That’s a Wrap!

Note that this challenge was for the Fall 2023 competition.

The objective of this challenge is to improve the building envelope performance of new or existing residential buildings by reducing energy consumption in a cost-effective and accessible way.

Background

Source: GettyImages

In the heat of summer, does your air conditioner seem to run all the time? In winter, do cold drafts in your house make it impossible to get comfortable? Your house may be energy inefficient due to the performance of the building envelope. The building envelope—consisting of the walls, roof, foundation, and windows—separates the interior living conditions from the exterior weather and is the single largest contributor to primary energy use in residential buildings.¹ Nearly 60% of total residential building energy is used to provide occupant comfort by heating, cooling, and ventilating the living space.² The performance of the building envelope disproportionally affects communities that lack the resources to improve the quality of the building envelope through remediation techniques.³

One of the primary functions of the building envelope is to control the flow of matter and energy—specifically, the flow of moisture, air, and heat between the interior and exterior.⁴ Failure to control this flow can cause reductions in energy efficiency, durability issues, decrease in occupant comfort, and reduced indoor air quality, which can lead to mold and cause significant health issues.⁵ The flow of moisture (both liquid water and vapor) is typically controlled using water-resistive barriers, ventilation air gaps, and drainage planes. The flow of air is typically controlled using air-resistive barriers and air sealing techniques. The flow of heat is controlled using insulation and solar reflectance. While new building construction can easily benefit from novel technologies and methods, many of these control methods can be difficult, cost-inhibitive, or sometimes even impossible to implement into existing buildings.⁶

More than 50% of existing residential buildings in the United States were built before 1980 when energy conservation codes were first introduced,⁷ and they lack modern efficient technologies that effectively control the flow of matter and energy. However, less than 2% of U.S. buildings are remediated each year⁸ to improve the energy efficiency, primarily because the cost to retrofit commonly exceeds several thousand dollars⁹ and often falls entirely on the building owner. In some cases, the building owner may have a high energy burden and may not have the resources to improve the quality of the building envelope to lower energy consumption. Energy burden is the percentage of a household’s gross annual income spent on energy costs (including electricity, natural gas, and other home-heating fuels).¹⁰ A person is considered energy burdened if they spend 6% or more of their annual income on energy costs.¹¹ Lower income households are disproportionally impacted by energy burden—households that make $15,000 or less per year spent on average 21% of their income on utilities and may forgo other life necessities in order to address issues with the envelope.¹² To increase energy efficiency and address energy burden, innovative solutions must be developed that provide access to energy-efficient, cost-effective, and accessible building envelopes.

Common remediation strategies to improve the building envelope performance of existing buildings require that occupants leave their homes for days or weeks while the envelope is tested, sealed, or rebuilt. For some individuals and families, temporary relocation is often not a possibility due to limited resources; remediation strategies are often delayed, sometimes indefinitely.

Remediation techniques to improve the quality and performance of the building envelope vary in effectiveness, affordability, and accessibility. To evaluate and remediate air leakage issues, a blower door test is often used to pressurize the building and search for air leaks,¹³ which is time consuming and requires specialized equipment. Sealing of air leaks is commonly performed manually using sealant. Innovative solutions are required to improve both the process of finding and sealing air leakage. When an envelope is made more airtight, the susceptibility to moisture damage increases¹⁴; therefore, remediation efforts should be accompanied by analysis or evaluation to predict if moisture durability will be a concern. Moisture durability prediction tools commonly require expert input or destructive methods. Innovative solutions are needed to make the moisture durability assessment process more affordable, more accessible, and widely available. To improve thermal performance of the envelope, insulation or solar reflectivity is added to the walls, roof, or foundation. Additionally, windows can be replaced with more thermally efficient modern designs. Some insulation remediation strategies exist that allow occupants to stay within their homes while the envelope performance is improved¹⁵; however, these solutions are often not cost-effective, not applicable to all types of existing construction, or not widely available on the market in the United States. Innovative solutions are needed to generally improve the affordability, accessibility, and quality of building envelope remediation strategies.

The Challenge

This challenge asks student teams to address the high energy burden that some communities face by developing an innovative solution that allows building owners to access high-quality and affordable envelope remediation or construction technologies, strategies, or methods. Students may consider solutions to address air leakage, moisture durability, and/or thermal performance of the envelope for new or existing residential buildings. Students must target solutions that are cost-effective, affordable, quickly implemented, and accessible to the end user.

Suggestions for the student teams include (but are not limited to) developing cost-effective, fast, and accessible solutions or technologies to:

Detect and seal air leakage through the building envelope.
Predict, assess, or evaluate the moisture performance or potential moisture damage of the building envelope.
Add insulation, air barriers, water barriers, and/or weather resistance (cladding) to existing building envelope elements—walls, roof, foundation, etc. Students should target solutions that are directly applicable to housing types that may need the most improvement, such as low-median-income manufactured housing or large multifamily housing.
Increase the function of the building envelope to limit the flow of air, water, and/or heat for new residential buildings. Students should target solutions that are directly applicable to low-median-income housing such as manufactured housing or large multifamily housing.
Increase accessibility of specific, deployable envelope retrofit technologies by using existing rebate programs. Students should focus on using existing rebate or incentive programs at the federal, state, county, or city levels to increase the adoption of specific, deployable technologies or remediation strategies.
Increase accessibility of specific, deployable envelope retrofit technologies, and develop education programs to accelerate deployment.
Harness ambient energy from the sun, air, or sky to make the building more energy efficient.

Student submissions should:

Describe the scope and context of the problem based on a current or emergent problem(s) in the United States.
Identify affected communities, making sure to research stakeholder backgrounds and understand the stakeholders’ needs.
Develop a novel technical solution to address the problem at the building scale; the solution can include technical and/or nontechnical aspects such as policy or economic solutions and may focus on new or existing residential buildings.
Discuss appropriate and expected impacts (including any unintended consequences) and benefits of the proposed solution; include a cost analysis of the proposed solution.
Develop a plan that describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to implementation, such as a technology-to-market plan for a commercially viable, market-ready product for real buildings, and/or integration into the planning and design process.

Downloadable Challenge Description

Additional Challenge Resources

Submission Template

Requirements

Competing in this challenge is open to student teams currently enrolled in U.S. universities and colleges. See the Terms and Conditions and Rules document for eligibility requirements and rules. Please note that you must begin your Building Technologies Internship Program (BTIP) application before or at the same time as you submit your idea in order to compete in the JUMP competition.

Please submit the following as a single-spaced PDF document that is a written narrative of the team’s proposed solution. PowerPoint decks or submissions in presentation format do not meet the requirement. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. The quality of writing will be considered, so review by peers is strongly encouraged.

Project Team Background (up to 2 pages, single-spaced)
- Form a team of 2‒4 students. These students represent the project team and will all consult on the problem.
- The Project Team Background should include:
  - Project name, team name, and collegiate institution(s)
  - Team mission statement
  - A short biography for each team member. This should include information such as major, level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and other relevant background information such as experience with building science, future career goals, and formative experiences that shaped each individual’s contribution to the Challenge.
  - Diversity statement (minimum 1 paragraph, 5‒7 sentences): One of JUMP into STEM’s key objectives is to encourage diversity of thought and background in students entering the building science industry. There is a diversity gap in STEM, meaning that certain groups are underrepresented or have been historically excluded from STEM fields. These groups include, but are not limited to, those based on race, ethnicity, and gender—and this gap needs to be addressed. Diversity of thought can be achieved through teams consisting of students from different majors and minors. If there are barriers that affect the racial, ethnic, and/or gender breakdown of your team, please elaborate. The diversity statement is your opportunity to describe your team’s diversity of background and thought, both generally and as applicable to your chosen Challenge.
- The Project Team Background does not count toward the 5-page Project Challenge Submission.
Project Challenge Submission (up to 5 pages, single-spaced)
- Select one of the three Challenges published for the current competition to address.
- Investigate the background of the Challenge and consider related stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affected by the problem, a part of the supply chain, or manufacturing of the technology product(s), as well as those who may have decision-making power and are able to provide solutions (technical or nontechnical solutions, such as policies). For example, you could include stakeholders who have previously experienced environmental pollution or a high energy burden.
- Write a 1- to 2-paragraph problem statement, focusing on a specific aspect of the problem and the stakeholder groups affected by or involved in the problem. The stakeholder groups can be from a specific location, socioeconomic status, age, or demographic (e.g., people living in subsidized housing).
- Develop and describe a novel solution that addresses or solves the specific problem from your problem statement. The solution must be technical and also include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes, standards, and/or other.
- Address the requirements for your selected Challenge as written in the Challenge description. Include graphs, figures, and/or photos. Discuss the feasibility of your solution and how it will impact your stakeholders,
- Develop a technology-to-market plan. A technology-to-market plan describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to installation on real buildings, or integrated into the design of real buildings, and includes a cost/benefit analysis.
  - The cost/benefit analysis does not need to be exhaustive and should include comparing the solution to current or existing technologies or practices. Benefits, such as building energy reductions and improved occupant health or productivity, should be evaluated.
  - The plan should also discuss which key stakeholder(s) should be involved to commercialize the technology and then sell and install the technologies with your target market(s).
- Perform a market adoption barrier analysis. The team should identify at least one key market adoption barrier for implementation and specifically address how the proposed solution will overcome that barrier.
  - Barriers should align with key stakeholder(s) identified by the student team.
- Include references. References will not count toward the 5-page maximum.
Appendix (optional, no page limit)
- Teams may wish to add an appendix. This is optional and might not be reviewed by the judges.
- The appendix has no page limit.

Evaluation Criteria

Solution (40%)

Solution: Please rate the solution and its ability to address the problem statement. The solution must be a technical solution. It should address the stakeholder needs. It must include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes, standards, or other.
Feasibility: Please rate the solution’s overall feasibility. For example, solutions that are not technically possible or that lack a technical feasibility discussion will receive lower scores.
Novelty: Please rate the originality and creativity of the solution and how significant the contribution will be to the building industry.
Impact: Please rate the overall scalability of the team’s solution. For example, can the solution be extended to communities, similar stakeholder groups, or a nationwide solution?

Market Readiness (30%)

Market Characterization: Please rate the team’s description and understanding of the market.
Technology-to-Market: Please rate the team’s proposed plan to bring the solution from a paper concept to installation or integration with real buildings or building designs, and the team’s cost/benefit analysis. The cost/benefit analysis may include energy reductions or benefits to occupant health and productivity.
Overcoming Adoption Barriers: Please rate the team’s identification of and plan for overcoming at least one key market adoption barrier for the proposed solution. This includes how the solution will create value, both economic and other, to drive industry adoption.

