The Ekotrope team is excited to share with you our latest innovation, Scenario Modeling. It takes the guesswork out of conducting complex net-zero analyses and turns this hassle of a process into a major asset, enabling you to better aid your clients and provide them with more in-depth analyses with multiple pathway options for accomplishing their energy efficiency goals. Rating companies currently using our Scenario Modeling tool have saved time, exceeded client expectations, and are now able to sell this analysis as a separate service.

Since Covid hit the US in earnest in March 2020 there has been a lot of buzz amongst home professionals about how to make homes healthier for their occupants. But, even before Covid, health and comfort were at least as important to homeowners as energy efficiency.

The Ekotrope team is thrilled to share that we were featured on the front page of the MIT News this past month. CEO  Ziv Rozenblum and Lead Engineer Nick Sisler were interviewed by Zach Winn to talk about the history behind Ekotrope as well as our vision for the future.

In this blog, David Pedrick (former HER and QAD) outlines the 5 best places to look for energy efficiency improvements in your home. For raters, we want this article to act as a sort of set of quick tips you can share with friends, family, and neighbors who are trying to make energy efficient improvements to their homes.

Ekotrope is very excited to announce that we have hit a new milestone for our HERS rating tool, RATER. Last month we officially reached 500,000 confirmed ratings! Along the way, we’ve come across some interesting findings that we’d like to share with you all.

While HPWH systems have been sold in the U.S. for over 40 years, they’ve struggled to penetrate the market and gain share from traditional water heaters. Now, if heat pumps are one of the most cost effective ways to reduce energy consumption and emissions, why aren’t they more widely used? We chatted with Mike Ostiguy, Vice President of Operations at Abode Energy Management, about some of the issues and misconceptions associated with HPWHs as well as how we can help to solve them.

Version 4.0.0 supports ANSI 301 - 2019 which eliminated the limitation of HERS energy models to buildings 4 stories or fewer. With this standard update, there is no longer any sort of limitation on height. We sat down with Nathan Culver, Senior Technical Program Manager at Southface Energy Rated Homes (SERH), to talk about how these changes impact raters, providers, and 3rd party QA providers.

Version 4.0 includes quite a few new updates including HVAC grading, appliances, and support for dehumidifiers. Our new user interface provides full support for Standard 301-2019 including Addenda A and B and MINHERS interim Addenda 53f and 55i. Let’s go over some of the updates as well as some key points to keep in mind for potential score changes. We will also offer a few integral troubleshooting tips along the way to ensure a smooth transition as we release our latest updates.

Meet ADA for Utilities. Ekotrope’s Automated Design Assistance (ADA) tool provides HERS raters with energy conservation recommendations that are tailored to i) a specific home design and ii) the local utility program’s goals. The ADA tool automatically assesses the impact (total savings, energy bill savings, added program incentive, etc.) of a set of predetermined energy conservation measures for a given home design.

We are excited to announce that we have partnered with energyOrbit to form a technical integration that's focused on ENERGY STAR homes. This integration aims to streamline the process of validating home energy scores, thus allowing utilities and third-party program administrators to factor ratings data into their energy efficiency programs more efficiently.

Our partnerships coupled with our RATER software insights have allowed us to better understand certain practices used across the HERS Rating Market. These innovative techniques have developed across multiple HERS Rating companies and are now quite common. David Pedrick, a former QAD and 3rd Party QA Provider Manager himself, offers his expert insight on how to implement these best practices in your business.

Ekotrope’s own Ziv Rozenblum, Cy Kilbourn, and Jacob “The Honey Badger” Kamen will be presenting 4 different sessions at RESNET 2021. We are thrilled to be partnering with our clients and industry leaders ICF, PEG, Energy Inspectors, SEM and SERH. These sessions range in knowledge level from beginner to advanced, so that no matter what your background is in the subject, there is something of value for you.

The RESNET Conference is the “can’t afford to miss” event for the rating, home building, and building performance industry. Raters, providers, and home building industry experts come from all over the country to meet and discuss innovations, challenges, ideas, and everything in between. While it is typically held at a venue where people are able to meet in person, attend live sessions, and participate in various social events, due to the ongoing pandemic the event will be held in a virtual format.

With use of heat pumps on the rise, it seems beneficial to demystify how the system works, and a good place to start is updating the nomenclature we use to describe the mechanics of heat pumps.

Here at Ekotrope we realize not everyone is as involved in the home efficiency rating as we are. For those who are new to the industry, we want to catch you up to speed. This post is a beginners guide to all things HERS ratings and where Ekotrope falls into the mix. Not sure what a HERS rating is to begin with? You came to the right place.

COVID-19 has changed the landscape of in-home energy assessments and has generated instant interest in virtual audits. Like most in the energy efficiency industry, we’ve wondered whether this is simply a passing trend, or if virtual energy assessments are a game changer that’s here to stay. To shed some light on the matter, we’ve gathered a number of useful resources and are sharing some of our insights on everything we think you should know about virtual energy audits.

This blog post is the first in a three part series of posts aiming to summarize our VP of Engineering, Cy Kilbourn’s, presentations at the 2020 RESNET Conference. If you would like to access the full presentation you can download it by filling out the form below. You can also subscribe to our mailing list for our newsletter and blog post updates at the bottom of the page.

On April 5th, 2020, a new RESNET Standard Addendum called Addendum 47i went into effect. If you’re like us, you may have been a bit confused at first. There is a lot of language around duct testing exemptions between Addendum 39, ANSI 301-2019, and this new Addendum 47i. Hopefully this will help clarify things. The only thing Addendum 47i changes is that duct leakage testing can be waived for homes that use building cavities as ducts, as long as the home is permitted prior to Jan 1, 2021.

Educating students on environmental science has been a growing trend, but as energy efficiency continues to experience an innovative industry overhaul, more schools are beginning to see the benefits in educating the next generation of HERS raters. Ekotrope recently partnered with Desert Edge High School in Goodyear, Arizona, Daran Wastchak of Learning Edge, LLC, and Arizona Public Service (the largest electric utility in Arizona) to offer a course on building science, energy efficiency and home energy ratings.

Despite expiring on December 31st of 2017, the Federal 45L Tax Credit has been retroactively extended through 2018 and 2019 and will continue to be effective throughout 2020. The credit incentivizes energy efficient homes by giving builders a $2,000 tax credit for building them. There have been no modifications made to the original credit prerequisites and requirements. In order to be eligible for the credit, participating homes must…