complex in Dimondale, Michigan. The complex consists of 13 facilities totaling approximately 2.5 million square feet and includes diverse building types for the state police academy, research laboratories, office buildings, warehouses and maintenance garages.

At this year’s Illinois Healthy & High Performing Schools Symposium, representatives from across industries rallied around the concept of getting each child into a green facility in this generation. On April 8, MEEA joined sustainability professionals from across the State to address how we can continue greening our schools in order to create healthy and high performing environment for students. Held at Chicago Public School’s Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, the event was sponsored by the USGBC- Illinois Chapter and the Association of Learning Environments.

A shifted focus for the Savings Through Efficient Products program (STEP) brought many new facilities into the Illinois Energy Now participant portfolio during the 2015 program year. STEP provides informational resources, walkthrough assessments and free, easy‐to‐install energy efficient measures to qualifying Illinois public facilities.

Eighty-six percent of participants during the first three quarters of the year were new to Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) programs, helping close the gap between the number of public facilities eligible for state energy efficiency incentive programs and the percentage participating in these programs.

In April 2014, Dave Spooner, Supervisor of Maintenance & Construction at Duluth Public School District, enrolled six building operators in the Building Operator Certification (BOC) class in Cloquet, MN. As a supervisor, Dave was interested in the BOC program because it helps empower the employee and gets them thinking critically about energy use in buildings.

“The BOC program provided our employees some good knowledge and perspective on how they can utilize the new technology we have to provide a better service to our users and yet save energy,” Dave said.