Team Diversity and Understanding Stakeholders (20%)

Diversity Statement and Project Team Background: Please rate how well the team addresses the diversity gap in the building science industry in its diversity statement. This includes how the team brings perspectives from a variety of backgrounds, including students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This also includes students from many different disciplines ensuring diversity of thought. See the diversity statement in the challenge requirements. This also includes how well the teams connect their mission statement and biographies to their problem statement.
Understanding Stakeholders: Please rate how well the team communicates their understanding of the stakeholder group or community and how they are affected by the problem. This rating also includes how well the team defined the problem that needs to be solved by taking into consideration the needs of the stakeholder group or community.

Submission (10%)

Submission Requirements: Please rate how well the student team followed all submission requirements. See the submission requirements at the bottom of each challenge description.

How to Create a Successful Submission

We will have two student webinars.

Student Webinar #1

Student Webinar #1

Student Webinar #2

Student Webinar #2

Citations

Harris, C. 2021. Opaque Envelopes: Pathway to Building Energy Efficiency and Demand Flexibility: Key to a Low-Carbon, Sustainable Future. U.S. Department of Energy. DOE/GO-102021-5585. https://doi.org/10.2172/1821413
S. Energy Information Administration. 2022. Annual Energy Outlook 2022. Washington, D.C. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/.
S. Department of Energy. 2022. Disadvantaged Communities Reporter from DOE: Office of Economic Impact and Diversity (Justice40). https://energyjustice.egs.anl.gov/
Straube, J.F. and Burnett, E.F.P. 2005. Building Science for Building Enclosures. Westford, MA: Building Science Press Inc.
Weinhold, B. 2007. A Spreading Concern: Inhalational Health Effects of Mold. Environmental Health Perspectives, 115(6), A300–A305. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.115-a300
S. Department of Energy. 2014. Windows and Building Envelope Research and Development: Roadmap for Emerging Technologies. DOE/EE-0956. Washington, D.C. https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/downloads/research-and-development-roadmap-windows-and-building-envelope.
S. Energy Information Administration. 2020. Residential Energy Consumption Survey. Washington, D.C. https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2020/
Olgyay, V. and Seruto, C. 2010. Whole Building Retrofits: A Gateway to Climate Stabilization. Rocky Mountain Institute. https://rmi.org/insight/whole-building-retrofits-a-gateway-to-climate-stabilization/
S. Census Bureau. 2019. American Housing Survey: Home Improvement Costs – Owner-Occupied Units. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/ahs.html
Lewis, J., Hernández, D. and Geronimus, A.T. 2020. Energy efficiency as energy justice: addressing racial inequities through investments in people and places. Energy Efficiency 13, 419–432. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-019-09820-z.
Fisher Sheehan & Colton. 2020. Home Energy Affordability Gap. Fisher, Sheehan & Colton. http://www.homeenergyaffordabilitygap.com/index.html.
Carliner, M. 2013. Reducing Energy Costs in Rental Housing: The Need and the Potential. Research Brief. Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/carliner_research_brief_0.pdf.
ASTM Standard E1827. 2017. Standard Test Methods for Determining Airtightness of Buildings Using an Orifice Blower Door. ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA. https://www.astm.org/e1827-11r17.html
S. Department of Energy. 2015. Building America Research-to-Market Plan. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/11/f27/Building%20America%20Research%20to%20Market%20Plan-111715.pdf.
Neuhauser, K. 2013. Evaluation of Two CEDA Weatherization Pilot Implementations of an Exterior Insulation and Over-Clad Retrofit Strategy for Residential Masonry Buildings in Chicago. Building Science Corporation for the U.S. Department of Energy. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/57989.pdf

You and Me, Carbon Free!

Note that this challenge was for the Fall 2023 competition.

The objective of this challenge is to develop an innovative solution that will reduce carbon emissions from U.S. buildings (residential or commercial, new or existing). Problem statements can address embodied carbon emissions and/or operational carbon emissions. Innovative solutions should lead to significant reductions in carbon emissions and increased affordability for identified stakeholder groups to obtain new technologies.

Background

Source: GettyImages

Buildings account for about 40% of energy-related carbon emissions worldwide.¹ Carbon emissions generally refer to carbon (primarily carbon dioxide, CO₂) that is released into the atmosphere—this contributes to greenhouse gases absorbing and emitting radiation, which warms the planet.² Energy-related carbon emissions come from a variety of sources, including the emissions related to energy consumption in buildings (both electricity and fossil fuels such as gas), known as operational carbon emissions. Emissions also come from material production and manufacturing, building construction and maintenance, and material end-of-life processing (e.g., separation, disposal, reuse, remanufacturing), known as embodied carbon emissions. Emissions from residential and commercial buildings in the United States match global trends, with annual operational carbon emissions totaling 29% of all U.S. emissions when the CO₂ emissions from the generation and distribution of electricity are included.³

The United States has committed to significantly reducing carbon emissions by 2030.⁴ A unique characteristic of buildings—when compared to other carbon-emitting sectors such as transportation—is that buildings have a comparatively slower turnover rate. The average age of U.S. homes and commercial buildings is around 40 years old,⁵ with projected life expectancies anywhere from 75 to 100 years or more.⁶ Additionally, the U.S. population is projected to grow 20%–25% between now and 2060,⁷ which will continue to increase demand for housing and commercial floor space. As with any multifaceted and complex problem, there are many opportunities for solutions addressing carbon reductions in our buildings—both operational and embodied.

The architectural and design community has been focused on employing strategies and processes to reduce embodied carbon for many years. Examples include design practices focused on renovation and reuse of existing buildings and materials, selecting building products that have minimal carbon emissions during production and manufacturing, and locally sourcing materials, when possible, to further minimize emissions related to transporting the materials for construction.⁸

The processes of building material production, building construction and demolition (C&D), and handling at the end of a material’s first use present additional opportunities for embodied decarbonization. Generally, building materials follow a linear economy model, with large amounts of raw material, carbon, and energy inputs, and equally large amounts of waste and emissions as final outputs. In fact, 600 million tons of C&D materials were generated in the United States in 2018, which is twice the amount of municipal solid waste generated that year.⁹ Demolition contributes 90% of total C&D debris generation.¹⁰ Most materials have low recovery and reuse rates that offset the need for new material inputs for construction, demonstrating an opportunity for innovative material reuse. By adopting a more circular approach, known as a circular economy, carbon emissions and waste materials can be reduced. Circular approaches include designing out waste and pollution in extraction, processing, manufacturing, construction, and demolition processes, and keeping products and materials in use for as long as possible.^10,11 Specifically for the building sector, circular approaches can include designing buildings for adaptability; optimizing design for reducing building material requirements; recovering, reusing, and recycling materials and systems; and industrializing construction and electrifying construction equipment.

In terms of operational carbon, opportunities for reduction include energy efficiency and electrification, as well as smart devices and equipment that enable connectivity between devices, buildings, and the electric grid to optimize energy consumption and minimize carbon emissions.² With more renewable sources of energy supporting the grid, electrification can help reduce operational carbon.

It is also important to consider how carbon emissions are accounted for throughout the lifetime of a building. Embodied carbon emissions are released during the construction, renovation, and demolition of a building, whereas operational carbon emissions are released continuously while a building is in operation. For example, 38% of total carbon emissions over the first 10 years for typical new construction built in 2020 will be the embodied carbon released due to construction—the remaining 62% are carbon emissions from operating the building.¹² However, when we compare typical new construction to high-performance construction, the story changes. Two-thirds of all carbon emissions over the first 10 years for a high-performance building will be the embodied carbon released due to construction.¹³ The primary reason for this is the significant reduction in operational carbon emissions from energy efficiency measures taken as part of the high-performance design. However, there can be cases where the amount of carbon saved by a high-performance building would be less than the carbon emitted to create the building in the first place.¹⁴ While life cycle analyses can be used to evaluate the carbon savings, solutions for both embodied and operational carbon are needed.

Additional research has studied the relationship between carbon emissions and socioeconomic status. Some data suggest that high socioeconomic status may disproportionately contribute to energy-driven carbon emissions related to consumption patterns. At the same time, substantial financial resources of high socioeconomic people can influence emissions, climate change policy, and mitigation efforts; however, these efforts may or may not be energy or carbon efficient.¹³ Related research suggests that although high socioeconomic status may lead to higher consumption rates, these consumption patterns are often related to transport emissions, and lower socioeconomic status people are more likely to contribute to carbon emissions related to households.¹⁵ Thus, careful consideration is needed to ensure the carbon reduction solutions meet the needs of—and are effective for—the stakeholder group.

The Challenge

This challenge asks student teams to develop an innovative solution that will reduce carbon emissions in buildings. Students can focus on any aspect related to carbon emissions, including but not limited to embodied carbon and/or operational carbon emissions. Teams should first develop a focused problem statement for a specific stakeholder group and then develop a technical solution or process.

Suggestions for student teams include (but are not limited to) the following:

Create innovative design strategies and practices, such as:
- Retrofitting building strategies that optimize reduction in carbon (operational carbon, embodied carbon, or both)
- Building demolition practices that reduce waste and embodied carbon
- Recovering, reusing, and remanufacturing practices for building materials that reduce waste and embodied carbon
- Repurposing practices for existing commercial buildings for residential use
- Industrializing on-site building construction processes
- Site-planning that considers orientation of buildings and distribution of vegetation to improve operations and site material selection to reduce building maintenance.
Present solutions with advanced controls that optimize building operation and minimize carbon emissions, such as:
- Distributed energy resources and management systems and controls
- Integrating connected lighting systems with plug load controls
- Automated fault detection and diagnostics.

Student submissions should:

Describe the scope and context of the chosen problem.
Identify affected stakeholders, making sure to research stakeholder backgrounds and understand the stakeholders’ needs, especially regarding the problem.
Develop a technical solution to the chosen problem for the targeted stakeholder group. The solution may also include policy solutions, supply chain and manufacturing processes, economic solutions, or other aspects critical to identified stakeholder barriers, but a technical solution must be proposed.
Discuss appropriate and expected impacts and benefits of the proposed solution. This should include expected carbon reduction analysis, a cost/benefit analysis, a market adoption analysis, and should also consider non-economic costs and benefits, such as occupant health, productivity, well-being, and others.
Develop a plan that describes how the team envisions bringing its idea to scale in the market, including sales or distribution channels, outreach mechanisms, stakeholder engagement, and other relevant details.

