On April 28, 2009, UTC Senior Vice President, Science & Technology, Dr. J. Michael McQuade, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee's Energy and Environment Subcommittee on the topic of energy efficiency in buildings with an emphasis on systems integration. He delivered the below remarks at a hearing entitled “Pushing the Efficiency Envelope: R&D for High Performance Buildings, Industry and Consumers.”

I’m Michael McQuade, Senior Vice President for Science and Technology with United Technologies Corporation. I am pleased to share my thoughts about the need and opportunity to invest in basic research in building systems science to dramatically reduce the energy consumed and carbon emitted by buildings.

We are very pleased with President Obama’s commitment to a robust R&D agenda as expressed in his remarks yesterday at the National Academy of Sciences. We believe that investments in building systems science described here align directly with this vision and can be aggressively accomplished within the DOE portfolio of ARPA-E, EERE and the Office of Science. We believe it is vital to pursue basic research in:

Mathematical and computational capabilities to optimize the design, construction, commissioning and operation of complex buildings;
Systems, sciences and a whole building approach; and
Multi-institutional, national laboratory, academic and industrial teams to prototype and demonstrate this science and technology in real buildings across multiple applications
Investments in the range of $50 million per year for five years will lead to deployable science, technology and products that will ensure the full potential of energy savings are captured over the useful life of the building.

This is a critical initiative to reduce energy consumption, decrease greenhouse gas emissions and improve this country’s energy security.

United Technologies is a $55 billion global aerospace and building infrastructure technology driven company. As one of the leading suppliers to the built environment we are keenly aware of and interested in the role that buildings play in energy and climate.

Buildings consume about 40 percent of the energy used in the United States and are responsible for nearly 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions A 50 percent reduction in building energy consumption in the U.S. is equivalent to removing the carbon emissions from every car and light truck on the road today. These are big numbers and they represent big opportunities.

UTC is co-chair of the 14 company, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) project on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (EEB). Yesterday, this project released the first results from a landmark study on actions needed to reduce building energy consumption and resulting carbon emissions.

Among the key findings is that transformation of the building industry is essential – and achievable – if we are to reach the nearly 80 percent reduction of carbon emissions called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The study documents that significant progress can be made against this goal with cost-effective deployment of energy efficient components based on known technologies at market acceptable investment costs.

However, if we are to reach the full 80 percent reduction goal we will need new science that treats buildings as complex systems of interacting components, coupled to their occupants and external environment.

A recent (DOE) study cited six examples of high performance buildings whose design intent was to be as much as 80 percent more efficient than standard. Through sub-optimal integration during construction and operation, these buildings actually delivered only half this performance.

UTC recommends that DOE continue its vital public - private partnerships that address energy efficient building components. At the same time, it is essential to increase the research, development and deployment of the science needed to understand and optimize buildings as whole systems.

With a deeper scientific base, enabled by mathematics, computational sciences and controls, it is possible to combine efficient components into intelligent and even more efficient systems so that whole buildings perform significantly better than the sum of their parts, buildings perform as designed, and sustain that performance during a lifetime of operation.

UTC is a major supplier of highly efficient products for the building sector and we are engaged in a number of early stage research programs on optimizing buildings as systems. For example, in a national laboratory, academia and industry collaboration, UTC is working to demonstrate advanced control and information systems technology to improve energy efficiency in buildings on the University of California at Merced’s campus.

This program, partially sponsored by the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, is showing that through the use of advanced building control algorithms an additional 10-15 percent energy consumption reduction in the campus cooling delivery system, and up to 20 percent additional energy savings for a campus building HVAC system can be achieved.

We support Secretary Chu’s recent statement regarding the need for “computer design tools for commercial and residential buildings that enable reductions in energy consumption of up to 80 percent with investments that will pay for themselves in less than 10 years.”

We believe that a vigorous investment, in the range of $50 million per year for five years, will deliver significant new science that can be deployed into the public and private built environment. This technology will serve as a basis for the products the private sector will develop to make highly energy efficient buildings the norm in the commercial marketplace.

Energy efficiency and carbon reduction are critical strategies for climate control and energy security. The building sector represents a larger opportunity for GHG emission reductions than either the transportation or industry sectors. An enhanced national research program in building sciences, coupled with the already strong DOE program in energy efficient components will provide the foundation for industry to deploy market driven solutions to reduce building energy. We look forward to working with Congress and the DOE to advance this critical national need.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.