California Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) have long understood the importance of bringing training to the workforce as a strategy to reduce energy consumption. Aligned with this strategy, BEST Center has been focused since its inception on improving building performance by promoting building technician education in technical and community colleges throughout the nation. Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and California Community College State Chancellor’s Office Sector Navigator for Energy & Utilities supported a pilot to develop training designed to bridge the skills gap in the workforce of technicians managing commercial buildings. This program has also been endorsed by BOMA (Building Owners & Managers Association).
By improving skills of building technicians, the expected result is to improve commercial building performance and ultimately reduce energy consumption. Developing the industry-endorsed curriculum for the High-Performance Building Operations Professional (HPBOP) was very comprehensive. The initial pilot training took place over 12 sessions last year with industry professionals from the public and private sector.
This year, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and Southern California Gas have decided to fund additional HPBOP training sessions for incumbent workers. The sessions will be conducted for the State of California Department of General Services, Facilities Management Division. Classes will be held in Northern and Southern California during summer and fall semesters at Sacramento City College and Mt. San Antonio College respectively. The course content areas are: Information Technology, Energy Literacy, Building Systems, Whole Systems Analytics, Systems Manuals, Building Automation Control Systems (BAS), Energy Conservation, Commissioning (Cx), and Continuous Quality Improvement. We are looking forward to productive summer and fall sessions.