Downloadable Challenge Description

Additional Challenge Resources

Submission Template

Requirements

Project Team Background (up to 2 pages, single-spaced)
- Form a team of 2‒4 students. These students represent the project team and will all consult on the problem.
- The Project Team Background should include:
  - Project name, team name, and collegiate institution(s)
  - Team mission statement
  - A short biography for each team member. This should include information such as major, level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and other relevant background information such as experience with building science, future career goals, and formative experiences that shaped each individual’s contribution to the Challenge.
  - Diversity statement (minimum 1 paragraph, 5‒7 sentences): One of JUMP into STEM’s key objectives is to encourage diversity of thought and background in students entering the building science industry. There is a diversity gap in STEM, meaning that certain groups are underrepresented or have been historically excluded from STEM fields. These groups include, but are not limited to, those based on race, ethnicity, and gender—and this gap needs to be addressed. Diversity of thought can be achieved through teams consisting of students from different majors and minors. If there are barriers that affect the racial, ethnic, and/or gender breakdown of your team, please elaborate. The diversity statement is your opportunity to describe your team’s diversity of background and thought, both generally and as applicable to your chosen Challenge.
- The Project Team Background does not count toward the 5-page Project Challenge Submission.
Project Challenge Submission (up to 5 pages, single-spaced)
- Select one of the three Challenges published for the current competition to address.
- Investigate the background of the Challenge and consider related stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affected by the problem, a part of the supply chain, or manufacturing of the technology product(s), as well as those who may have decision-making power and are able to provide solutions (technical or nontechnical solutions, such as policies). For example, you could include stakeholders who have previously experienced environmental pollution or a high energy burden.
- Write a 1- to 2-paragraph problem statement, focusing on a specific aspect of the problem and the stakeholder groups affected by or involved in the problem. The stakeholder groups can be from a specific location, socioeconomic status, age, or demographic (e.g., people living in subsidized housing).
- Develop and describe a novel solution that addresses or solves the specific problem from your problem statement. The solution must be technical and also include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes, standards, and/or other.
- Address the requirements for your selected Challenge as written in the Challenge description. Include graphs, figures, and/or photos. Discuss the feasibility of your solution and how it will impact your stakeholders,
- Develop a technology-to-market plan. A technology-to-market plan describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to installation on real buildings, or integrated into the design of real buildings, and includes a cost/benefit analysis.
  - The cost/benefit analysis does not need to be exhaustive and should include comparing the solution to current or existing technologies or practices. Benefits, such as building energy reductions and improved occupant health or productivity, should be evaluated.
  - The plan should also discuss which key stakeholder(s) should be involved to commercialize the technology and then sell and install the technologies with your target market(s).
- Perform a market adoption barrier analysis. The team should identify at least one key market adoption barrier for implementation and specifically address how the proposed solution will overcome that barrier.
  - Barriers should align with key stakeholder(s) identified by the student team.
- Include references. References will not count toward the 5-page maximum.
Appendix (optional, no page limit)
- Teams may wish to add an appendix. This is optional and might not be reviewed by the judges.
- The appendix has no page limit.

Evaluation Criteria

Solution (40%)

Solution: Please rate the solution and its ability to address the problem statement. The solution must be a technical solution. It should address the stakeholder needs. It must include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes, standards, or other.
Feasibility: Please rate the solution’s overall feasibility. For example, solutions that are not technically possible or that lack a technical feasibility discussion will receive lower scores.
Novelty: Please rate the originality and creativity of the solution and how significant the contribution will be to the building industry.
Impact: Please rate the overall scalability of the team’s solution. For example, can the solution be extended to communities, similar stakeholder groups, or a nationwide solution?

Market Readiness (30%)

Market Characterization: Please rate the team’s description and understanding of the market.
Technology-to-Market: Please rate the team’s proposed plan to bring the solution from a paper concept to installation or integration with real buildings or building designs, and the team’s cost/benefit analysis. The cost/benefit analysis may include energy reductions or benefits to occupant health and productivity.
Overcoming Adoption Barriers: Please rate the team’s identification of and plan for overcoming at least one key market adoption barrier for the proposed solution. This includes how the solution will create value, both economic and other, to drive industry adoption.

Team Diversity and Understanding Stakeholders (20%)

Diversity Statement and Project Team Background: Please rate how well the team addresses the diversity gap in the building science industry in its diversity statement. This includes how the team brings perspectives from a variety of backgrounds, including students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This also includes students from many different disciplines ensuring diversity of thought. See the diversity statement in the challenge requirements. This also includes how well the teams connect their mission statement and biographies to their problem statement.
Understanding Stakeholders: Please rate how well the team communicates their understanding of the stakeholder group or community and how they are affected by the problem. This rating also includes how well the team defined the problem that needs to be solved by taking into consideration the needs of the stakeholder group or community.

Submission (10%)

Submission Requirements: Please rate how well the student team followed all submission requirements. See the submission requirements at the bottom of each challenge description.

How to Create a Successful Submission

We will have two student webinars.

Student Webinar #1

Student Webinar #1

Student Webinar #2

Student Webinar #2

Citations

World Green Building Council. 2022. Bringing Embodied Carbon Upfront. https://www.worldgbc.org/embodied-carbon.
United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2022. Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions.
Leung, J. 2018. Decarbonizing U.S. Buildings. Climate Innovation 2050. https://www.c2es.org/document/decarbonizing-u-s-buildings/.
The White House. 2021. President Biden Sets 2030 Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Target Aimed at Creating Good-Paying Union Jobs and Securing U.S. Leadership on Clean Energy Technologies. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/22/fact-sheet-president-biden-sets-2030-greenhouse-gas-pollution-reduction-target-aimed-at-creating-good-paying-union-jobs-and-securing-u-s-leadership-on-clean-energy-technologies/.
S. Energy Information Administration. 2018. Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) 2018 data. https://www.eia.gov/consumption/commercial/data/2018/#b6-b10.
O’Connor, J. 2004. Survey on Actual Service Lives for North American Buildings. Presented at Woodframe Housing Durability and Disaster Issues conference, Las Vegas. https://cwc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DurabilityService_Life_E.pdf.
Vespa, J, Armstrong, D.M., and Medina, L. 2020. Demographic Turning Points for the United States: Population Projections for 2020 to 2060. The United States Census. P25-1144. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.html.
Strain, L. 2022. 10 steps to reducing embodied carbon. American Institute of Architects. https://www.aia.org/articles/70446-ten-steps-to-reducing-embodied-carbon.
S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2023. Sustainable Management of Construction and Demolition Materials. https://www.epa.gov/smm/sustainable-management-construction-and-demolition-materials.
World Economic Forum. 2014. Towards the Circular Economy: Accelerating the scale-up across global supply chains. https://www.weforum.org/reports/towards-circular-economy-accelerating-scale-across-global-supply-chains/
The Ellen Macarthur Foundation. It’s time for a circular economy. https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org
Carbon Leadership Forum. 2022. Introduction to Embodied Carbon. https://carbonleadershipforum.org/toolkit-1-introduction/.
Nielsen, K.S., Nicholas, K.A., Creutzig, F., Dietz, T., and Stern, P.C. 2021. The Role of High-Socioeconomic-Status People in Locking In or Rapidly Reducing Energy-Driven Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Nature Energy Volume 6: Pages 1011–1016. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00900-y.
World Business Council for Sustainable Development. 2021. Net-zero buildings: Where do we stand? https://www.wbcsd.org/Programs/Cities-and-Mobility/Sustainable-Cities/Transforming-the-Built-Environment/Decarbonization/Resources/Net-zero-buildings-Where-do-we-stand.
Büchs, M and Schnepf, S.V. 2013. Who emits most? Associations Between Socio-Economic Factors and UK Households’ Home Energy, Transport, Indirect and Total CO₂Ecological Economics Volume 90: Page 114–123. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800913000980.

Keepin’ it Cool (or Hot)

Note that this challenge was for the Fall 2023 competition.

This challenge focuses on developing an innovative solution for thermal energy storage for buildings to optimize energy utilization, enhance sustainability, and increase resilience. The solutions could involve (but are not limited to) integration of materials, systems, and controls for the storage and release of energy.

Background

Source: GettyImages

Climate change is an immediate global concern, evident from the melting ice caps, sea-level rise, increasing frequency of extreme weather events, and shifts in ecosystems and wildlife patterns.¹ This change is driven by the excessive release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, particularly from burning fossil fuels, which absorb most of the outgoing infrared radiation (i.e., heat) from Earth’s surface and emit in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.² To combat climate change, it is crucial to reduce fossil fuel usage and transition to clean, renewable energy sources.³ Electrification and decarbonization aim to replace fossil fuel-based systems for power generation, heating, and transportation with electric alternatives powered by renewable energy, such as solar, wind, and hydro.⁴ However, the intermittent nature of renewable energy poses challenges for the electric power grid in maintaining a stable supply and demand balance.⁵ Energy storage technologies balance energy supply and demand by enabling storage of surplus energy during periods with high renewable generation, which can be dispatched later during times with low renewable generation, while also reducing peak demand through load shifting to off-peak periods.⁶ Energy storage systems can also enhance resilience by providing a backup energy source during emergencies for essential services like heating, cooling, and powering critical infrastructure.⁷

Thermal energy storage (TES) technologies store energy in the form of heat or cooling for later use. Based on the application or purpose, TES can be categorized as building-scale, district-level, or grid-scale TES. Building-scale TES involves the use of storage systems, such as water tanks or phase change materials, to store and release thermal energy within individual buildings, providing energy management and load-shifting capabilities for heating, cooling, and other thermal applications.⁸ District-level TES involves the storage and distribution of thermal energy for heating and cooling purposes across multiple buildings or facilities.⁹ Grid-scale TES technologies are integrated into the electrical grid infrastructure for electricity generation, typically at the utility or regional level.¹⁰

Depending on the mechanism used to store and release thermal energy, building-scale TES systems can be categorized as sensible heat, latent heat, and thermochemical storage. Sensible heat storage involves storing and releasing energy by changing the temperature of the storage medium, such as water or rocks. Latent heat storage utilizes phase change materials that absorb and release heat during the transition between solid and liquid states. Thermochemical storage involves the storage and release of heat via chemical bonds in reversible chemical reactions.^6,11

The use of TES in buildings has a long history. Ancient civilizations utilized natural sources of heat and cold, including sunlight, ambient air, the sky and ground, and the evaporation of water, and stored energy using rocks, water, and the ground, as well as in building mass and phase change materials. Early TES systems in buildings included water-based storage tanks and ice storage systems, where storage of excess energy in the form of heated or chilled water or ice could be utilized later for heating, cooling, or other energy needs. ^11,12

Over time, technological advancements led to the development of more sophisticated TES solutions for buildings.¹³ Advanced materials, such as high-performance phase change materials and high-density ceramics, offer enhanced energy storage capacities and more precise control over the charging and discharging processes. These materials can be charged and discharged at different time scales.¹⁴ The integration of TES systems with renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, allows for the efficient storage of excess energy during periods of high renewable generation and its utilization during times of low generation or high demand.¹⁵ Advanced control and monitoring technologies enable better management and optimization of TES operations. This includes real-time monitoring, predictive modeling, and intelligent control algorithms that optimize energy storage and release based on dynamic conditions and demand patterns.¹⁶ Hybrid TES systems combine different storage technologies and leverage their strengths to achieve optimal performance in terms of enhanced flexibility, improved efficiency, and expanded operating ranges.¹⁷

TES has the potential to address energy challenges faced by communities that need affordable and reliable energy sources. TES can provide affordable, efficient, sustainable, and reliable solutions for heating, cooling, and power generation.¹⁸ To fully realize the benefits of TES in a community, it is crucial to encourage community engagement, provide education, and support policies that enable successful implementation. Collaboration between government entities, community organizations, and industry stakeholders can foster innovative approaches and funding mechanisms that address the specific needs and challenges, ultimately leading to improved energy access, affordability, and sustainability.¹⁹

The Challenge

This challenge asks student teams to develop an innovative solution for thermal energy storage for buildings to optimize energy utilization, enhance sustainability, and increase resilience. Furthermore, the cost for implementing TES should be affordable or recoverable from the benefits provided by the TES. The solutions could involve (but are not limited to) integration of materials, systems, and controls for the storage and release of energy. Teams should first develop a focused problem statement for a specific stakeholder group and then develop a technical solution or process.

