Resource refocus turns 15!
Thank you to the clients, team partners, and colleagues that have hired us, worked with us, and encouraged us over the years.
We have had such an insightful and skilled team over the years. Current team members are Carrie Brown, Rhys Davis, Natalie Low, Sheila Naby, and Kanak Bal - I’m looking forward to many years of thinking, planning, and working alongside them.
And we would not be where we are without the contributions of past team members Noelle Cole, Senay Inanici, Doe Dearr, Charryse Bigger, Margaret Pigman, Vrushali Mendon, Jessica Keast, Elizabeth Gilman, Nick Rajkovich, and Nate Heckman. Thank you for the work you did with our team.
It is easy to get caught up in the daily churn and tumult of news and short-term policy changes. And yes, we still have an enormous and urgent challenge as we decarbonize our built environment and energy infrastructure. But in the last 15 years I have seen real, lasting change in how we set energy performance goals and design buildings, think about energy infrastructure, write building energy codes, electrify buildings through retrofits, and think about future climate conditions and risks, and also how we consider building occupants as we do so.
What we all do makes a difference.
Anna
ibpsa fellow
Dr. Carrie Brown
Congratulations to Dr. Carrie Brown, who was named an IBPSA Fellow at the Building Simulation 2025 Conference. IBPSA awards the Fellow distinction to individuals who have attained exceptional achievement in the field of building performance simulation—through research, teaching, simulation code development, or applying simulation to major projects. This honor recognizes Carrie’s leadership and contributions to advancing building performance simulation over the past 20 years, as well as her ongoing collaboration with colleagues at RR, IBPSA World, IBPSA-USA, and ASHRAE.
project highlights
2025 Energy Conservation and Construction Code of New York State Adopted
This summer, the 2025 ECCCNYS was unanimously approved by the New York State Code Council and will be in effect starting in 2026. The code incorporates New York’s all-electric construction mandate and is designed to encourage efficient, clean, and resilient new construction. RR assisted NYSERDA and NY Department of State with the code’s development and led the analysis of the residential statewide energy code, while NORESCO and Karpman Consulting led the development and analysis of the commercial energy code. New Buildings Institute led the overall project management. RR also led the development of the residential 2025 NYStretch energy code, a version of which will be adopted as the 2025 NYC energy code.
NEEA Oregon Residential Code Compliance Evaluation
Industrial Economics, Inc. (IEc), RR, Earth Advantage, and NMR Group recently completed a residential code compliance evaluation for NEEA, examining new single-family homes built under the 2021 Oregon Residential Specialty Code (ORSC). The study assessed whole-home and measure-level compliance, opportunities to improve compliance, and trends in space and water heating fuel choices.
Between February 2024 and April 2025, the team gathered data on 254 homes through site visits, permits and plans, Energy Trust’s EPS™ database, and homeowner surveys. Energy modeling indicated that 91.4% of homes built under the 2021 ORSC comply with the code—up from 89% under the 2017 ORSC. Improving envelope tightness offered the greatest potential energy savings among non-compliant homes. The study also found a shift toward electric space and water heating compared with homes built under the previous code.
Standards and Guidelines
Rhys Davis
ASHRAE 90.2 Participation
Rhys was appointed to the ASHRAE 90.2 High-Performance Energy Design of Residential Building standard committee, and is participating in the Envelope working group. 90.2 offers an above-code model standard for residential buildings that focuses on whole-building design requirements and includes greenhouse gas emissions as a performance criterion.
New ASHRAE Guideline on Future Weather
Carrie is serving as Vice Chair of ASHRAE’s new Guideline 49 Committee: Integration of Future Weather Data into Built Environment Analysis, which launched this month. The guideline will provide recommendations for the reliable, transparent, and replicable use of future weather data in built environment analysis. Topics will include selecting and evaluating future weather data, as well as incorporating climate mitigation and adaptation considerations into design, sustainability, resilience, uncertainty and risk, and related analyses.
Conferences and Virtual Events
IEPEC Paper: “Why Do Cost Estimates Vary So Much for Heat Pumps? And What Are Best Practices for Estimating Costs?”
Rhys co-wrote and helped provide analysis for a conference paper with TRC team members Marian Goebes and Chris Battisti. The paper was presented at the International Energy Program Evaluation Conference (IEPEC) Conference in Denver, CO, on October 7, 2025. The paper highlights the wide variance in costs for heat pump installations using different utility program data. Rhys’s analysis focused on California’s TECH heat pump retrofit program and showed the wide spread of costs for heat pumps of different types and efficiencies, including those that required electrical infrastructure upgrades.
ASHRAE Decarbonization Conference
Carrie served as Vice Chair and led the Program Committee for last week’s ASHRAE Decarbonization Conference in Chicago, IL which drew over 400 participants. She also co-presented with Rob Best of Arup on “Scaling Residential and Commercial Decarbonization Retrofits in California,” highlighting three RR-supported projects advancing retrofits across the state.
The Bay Area Regional Energy Network (BayREN) “Existing Buildings Study” was recently completed by Arup, RR, and Redwood Energy. It provides local governments with detailed data on building characteristics, energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions through an interactive dashboard. It identifies key actions to decarbonize the region’s most common building types by 2045, emphasizing equity. Offering jurisdiction-level insights into building type, age, tenure, and energy intensity, the dashboard supports targeted, data-driven climate action.
The “Evaluating Potential Retrofits for Zero-Emission Equipment in California Non-Residential Buildings” is an ongoing study by TRC, RR, Central California Asthma Collaborative, and Redwood Coast Energy Authority being conducted on behalf of CARB. The study’s goal is to understand how many nonresidential buildings may need upgrades to support zero-emission equipment for space and water heating, cooking, laundry, and pool or spa systems. The study evaluates retrofit feasibility based on electrical panel and service entrance capacity, heat source requirements, available interior and exterior space, and structural requirements.
The “Propane Utilization in Buildings across California” study, being conducted by TRC, RR, and ICI Engineers, informs CARB’s building decarbonization strategy by analyzing propane use in residential and commercial buildings. Drawing on surveys and secondary data, it characterizes current propane dependence and models transitions to zero-emission space and water heating. The analysis estimates changes in energy use, emissions, utility bills, and incremental costs to guide equitable, cost-effective decarbonization pathways.
BayREN Existing Buildings Study Dashboard
And Podcasts! And Case Studies!
Watts the Story: IBPSA-USA EPSI Podcast
Carrie was a guest on IBPSA-USA’s 2nd episode of Watts the Story and shared her journey and insights on the evolution of building simulation tools, her hands-on research and early career pivots, and her leadership on decarbonization efforts through IBPSA-USA and ASHRAE. Listen to the full podcast here.
Watts the Story Podcast Cover - Spotify
Designing for Zero Carbon, Volume 3
Anna LaRue wrote an introduction to the new case study book Designing for Zero Carbon, Vol. 3, focused on K-12 all-electric school construction. This is the third book in a series written by Ed Dean, FAIA, and funded by Southern California Edison.
Download or view the Case Studies of All-Electric K-12 Schools here. A hard copy can be purchased via Amazon.