Suggestions for student teams include (but are not limited to) the following:

Create innovative building type and climate specific design strategies and practices aimed at integrating TES in buildings.
Develop TES solutions utilizing building materials, structure, and/or building’s heating, cooling or water heating systems, and potentially, recovering waste heat in buildings.
Present solutions with advanced controls, or innovative business models, for utilizing TES that can maximize the benefits of TES (e.g., reducing energy cost, shedding electric demand during peak periods, and/or utilizing more available renewable power) with acceptable cost to consumers.

Student submissions should:

Describe the scope and context of the chosen problem.
Identify affected stakeholders, making sure to research stakeholder backgrounds and understand the stakeholders’ needs, especially regarding the problem.
Develop a technical solution to the chosen problem for the targeted stakeholder group. The solution may also include policy and economic solutions, codes and standards, or other aspects critical to identified stakeholder barriers. However, a technical solution must be proposed.
Discuss appropriate and expected impacts and benefits of the proposed solution. This should include an analysis of TES performance, expected benefits (e.g., electricity demand reduction, energy cost savings, and carbon emission reduction), a cost/benefit analysis, and a market adoption analysis.
Discuss limitations and challenges of the proposed solution (e.g., technical, policy-related, code-compliance, etc.).
Develop a commercialization plan that describes how the team envisions bringing its idea to scale in the market, outreach mechanisms, stakeholder engagement, and other relevant details.

Downloadable Challenge Description

Additional Challenge Resources

Submission Template

Requirements

Project Team Background (up to 2 pages, single-spaced)
- Form a team of 2‒4 students. These students represent the project team and will all consult on the problem.
- The Project Team Background should include:
  - Project name, team name, and collegiate institution(s)
  - Team mission statement
  - A short biography for each team member. This should include information such as major, level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and other relevant background information such as experience with building science, future career goals, and formative experiences that shaped each individual’s contribution to the Challenge.
  - Diversity statement (minimum 1 paragraph, 5‒7 sentences): One of JUMP into STEM’s key objectives is to encourage diversity of thought and background in students entering the building science industry. There is a diversity gap in STEM, meaning that certain groups are underrepresented or have been historically excluded from STEM fields. These groups include, but are not limited to, those based on race, ethnicity, and gender—and this gap needs to be addressed. Diversity of thought can be achieved through teams consisting of students from different majors and minors. If there are barriers that affect the racial, ethnic, and/or gender breakdown of your team, please elaborate. The diversity statement is your opportunity to describe your team’s diversity of background and thought, both generally and as applicable to your chosen Challenge.
- The Project Team Background does not count toward the 5-page Project Challenge Submission.
Project Challenge Submission (up to 5 pages, single-spaced)
- Select one of the three Challenges published for the current competition to address.
- Investigate the background of the Challenge and consider related stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affected by the problem, a part of the supply chain, or manufacturing of the technology product(s), as well as those who may have decision-making power and are able to provide solutions (technical or nontechnical solutions, such as policies). For example, you could include stakeholders who have previously experienced environmental pollution or a high energy burden.
- Write a 1- to 2-paragraph problem statement, focusing on a specific aspect of the problem and the stakeholder groups affected by or involved in the problem. The stakeholder groups can be from a specific location, socioeconomic status, age, or demographic (e.g., people living in subsidized housing).
- Develop and describe a novel solution that addresses or solves the specific problem from your problem statement. The solution must be technical and also include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes, standards, and/or other.
- Address the requirements for your selected Challenge as written in the Challenge description. Include graphs, figures, and/or photos. Discuss the feasibility of your solution and how it will impact your stakeholders,
- Develop a technology-to-market plan. A technology-to-market plan describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to installation on real buildings, or integrated into the design of real buildings, and includes a cost/benefit analysis.
  - The cost/benefit analysis does not need to be exhaustive and should include comparing the solution to current or existing technologies or practices. Benefits, such as building energy reductions and improved occupant health or productivity, should be evaluated.
  - The plan should also discuss which key stakeholder(s) should be involved to commercialize the technology and then sell and install the technologies with your target market(s).
- Perform a market adoption barrier analysis. The team should identify at least one key market adoption barrier for implementation and specifically address how the proposed solution will overcome that barrier.
  - Barriers should align with key stakeholder(s) identified by the student team.
- Include references. References will not count toward the 5-page maximum.
Appendix (optional, no page limit)
- Teams may wish to add an appendix. This is optional and might not be reviewed by the judges.
- The appendix has no page limit.

Evaluation Criteria

Solution (40%)

Solution: Please rate the solution and its ability to address the problem statement. The solution must be a technical solution. It should address the stakeholder needs. It must include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes, standards, or other.
Feasibility: Please rate the solution’s overall feasibility. For example, solutions that are not technically possible or that lack a technical feasibility discussion will receive lower scores.
Novelty: Please rate the originality and creativity of the solution and how significant the contribution will be to the building industry.
Impact: Please rate the overall scalability of the team’s solution. For example, can the solution be extended to communities, similar stakeholder groups, or a nationwide solution?

Market Readiness (30%)

Market Characterization: Please rate the team’s description and understanding of the market.
Technology-to-Market: Please rate the team’s proposed plan to bring the solution from a paper concept to installation or integration with real buildings or building designs, and the team’s cost/benefit analysis. The cost/benefit analysis may include energy reductions or benefits to occupant health and productivity.
Overcoming Adoption Barriers: Please rate the team’s identification of and plan for overcoming at least one key market adoption barrier for the proposed solution. This includes how the solution will create value, both economic and other, to drive industry adoption.

Team Diversity and Understanding Stakeholders (20%)

Diversity Statement and Project Team Background: Please rate how well the team addresses the diversity gap in the building science industry in its diversity statement. This includes how the team brings perspectives from a variety of backgrounds, including students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This also includes students from many different disciplines ensuring diversity of thought. See the diversity statement in the challenge requirements. This also includes how well the teams connect their mission statement and biographies to their problem statement.
Understanding Stakeholders: Please rate how well the team communicates their understanding of the stakeholder group or community and how they are affected by the problem. This rating also includes how well the team defined the problem that needs to be solved by taking into consideration the needs of the stakeholder group or community.

Submission (10%)

Submission Requirements: Please rate how well the student team followed all submission requirements. See the submission requirements at the bottom of each challenge description.

How to Create a Successful Submission

We will have two student webinars.

Student Webinar #1

Student Webinar #1

Student Webinar #2

Student Webinar #2

Citations

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). How Do We Know Climate Change Is Real? https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The Causes of Climate Change. https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/
White, T. 2021. Countering Climate Change with Renewable Energy Technologies.https://fas.org/publication/countering-climate-change-with-renewable-energy-technologies/
International Energy Agency (IEA). Electrification.https://www.iea.org/reports/electrification
Fares, R. 2015. Renewable Energy Intermittency Explained: Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities.https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/renewable-energy-intermittency-explained-challenges-solutions-and-opportunities/
Mitali, J., Dhinakaran, S., and Mohamad, A.A. 2022. Energy storage systems: a review. Energy Storage and Saving 1(3):166-216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enss.2022.07.002
Liu, J., Jian, L., Wang, W., Qiu, Z., Zhang, J., and Dastbaz, P. 2021. The role of energy storage systems in resilience enhancement of health care centers with critical loads. Journal of Energy Storage 33 (January 2021):102086. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.est.2020.102086
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Thermal Energy Storage. https://www.nrel.gov/buildings/storage.html
Guelpa, E. Verda, V. 2019. Thermal energy storage in district heating and cooling systems: A review. Applied Energy 252:113474. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.113474
Enescu, D., Chicco, G., Porumb, R., and Seritan, G. 2020. Thermal Energy Storage for Grid Applications: Current Status and Emerging Trends. Energies 13(2):340; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13020340
Dincer, I. and M.A. Rosen. 2011. Thermal Energy Storage Systems and Applications, Second Edition. Willey
Morofsky, E. 2005. History of Thermal Storage. In Thermal Energy Storage for Sustainable Energy Consumption: Fundamentals, Case Studies and Design. Edited by H.O. Paksoy. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-1-4020-5290-3.pdf
Chao, J. 2021. Turning Up the Heat: Thermal Energy Storage Could Play Major Role in Decarbonizing Buildings. https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2021/11/18/turning-up-the-heat-thermal-energy-storage-could-play-major-role-in-decarbonizing-buildings/
Khadiran, T., Hussein, M.Z., Zainal, Z., and Rusli, R. 2016. Advanced energy storage materials for building applications and their thermal performance characterization: A review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57 (May 2016): 916-928 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.12.081
Elkhatat, A. and Al-Muhtaseb, S. 2023. Combined “Renewable Energy–Thermal Energy Storage (RE–TES)” Systems: A Review. Energies 16(11): 4471. https://doi.org/10.3390/en16114471
Behzadi, A., Holmberg, S., Duwig, C., Haghighat, F., Ooka, R., and Sadrizadeh, S. 2022. Smart design and control of thermal energy storage in low-temperature heating and high-temperature cooling systems: A comprehensive review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 166 (September 2022): 112625. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2022.112625
Ding, Z., Wu, W., and Leung, M. 2021. Advanced/hybrid thermal energy storage technology: material, cycle, system and perspective. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 145 (July 2021): 111088. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2021.111088
McNamara, W., Passell, H., Montes, M., Jeffers, R., and Gyuk, I. 2022. Seeking energy equity through energy storage. The Electricity Journal 35(1):107063. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tej.2021.107063
Barns, D.G., Taylor, P.G., Bale, C.S.E., and Owen, A. 2021. Important social and technical factors shaping the prospects for thermal energy storage. Journal of Energy Storage 41(2021): 102877. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.est.2021.102877

Sustainable and Resilient

Note that this challenge was for the Fall 2022 competition.

The objective of this challenge is to develop novel technical solutions to improve the resilience and sustainability of the built environment and identify ways for each proposed solution to enable underserved communities to adapt, persist, and recover from extreme weather and persistent stress, such as those caused by climate change¹.

Background

Source: iStock

People around the world are experiencing an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events¹ and persistent stresses on the environment, society, and economy ². Extreme weather events are not always singular or isolated; they can occur in complex combinations and/or rapid succession³. Depending on the exposure (i.e., presence of people, livelihoods, assets, buildings, services, infrastructure, etc.) and vulnerability of the affected region and communities, an extreme weather event may become a disaster; damage the natural and built environment and infrastructure; and pose a threat to public health, safety, and well-being⁴. The impact of extreme weather and persistent stress is significantly greater on underserved, marginalized, and vulnerable communities, which often lack the resources and capacity to recover⁵. Climate change will increase the number of extreme weather events⁶. There is an urgent need to design more resilient and sustainable buildings and infrastructure that mitigate the impact of extreme weather events, especially in disadvantaged communities⁷.

The core idea of sustainability is to reduce negative impacts on the environment. Sustainability focuses on improving quality of life through practices that minimize damage to the environment⁸. Resilience relates to adaptation to change and focuses on disaster preparedness, mitigation, and recovery⁹. Resilience is typically viewed as the response to low-probability, high-impact events, whereas sustainability is the response to high-probability events for which the impacts are spread out over the infrastructure life cycle¹⁰. A resilient and sustainable design focuses on the response of systems to both extreme weather and persistent stress utilizing sustainable design principles.

Building-scale strategies for improving resilience can address one or more aspects of building structure, enclosure, systems, operations, and building use¹¹. Community-level strategies for improving resilience of building stock and infrastructure may require a multipronged approach, including mandatory upgrades, incentive programs, funding mechanisms, and education/outreach programs¹².

Many emerging technologies focus on improving the resilience of the U.S. building infrastructure and electricity grid. For example, smart grid technologies use communication and information technology to collect information on the behavior of customers and automatically improve efficiency and reliability in distributing electricity¹³. Microgrids¹⁴ with distributed energy resources¹⁵ include small-scale units of power generation that operate locally and can be connected to a larger power grid at the distribution level, thereby improving the quality and reliability of service¹⁶. Grid-interactive efficient buildings use an optimized blend of energy efficiency, energy storage, renewable energy, and load flexibility technologies enabled through smart controls¹⁷.

It is important to recognize the potential opportunities and challenges in integrating resilience and sustainability goals. In most cases, resilience and sustainability objectives complement each other. For example, systems that are more resilient can better achieve and maintain sustainable operation. Systems that are more sustainable lose less critical functionality and recover more quickly in response to economic, environmental, and social disturbances. However, resilience and sustainability objectives can also compete with each other. For example, oversizing a system for extreme weather conditions may result in non-optimal system performance. Resilience strategies focused on rapid recovery may not achieve long-term sustainability^10,18. Therefore, balanced solutions are needed to optimize both resilience and sustainability.

The Challenge

Addressing this challenge requires understanding the vulnerability that various communities face from extreme weather and persistent stressors and then addressing that vulnerability by comprehensively considering equity, resilience, and sustainability. Students may consider strategies for improving resilience and sustainability of buildings and infrastructure at the building or community scale for new construction, existing buildings, or communities. The solutions must have resilience as the primary objective with sustainability as a component of resilience and must justify trade-offs considered for reconciling any divergent goals of resilience and sustainability.

Suggestions for student teams include (but are not limited to) the following:

Develop innovative design and construction solutions for improving the resilience of buildings
Develop smart controls for improving the resilience of building infrastructure and the electricity grid
Develop integrated technical and planning solutions for improving community resilience.

Student submissions should:

Describe the scope and context of the problem based on a current or emergent problem(s) in the United States
Identify affected communities, making sure to include underserved, marginalized, and/or vulnerable communities
Develop a novel technical solution to address the problem at a clearly defined building or community scale; the solution must include technical and nontechnical aspects such as policy or economic solutions and may focus on new or existing buildings or planned or existing communities
Discuss how issues of equity are incorporated into strategies to improve resilience and sustainability
Discuss appropriate and expected impacts (including any unintended consequences) and benefits of the proposed solution; these may include quantifiable and nonquantifiable benefits¹⁹ such as health and safety of the affected population, size of the community affected, number of households relocated, avoided cost of losses, loss of businesses, and loss of lives
Develop a plan that describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to implementation, such as a technology-to-market plan for a commercially viable, market-ready product for real buildings and communities, and/or integration into the planning and design process.

Downloadable Challenge Description

Additional Challenge Resources

Submission Template

Requirements

Please submit the following as a single-spaced PDF document that is a written narrative of the team’s proposed solution. PowerPoints or submissions in presentation format do not meet the requirement.

Project Team Background (up to 2 pages, single-spaced)
- Form a team of 2‒4 students. These students represent the project team and will all consult on the problem.
- The Project Team Background should include:
  - Project name, team name, and collegiate institution(s)
  - Team mission statement
  - A short biography for each team member; this should include information such as major, level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and other relevant background information such as experience with building science, future career goals, and formative experiences that shaped each individual’s contribution to the Challenge.
  - Diversity statement (minimum 1 paragraph, 5‒7 sentences): One of JUMP into STEM’s key objectives is to encourage diversity of thought and background in students entering the building science industry. There is a diversity gap in STEM, meaning that certain groups are underrepresented or have been historically excluded from STEM fields. These groups include, but are not limited to, those based on race, ethnicity, and gender—and this gap needs to be addressed. Diversity of thought can be achieved through teams consisting of students from different majors and minors. If there are barriers that affect the racial, ethnic, and/or gender breakdown of your team, please elaborate. As part of the next generation of building science thought leaders and researchers, you have a unique opportunity to influence this industry. The diversity statement is your opportunity to describe your team’s diversity of background and thought, both generally and as applicable to your chosen Challenge.
- The Project Team Background does not count toward the 5-page Project Challenge Submission.
Project Challenge Submission (up to 5 pages, single-spaced)
- Select 1 of the 3 Challenges to address.
- Investigate the background of the Challenge and consider related stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affected by the problem, a part of the supply chain, or manufacturing of the technology product(s), as well as those who may have decision-making power and are able to provide solutions (technical or nontechnical solutions, such as policies). For example, you could include stakeholders who have previously experienced environmental pollution or a high energy burden. Refer to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Justice and Environmental Justice
- Write a 1- to 2-paragraph problem statement, focusing on a specific aspect of the problem and the stakeholder groups affected by or involved in the problem. The stakeholder groups can be from a specific location, socioeconomic status, age, or demographic (e.g., people living in subsidized housing). The problem statement should clearly identify the injustices (energy or environmental) that the stakeholder group experiences. Students should consider social implications related to the identified injustices.
- Develop and describe a novel solution that addresses or solves the specific problem from your problem statement. The solution must be technical and also include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, and/or other.
- Address the requirements for your selected Challenge as written in the Challenge description. Include graphs, figures, and photos. Discuss the feasibility of your solution and how it will impact your stakeholders, especially those who have experienced the injustices that you described in your problem statement.
- Develop a technology-to-market plan. A technology-to-market plan describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to installation on real buildings, or integrated into the design of real buildings, and includes a cost/benefit analysis.
  - The cost/benefit analysis does not need to be exhaustive and should include comparing the solution to current or existing technologies or practices. Benefits, such as building energy reductions and improved occupant health or productivity, should be evaluated.
  - The plan should also discuss which key stakeholder(s) should be involved to commercialize the technology and then sell and install the technologies with your target market(s).
- Perform a market adoption barrier analysis. The team should identify at least one key market adoption barrier for implementation and specifically address how the proposed solution will overcome that barrier.
  - Barriers should align with key stakeholder(s) identified by the student team.
- Include references. References will not count toward the 5-page maximum.
Appendix (optional, no page limit)
- Teams may wish to add an appendix. This is optional and might not be reviewed by the judges.
- The appendix has no page limit.

Evaluation Criteria

Solution (40%)

Solution: Please rate the solution and its ability to address the problem statement. The solution must be a technical solution and include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, or other. How well does the proposed solution address the problem and stakeholder needs?
Feasibility: Please rate the solution’s overall feasibility and potential, including its viability. For example, solutions that are not technically possible or that lack a technical feasibility discussion will receive lower scores.
Novelty: Please rate the originality and creativity of the solution and how significant the contribution will be to the building industry.
Impact: Please rate the overall potential impact of the team’s solution. For example, can the solution be extended to communities, similar stakeholder groups, or a nationwide solution?

Market Readiness (30%)

Market Characterization: Please rate the team’s understanding of the market and the stakeholder group(s) identified by the problem statement.
Technology-to-Market: Please rate the team’s proposed plan to bring the solution from a paper concept to installation or integration with real buildings or building designs, and the team’s cost/benefit analysis.
Overcoming Adoption Barriers: Please rate the team’s identification of and plan for overcoming adoption barriers for proposed solution. This includes how the solution will create value, both economic and other, to drive industry adoption.

Diversity and Justice (20%)

Diversity Statement and Project Team Background: Please rate how well the team addresses the diversity gap in the building science industry in its diversity statement. This includes how the team brings perspectives from a variety of backgrounds, including students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This also includes students from many different disciplines—ensuring diversity of thought. See the diversity statement in the Challenge requirements. This also includes how well the teams connect their mission statement and biographies to their problem statement.
Environmental and Energy Justice: Please rate how well the proposed solution addresses environmental and energy justice.

Submission (10%)

Submission Requirements: Please rate how well the student team followed all submission requirements. See the submission paper requirements section of this rules document and at the bottom of each Challenge description.

How to Create a Successful Submission

Citations

Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. 2022. “Extreme Weather and Climate Change.” https://www.c2es.org/content/extreme-weather-and-climate-change/
Carleton, T. A., and Hsiang, S. M. 2016. “Social and economic impacts of climate.” Science 353(6304). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aad9837
European Environment Agency. 2003. Mapping the impacts of recent natural disasters and technological accidents in Europe. Environmental Issue Report No. 35/2003. https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/environmental_issue_report_2004_35/download
O’Brien, K., et al. 2012. “Toward a sustainable and resilient future.” In: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (Field, C. B., et al. [eds.]). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York, NY, USA, 437–486. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/SREX-Chap8_FINAL-1.pdf
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. 2016. Poverty and Death: Disaster and Mortality, 1996–2015. https://www.preventionweb.net/files/50589_creddisastermortalityallfinalpdf.pdf
Harvey, C. 2018. “Extreme Weather Will Occur More Frequently Worldwide.” Scientific American. February 15, 2018. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/extreme-weather-will-occur-more-frequently-worldwide/
Achour, N., Pantzartzis, E., Pascale, F., and Price, A. D. F. 2015. “Integration of resilience and sustainability: from theory to application.” International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment 6(3), 347–362. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJDRBE-05-2013-0016
Collier, Z. A., Wang, D., Vogel, J. T., Tatham, E. K., and Linkov, I. 2013. “Sustainable roofing technology under multiple constraints: a decision-analytical approach.” Environment Systems and Decisions 33, 261–271. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10669-013-9446-5
Lizarralde, G., Chmutina, K., Bosher, L., and Dainty, A. 2015. “Sustainability and resilience in the built environment: The challenges of establishing a turquoise agenda in the UK.” Sustainable Cities and Society 15, 96–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2014.12.004
Marchese, D., Reynolds, E., Bates, M. E., Morgan, H., Clark, S. S., and Linkov, I. 2018. “Resilience and sustainability: Similarities and differences in environmental management applications.” Science of the Total Environment 613–614, 1275–1283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.09.086
Alfraidi, Y., and Boussabaine, A. H. 2015. “Design Resilient Building Strategies in Face of Climate Change.” World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Architectural and Environmental Engineering 9(1), 23–28. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1338054
Boston Green Ribbon Commission Climate Preparedness Working Group. 2013. Building Resilience in Boston: Best Practices for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience for Existing Buildings. https://www.cityofboston.gov/images_documents/Building_Resilience_in_Boston_FINAL_tcm3-40185.pdf
US Department of Energy. 2021. “The Smart Grid: An Introduction.” https://www.energy.gov/oe/downloads/smart-grid-introduction-0
US Department of Energy. 2014. “How Microgrids Work.” https://www.energy.gov/articles/how-microgrids-work
US Department of Energy. 2021. “Distributed Energy Resources for Resilience.” https://www.energy.gov/eere/femp/distributed-energy-resources-resilience
US Department of Energy. 2021. “Solar Integration: Distributed Energy Resources and Microgrids.” https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/solar-integration-distributed-energy-resources-and-microgrids
Rocky Mountain Institute. 2021. “Grid-Interactive Energy-Efficient Buildings (GEBS).” https://rmi.org/our-work/buildings/pathways-to-zero/grid-integrated-energy-efficient-buildings/
Phillips, R., Troup, L., Fannon, D., Eckelman, M. J. 2017. “Do resilient and sustainable design strategies conflict in commercial buildings? A critical analysis of existing resilient building frameworks and their sustainability implications.” Energy and Buildings, 146 (2017), 295–311. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ENBUILD.2017.04.009.
Whole Building Design Guide. 2020. “Consider Non-Quantifiable Benefits.” https://www.wbdg.org/design-objectives/cost-effective/consider-non-monetary-benefits

It’s Electric

Note that this challenge was for the Fall 2022 competition.

The objective of this challenge is to increase the electrification of U.S. buildings (residential, commercial, new, or existing). Student team solutions should lead to reductions in energy use and carbon emissions through electrification solutions, and students should emphasize reducing inequalities in obtaining technologies for identified stakeholder groups.

Background

The United States has a long-term goal to decarbonize the electric grid¹. This will require several market transformations across multiple sectors, including renewable power generation and storage options, increased energy efficiency adoption and timely use of energy across homes and places of work, and a shift away from burning fossil fuels for all appliances and equipment. Buildings will play an integral role in achieving decarbonization objectives, and eliminating the burning of fossil fuels, also known as electrification, will be a crucial step.

Source: Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL

Buildings directly burn fossil fuels, such as natural gas and propane, often for space heating and water heating, as well as various appliances (e.g., cooking, clothes drying). In 2021, nearly 48% of energy consumed by the combined residential and commercial building sectors came from directly burning fossil fuels ². This represents almost one-fifth of all energy consumed by the United States each year ³. In 2020, the residential and commercial sectors were the main consumers of energy, accounting for 40% (i.e., 22% and 18%, respectively) of the total U.S. energy consumption ⁴. Space heating accounted for 43% of total energy in residential buildings in 2015, where 69% of energy for the space heating was provided by the natural gas ⁵. Only 14% of energy for space heating is provided by electricity ⁵.

Natural gas is the primary space heating and water heating fuel source for nearly half of all commercial buildings and is the main commercial fuel source in the Northeast, Midwest, and West ⁶. In addition to natural gas, nearly 10% of commercial buildings report using propane and fuel oils for space heating, leaving approximately 30% currently utilizing electricity as the primary source for space heating ³.

Such a substantial transformation across the residential and commercial building sectors will require innovative solutions, as well as widespread adoption of both new and existing technologies. An example technology requiring both innovation and increased adoption is heat pumps. Heat pumps are an efficient and effective electrification option for both space heating and water heating. It is estimated that less than 15% of commercial buildings utilize heat pumps as heating equipment ⁶, and when they are in use, heat pumps are more commonly found in warmer regions of the U.S. There is an opportunity to solve market barriers that limit more widespread adoption of heat pumps in warmer climates, but also to advance the technology to improve operation and ultimately market transformation in colder climates.

Research has also documented large upfront costs associated with the installation of heat pumps compared to traditional central air conditioning and furnace systems. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) reported that based on 2018 prices, the installation cost of a residential air-source heat pump ranged between 50% and 200% more than conventional central air conditioning systems with a natural gas furnace for heating ⁷. This significant increase in costs may limit adoption potential, especially in lower socioeconomic communities.

In addition to high-performance electric technologies that replace fuel-fired equipment, other solutions such as those addressing electrical infrastructure will be required. Consider that almost half of the U.S. housing stock was built before 1970 ⁸. Unless a home has had a substantial electrical infrastructure upgrade, most of these homes have electrical breaker panels with 100-amp service or less ⁹. As appliances and equipment shift away from fossil fuels such as natural gas or propane, new electrical infrastructure will be needed in order to support electrification technologies—at an average cost of $1,300–$2,500 per home to upgrade to 200-amp service ¹⁰, not to mention additional constraints and implications from charging electric vehicles.

The Challenge

This topic challenges student teams to develop an innovative solution that will address electrification in buildings. Students can focus on any aspect related to this transition away from directly burning fossil fuels on-site. Solutions can be considered at the individual building and multibuilding scale. Student teams should first develop a focused problem statement for a specific stakeholder group and then develop a technical solution or process to solve the chosen problem.

Suggestions for student teams include (but are not limited to) the following:

Develop new equipment or technologies to replace fuel-fired equipment or appliances with high-performance electric options.
Improve existing electrification equipment or technologies to significantly increase capabilities.
Develop technologies or processes for right-sizing heat pumps, including technologies or processes that combine right-sizing of heat pumps with other envelope upgrade packages.
Develop technologies or processes to identify optimal combinations of heat pump equipment and building envelope system upgrades.
Develop new equipment, technologies, or processes to address electrical infrastructure for homes and commercial spaces to allow electrification of building loads.
Develop solutions that include advanced controls with specific intent to optimize existing electrical infrastructure to accommodate new electrical loads.

Student submissions must:

Describe the scope and context of the chosen problem.
Identify affected stakeholders, making sure to consider socioeconomically vulnerable and historically excluded, underserved, and frontline communities (communities at the “front line” of pollution and climate change ¹¹).
Develop a technical solution to the chosen problem for the targeted stakeholder group. The solution may also include policy solutions, supply chain and manufacturing processes, economic solutions, or other aspects critical to identified stakeholder barriers, but a technical solution must be proposed.
Discuss appropriate and expected impacts and benefits of the proposed solution. This should include a cost/benefit analysis, a market adoption analysis, and should also consider non-economic costs and benefits, such as occupant health, productivity, and well-being ¹².
Develop a plan that describes how the team envisions bringing its idea to scale in the market, including sales or distribution channels, outreach mechanisms, stakeholder engagement, and other relevant details.

Downloadable Challenge Description

Additional Challenge Resources

Submission Template

Requirements

Project Team Background (up to 2 pages, single-spaced)
- Form a team of 2‒4 students. These students represent the project team and will all consult on the problem.
- The Project Team Background should include:
  - Project name, team name, and collegiate institution(s)
  - Team mission statement
  - A short biography for each team member; this should include information such as major, level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and other relevant background information such as experience with building science, future career goals, and formative experiences that shaped each individual’s contribution to the Challenge.
  - Diversity statement (minimum 1 paragraph, 5‒7 sentences): One of JUMP into STEM’s key objectives is to encourage diversity of thought and background in students entering the building science industry. There is a diversity gap in STEM, meaning that certain groups are underrepresented or have been historically excluded from STEM fields. These groups include, but are not limited to, those based on race, ethnicity, and gender—and this gap needs to be addressed. Diversity of thought can be achieved through teams consisting of students from different majors and minors. If there are barriers that affect the racial, ethnic, and/or gender breakdown of your team, please elaborate. As part of the next generation of building science thought leaders and researchers, you have a unique opportunity to influence this industry. The diversity statement is your opportunity to describe your team’s diversity of background and thought, both generally and as applicable to your chosen Challenge.
- The Project Team Background does not count toward the 5-page Project Challenge Submission.
Project Challenge Submission (up to 5 pages, single-spaced)
- Select 1 of the 3 Challenges to address.
- Investigate the background of the Challenge and consider related stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affected by the problem, a part of the supply chain, or manufacturing of the technology product(s), as well as those who may have decision-making power and are able to provide solutions (technical or nontechnical solutions, such as policies). For example, you could include stakeholders who have previously experienced environmental pollution or a high energy burden. Refer to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Justice and Environmental Justice
- Write a 1- to 2-paragraph problem statement, focusing on a specific aspect of the problem and the stakeholder groups affected by or involved in the problem. The stakeholder groups can be from a specific location, socioeconomic status, age, or demographic (e.g., people living in subsidized housing). The problem statement should clearly identify the injustices (energy or environmental) that the stakeholder group experiences. Students should consider social implications related to the identified injustices.
- Develop and describe a novel solution that addresses or solves the specific problem from your problem statement. The solution must be technical and also include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, and/or other.
- Address the requirements for your selected Challenge as written in the Challenge description. Include graphs, figures, and photos. Discuss the feasibility of your solution and how it will impact your stakeholders, especially those who have experienced the injustices that you described in your problem statement.
- Develop a technology-to-market plan. A technology-to-market plan describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to installation on real buildings, or integrated into the design of real buildings, and includes a cost/benefit analysis.
  - The cost/benefit analysis does not need to be exhaustive and should include comparing the solution to current or existing technologies or practices. Benefits, such as building energy reductions and improved occupant health or productivity, should be evaluated.
  - The plan should also discuss which key stakeholder(s) should be involved to commercialize the technology and then sell and install the technologies with your target market(s).
- Perform a market adoption barrier analysis. The team should identify at least one key market adoption barrier for implementation and specifically address how the proposed solution will overcome that barrier.
  - Barriers should align with key stakeholder(s) identified by the student team.
- Include references. References will not count toward the 5-page maximum.
Appendix (optional, no page limit)
- Teams may wish to add an appendix. This is optional and might not be reviewed by the judges.
- The appendix has no page limit.

Evaluation Criteria

Solution (40%)

Solution: Please rate the solution and its ability to address the problem statement. The solution must be a technical solution and include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, or other. How well does the proposed solution address the problem and stakeholder needs?
Feasibility: Please rate the solution’s overall feasibility and potential, including its viability. For example, solutions that are not technically possible or that lack a technical feasibility discussion will receive lower scores.
Novelty: Please rate the originality and creativity of the solution and how significant the contribution will be to the building industry.
Impact: Please rate the overall potential impact of the team’s solution. For example, can the solution be extended to communities, similar stakeholder groups, or a nationwide solution?

Market Readiness (30%)

Market Characterization: Please rate the team’s understanding of the market and the stakeholder group(s) identified by the problem statement.
Technology-to-Market: Please rate the team’s proposed plan to bring the solution from a paper concept to installation or integration with real buildings or building designs, and the team’s cost/benefit analysis.
Overcoming Adoption Barriers: Please rate the team’s identification of and plan for overcoming adoption barriers for proposed solution. This includes how the solution will create value, both economic and other, to drive industry adoption.

Diversity and Justice (20%)

Diversity Statement and Project Team Background: Please rate how well the team addresses the diversity gap in the building science industry in its diversity statement. This includes how the team brings perspectives from a variety of backgrounds, including students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This also includes students from many different disciplines—ensuring diversity of thought. See the diversity statement in the Challenge requirements. This also includes how well the teams connect their mission statement and biographies to their problem statement.
Environmental and Energy Justice: Please rate how well the proposed solution addresses environmental and energy justice.

Submission (10%)

Submission Requirements: Please rate how well the student team followed all submission requirements. See the submission paper requirements section of this rules document and at the bottom of each Challenge description.

How to Create a Successful Submission

Citations

The White House. 2021. “President Biden Signs Executive Order Catalyzing America’s Clean Energy Economy Through Federal Sustainability.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/12/08/fact-sheet-president-biden-signs-executive-order-catalyzing-americas-clean-energy-economy-through-federal-sustainability/.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2022. “Natural Gas.” https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2022. “Use of Energy Explained.” https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2021. “Monthly Energy Review.” https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/previous.php.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2018. “2015 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) Data.” https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/data/2015/c&e/pdf/ce3.1.pdf.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2021. “2018 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey: Building Characteristics Results.” https://www.eia.gov/consumption/commercial/data/2018/pdf/CBECS_2018_Building_Characteristics_Flipbook.pdf.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. 2019. “Analysis of Residential Heat Pump Potential and Economics.” https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/-/media/Project/Nyserda/Files/Publications/PPSER/NYSERDA/18-44-HeatPump.pdf.
Sarkar, Mousumi. 2011. How American Homes Vary by the Year They Were Built. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau. Working Paper No. 2011-18. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/programs-surveys/ahs/working-papers/Housing-by-Year-Built.pdf.
Thiele, Timothy. 2022. “How Electrical Service Panels Have Evolved.” The Spruce. https://www.thespruce.com/service-panels-changed-in-the-1900s-1152732.
The Home Guide. 2022. “How Much Does It Cost to Upgrade or Replace An Electrical Panel?” https://homeguide.com/costs/cost-to-replace-electrical-panel.
Initiative for Energy Justice. 2022. https://iejusa.org.
Whole Building Design Guide. 2020. “Consider Non-Quantifiable Benefits.” https://www.wbdg.org/design-objectives/cost-effective/consider-non-monetary-benefits.

Curb Your Carbon

Note that this challenge was for the Fall 2022 competition.

The objective of this challenge is to develop an innovative solution that will reduce carbon emissions from U.S. buildings (residential, commercial, new, or existing). Student problem statements can focus on embodied carbon, carbon sequestration and storage, and/or operational carbon emissions. Innovative solutions should lead to significant reductions in carbon emissions, and fewer inequalities in obtaining new technologies for identified stakeholder groups.

Background

Source: iStock

Buildings account for about 40% of energy-related carbon emissions worldwide ¹. Carbon emissions generally refer to carbon (primarily carbon dioxide—CO₂) that is released into the atmosphere, contributing to greenhouse gases that trap heat and warm the planet ². Energy-related carbon emissions come from a variety of sources including the emissions related to energy consumption in buildings (both electricity and fossil fuels), known as operational carbon emissions, as well as carbon emissions related to material manufacturing and all other construction processes, known as embodied carbon. Residential and commercial buildings in the United States match global trends, with annual operational carbon emissions totaling 29% of all U.S. emissions when the CO₂ emissions from the generation and distribution of electricity are factored in ³.

The United States has committed to significantly reducing carbon emissions by 2030 ⁴. A unique characteristic of buildings—when compared to other carbon-emitting sectors such as personal vehicles and transportation—is that buildings have a comparatively slower turnover rate. The average age of U.S. homes and commercial buildings is around 45 years old ², with projected life expectancies anywhere from 75 to 100 years or more ⁵. Additionally, the U.S. population is projected to grow 20%–25% between now and 2060,⁶ which will continue to increase demand for housing and commercial floor space. As with any multifaceted and complex problem, there are many opportunities for solutions addressing carbon reductions in our buildings—both operational and embodied.

The architectural and design community has been focused on employing strategies and processes to reduce embodied carbon for many years. Examples include design practices focused on renovation and reuse of existing buildings and materials, selecting building products that have minimal carbon emissions during manufacturing, and locally sourcing materials when possible, to further minimize emissions related to transporting the materials for construction ⁷. More recent advancements in materials are unlocking opportunities for carbon sequestering or capturing. For example, concrete blocks are becoming available that are made without the use of cement as a binding ingredient and have CO₂ directly injected into the product, thereby permanently sequestering it ^8,⁹.

There are multiple pathways to reducing operational carbon, including energy efficiency and electrification, as well as smart devices and equipment that enable connectivity between devices, buildings, and the electric grid to optimize energy consumption and minimize carbon emissions from the electric grid ².

It is also important to consider how carbon emissions are accounted for throughout the lifetime of a building. Embodied carbon emissions are released due to the construction or renovation of a building, whereas operational carbon emissions are released continuously. For example, 38% of all carbon emissions over the first 10 years for a typical new construction building built in 2020 will be the embodied carbon released due to construction—the remaining 62% are carbon emissions from operating the building ¹⁰. However, when we compare typical new construction to high-performance construction, the story changes. Two-thirds of all carbon emissions over the first 10 years for a high-performance building will be the embodied carbon released due to construction ¹⁰. The primary reason for this is the significant reduction in operational carbon emissions from energy efficiency measures taken as part of the high-performance design. In either case, the key take away is that solutions for both embodied and operational carbon are needed.

Additional research has studied the relationship between carbon emissions and socioeconomic status. Some data suggest that high socioeconomic status may disproportionately contribute to energy-driven carbon emissions related to consumption patterns, and at the same time substantial financial resources of high socioeconomic people can influence emissions and climate change policy and mitigation efforts—not always in positive ways ¹¹. Related research has also shown that although high socioeconomic status may lead to higher consumption rates, these consumption patterns are often related to transport emissions, and lower socioeconomic status people are more likely to contribute to carbon emissions related to households ¹². In either case, careful consideration needs to be taken in approaching carbon reduction solutions for specific stakeholder groups—especially vulnerable and historically excluded, underserved, and frontline communities.

The Challenge

This challenge asks student teams to develop an innovative solution that will reduce carbon emissions in buildings. Students can focus on any aspect related to carbon emissions, including but not limited to embodied carbon, carbon sequestration and capture, and operational carbon emissions. Teams should first develop a focused problem statement for a specific stakeholder group and then develop a technical solution or process.

Suggestions for student teams include (but are not limited to) the following:

Create innovative design strategies and practices specifically aimed at reducing embodied carbon.
Develop new materials or manufacturing processes that reduce or eliminate carbon emissions, as well as potentially capture and store CO₂.
Present solutions with advanced controls that optimize building operation and minimize carbon emissions.

Student submissions should:

Describe the scope and context of the chosen problem.
Identify affected stakeholders, making sure to consider socioeconomically vulnerable and historically excluded, underserved, and frontline communities (communities at the “front line” of pollution and climate change⁷).
Develop a technical solution to the chosen problem for the targeted stakeholder group. The solution may also include policy solutions, supply chain and manufacturing processes, economic solutions, or other aspects critical to identified stakeholder barriers, but a technical solution must be proposed.
Discuss appropriate and expected impacts and benefits of the proposed solution. This should include a cost/benefit analysis, a market adoption analysis, and should also consider non-economic costs and benefits, such as occupant health, productivity, well-being, and others.⁸
Develop a plan that describes how the team envisions bringing its idea to scale in the market, including sales or distribution channels, outreach mechanisms, stakeholder engagement, and other relevant details.

Downloadable Challenge Description

Additional Challenge Resources

Submission Template

Requirements

Project Team Background (up to 2 pages, single-spaced)
- Form a team of 2‒4 students. These students represent the project team and will all consult on the problem.
- The Project Team Background should include:
  - Project name, team name, and collegiate institution(s)
  - Team mission statement
  - A short biography for each team member; this should include information such as major, level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and other relevant background information such as experience with building science, future career goals, and formative experiences that shaped each individual’s contribution to the Challenge.
  - Diversity statement (minimum 1 paragraph, 5‒7 sentences): One of JUMP into STEM’s key objectives is to encourage diversity of thought and background in students entering the building science industry. There is a diversity gap in STEM, meaning that certain groups are underrepresented or have been historically excluded from STEM fields. These groups include, but are not limited to, those based on race, ethnicity, and gender—and this gap needs to be addressed. Diversity of thought can be achieved through teams consisting of students from different majors and minors. If there are barriers that affect the racial, ethnic, and/or gender breakdown of your team, please elaborate. As part of the next generation of building science thought leaders and researchers, you have a unique opportunity to influence this industry. The diversity statement is your opportunity to describe your team’s diversity of background and thought, both generally and as applicable to your chosen Challenge.
- The Project Team Background does not count toward the 5-page Project Challenge Submission.
Project Challenge Submission (up to 5 pages, single-spaced)
- Select 1 of the 3 Challenges to address.
- Investigate the background of the Challenge and consider related stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affected by the problem, a part of the supply chain, or manufacturing of the technology product(s), as well as those who may have decision-making power and are able to provide solutions (technical or nontechnical solutions, such as policies). For example, you could include stakeholders who have previously experienced environmental pollution or a high energy burden. Refer to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Justice and Environmental Justice
- Write a 1- to 2-paragraph problem statement, focusing on a specific aspect of the problem and the stakeholder groups affected by or involved in the problem. The stakeholder groups can be from a specific location, socioeconomic status, age, or demographic (e.g., people living in subsidized housing). The problem statement should clearly identify the injustices (energy or environmental) that the stakeholder group experiences. Students should consider social implications related to the identified injustices.
- Develop and describe a novel solution that addresses or solves the specific problem from your problem statement. The solution must be technical and also include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, and/or other.
- Address the requirements for your selected Challenge as written in the Challenge description. Include graphs, figures, and photos. Discuss the feasibility of your solution and how it will impact your stakeholders, especially those who have experienced the injustices that you described in your problem statement.
- Develop a technology-to-market plan. A technology-to-market plan describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to installation on real buildings, or integrated into the design of real buildings, and includes a cost/benefit analysis.
  - The cost/benefit analysis does not need to be exhaustive and should include comparing the solution to current or existing technologies or practices. Benefits, such as building energy reductions and improved occupant health or productivity, should be evaluated.
  - The plan should also discuss which key stakeholder(s) should be involved to commercialize the technology and then sell and install the technologies with your target market(s).
- Perform a market adoption barrier analysis. The team should identify at least one key market adoption barrier for implementation and specifically address how the proposed solution will overcome that barrier.
  - Barriers should align with key stakeholder(s) identified by the student team.
- Include references. References will not count toward the 5-page maximum.
Appendix (optional, no page limit)
- Teams may wish to add an appendix. This is optional and might not be reviewed by the judges.
- The appendix has no page limit.

Evaluation Criteria

Solution (40%)

Solution: Please rate the solution and its ability to address the problem statement. The solution must be a technical solution and include one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, or other. How well does the proposed solution address the problem and stakeholder needs?
Feasibility: Please rate the solution’s overall feasibility and potential, including its viability. For example, solutions that are not technically possible or that lack a technical feasibility discussion will receive lower scores.
Novelty: Please rate the originality and creativity of the solution and how significant the contribution will be to the building industry.
Impact: Please rate the overall potential impact of the team’s solution. For example, can the solution be extended to communities, similar stakeholder groups, or a nationwide solution?

Market Readiness (30%)

Market Characterization: Please rate the team’s understanding of the market and the stakeholder group(s) identified by the problem statement.
Technology-to-Market: Please rate the team’s proposed plan to bring the solution from a paper concept to installation or integration with real buildings or building designs, and the team’s cost/benefit analysis.
Overcoming Adoption Barriers: Please rate the team’s identification of and plan for overcoming adoption barriers for proposed solution. This includes how the solution will create value, both economic and other, to drive industry adoption.

Diversity and Justice (20%)

Diversity Statement and Project Team Background: Please rate how well the team addresses the diversity gap in the building science industry in its diversity statement. This includes how the team brings perspectives from a variety of backgrounds, including students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This also includes students from many different disciplines—ensuring diversity of thought. See the diversity statement in the Challenge requirements. This also includes how well the teams connect their mission statement and biographies to their problem statement.
Environmental and Energy Justice: Please rate how well the proposed solution addresses environmental and energy justice.

Submission (10%)

Submission Requirements: Please rate how well the student team followed all submission requirements. See the submission paper requirements section of this rules document and at the bottom of each Challenge description.

How to Create a Successful Submission

Citations

World Green Building Council. 2022. “Bringing Embodied Carbon Upfront.” https://www.worldgbc.org/embodied-carbon.
United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2022. “Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions.
Leung, Jessica. 2018. “Decarbonizing U.S. Buildings.” Climate Innovation 2050. https://www.c2es.org/document/decarbonizing-u-s-buildings/
The White House. 2021. “President Biden Sets 2030 Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Target Aimed at Creating Good-Paying Union Jobs and Securing U.S. Leadership on Clean Energy Technologies.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/22/fact-sheet-president-biden-sets-2030-greenhouse-gas-pollution-reduction-target-aimed-at-creating-good-paying-union-jobs-and-securing-u-s-leadership-on-clean-energy-technologies/.
O’Connor, Jennifer. “Survey on Actual Service Lives for North American Buildings.” Presented at Woodframe Housing Durability and Disaster Issues conference, Las Vegas, October 2004. https://cwc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DurabilityService_Life_E.pdf.
Vespa, Jonathan, Lauren Medina, and David M. Armstrong. 2020. Demographic Turning Points for the United States: Population Projections for 2020 to 2060. The United States Census. P25-1144. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p25-1144.html.
Strain, Larry. “10 steps to reducing embodied carbon.” 2022. https://www.aia.org/articles/70446-ten-steps-to-reducing-embodied-carbon.
CarbiCrete. 2022. https://carbicrete.com.
Echohome. 2021. “Carbon Negative Concrete Goes into Pioneering ‘Green’ CMU Blocks – Quebec Leads the Way!” https://www.ecohome.net/news/1514/carbon-negative-concrete-cmu-blocks-quebec-leads-the-way/.
Carbon Leadership Forum. 2022. “Introduction to Embodied Carbon.” https://carbonleadershipforum.org/toolkit-1-introduction/.
Nielsen, K.S., K.A. Nicholas, F. Creutzig, et al. 2021. “The Role of High-Socioeconomic-Status People in Locking In or Rapidly Reducing Energy-Driven Greenhouse Gas Emissions.” Nature Energy Volume 6: Pages 1011–1016. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00900-y.
Büchs, Milena, Sylke V. Schnepf. 2013. “Who emits most? Associations Between Socio-Economic Factors and UK Households’ Home Energy, Transport, Indirect and Total CO₂ Emissions.” Ecological Economics Volume 90: Page 114–123. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800913000980.

Solving Market Adoption for Emerging Efficiency Technologies

Photo by Dennis Schroeder / NREL

Note that this challenge was for the Fall 2021 competition.

The objective of this challenge is to develop an innovative, holistic solution that will increase the accessibility, purchase, installation, and use of energy efficiency technologies in buildings (residential, commercial, new, or existing). This will lead to reductions in energy use and carbon emissions, and fewer inequalities in obtaining new technologies for identified stakeholder groups.

Background

Energy efficiency in the building industry is not new. The first Energy Policy and Conservation Act was signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1975,¹ and the U.S. Department of Energy will soon celebrate its 45^th birthday. So why don’t we see the latest and greatest building technologies everywhere?

For example, LED light bulbs have been on the market for more than a decade at increasingly lower costs, yet only 45% of high-income households and 14% of low-income households report having at least one LED bulb installed.² Similarly, wireless Internet-of-Things sensors and devices are improving how we can interact with and control devices in our homes and our workplaces. Many of these systems require broadband internet, but only 57% of low-income households in the United States have broadband internet.³ In addition, there is an almost 10% disparity in access to broadband internet for rural communities compared with urban and suburban communities.³ An estimated 39% of people living in rural areas lack access to the basic-fixed broadband service⁴ needed for many of these technologies to function.

Heat pump water heaters (HPWH) are another example of a newer technology that can save a substantial portion of energy for domestic hot water building loads—particularly for residential and multifamily dwellings—while simultaneously providing a path toward electrification and grid-wide carbon reduction goals. However, an apartment building with multiple generations of families who may often be home will see an elevated hot water usage profile compared to an apartment building with single-family tenants who are mostly away during the day. HPWHs subjected to higher usage profiles will more often require the use of a backup electric coil, leading to less efficient operation and higher utility costs for a population with less income to spare. Adding to the complexity of the situation, tenants renting an apartment are often responsible for utility bills but do not typically own their water heaters nor have a say in the type of equipment purchased by the landlord or owners. This seemingly energy-efficient technology investment might actually increase the energy burden on certain individuals and communities. Climate considerations should also be taken into account when considering heat pump performance or the current cost difference between switching from natural gas or electricity.

The initial cost of a new technology is an important factor for deployment, and innovative solutions to reduce this cost are needed to help increase market adoption and impact. However, this approach may overlook subtleties specific to subsets of the population where reducing cost may not be enough to achieve market adoption potential. For example, there could be perception or lack of awareness barriers,⁵ or barriers specific to certain stakeholder groups that cannot be seen through a cost-only lens. Market transformation does not occur overnight, and sometimes strategic intervention is necessary to accelerate technology adoption—this is your challenge.

Slides

The Challenge

This challenge requires students to develop an innovative and holistic deployment solution that will increase market adoption of an emerging technology for building energy conservation and carbon reduction. Teams will first select an emerging technology and a specific stakeholder group with limited adoption of the technology. Teams must then perform market analysis research, identify adoption barriers through stakeholder engagement, and develop a holistic solution (technical, policy, and/or economic) to increase deployment of the technology. The solution must lead to higher market adoption rates and specifically address identified barriers for the chosen stakeholder group. A holistic deployment solution—including technical and non-technical aspects such as policy and economic solutions—is required.

Student submissions should:

Describe the scope and context of the deployment barriers for a specific technology and associated impacted stakeholder group in the United States, including background research on the emerging technology and market analysis to identify and define adoption barriers.
Identify affected stakeholders in socioeconomically vulnerable and historically excluded, underserved, and frontline communities (communities at the frontline of pollution and climate change⁶), as well as key stakeholders or partners needed to deploy the idea.
Develop a holistic solution for the targeted stakeholder group to increase market adoption of the chosen technology at a building-type scale or a community-level scale. The solution may include policy solutions, supply chain and manufacturing processes, economic solutions, or other aspects critical to identified stakeholder barriers, but a technical solution must be proposed.
Discuss appropriate and expected impacts and benefits of the proposed solution. This should include a cost/benefit analysis and should also consider non-economic costs and benefits, such as occupant health, productivity, well-being, and others.⁷
Develop a market transformation plan that describes how the team envisions bringing its idea to scale in the market, including sales or distribution channels, outreach mechanisms, stakeholder engagement, and other relevant details; this plan should also describe who the team would partner with to implement the idea and how the collective team would increase market adoption. Letters of support from potential partners are encouraged.

All solutions must include a cost/benefit analysis. Solutions should consider the following questions:

If costs are a key barrier for the identified stakeholder group, how will costs be reduced to facilitate adoption by these stakeholders?
How does the proposed solution change costs, compared with current best practices?
Are there new business models that could be used to sell the proposed solution?
What non-economic drivers might enable adoption at scale that in turn drive the costs down?

Cost estimates should focus on those processes, or methods, compared with current practices. Cost estimates need not be exhaustive but should be comprehensive enough to capture the barriers identified and how the solution addresses those cost barriers.

All solutions must include consideration for non-economic costs and benefits, especially those identified as critical through stakeholder outreach and engagement. Solutions should consider the following questions:

What are the key barriers other than cost for the identified stakeholder group?
How does the proposed solution address identified non-cost barriers leading to increased adoption of the selected technology?
What methodologies for quantifying these non-economic costs and benefits would lead to wide adoption rates of the technology?

Downloadable Challenge Description

Requirements

Competing in this challenge is open to student teams currently enrolled in U.S. universities and colleges. See the Terms and Conditions for eligibility requirements. Please note that all team members must have completed the Building Technologies Internship Program (BTIP) application or declined internship consideration when the idea is submitted.

Please submit the following as one PDF document.

Project Team Background (up to 2 pages, single-spaced)
- Form a team of 2‒4 students. These students represent the project team and will all consult on the problem.
- The Project Team Background should include:
  - Project name, team name, and collegiate institution(s)
  - Team mission statement
  - A short biography for each team member; this should include information such as major, level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and other relevant background information such as experience with building science, future career goals, and formative experiences that shaped each individual’s contribution to the Challenge.
  - Diversity statement (minimum 1 paragraph, 5‒7 sentences): One of JUMP into STEM’s key objectives is to encourage diversity of thought and background in students entering the building science industry. There is a diversity gap in STEM, meaning that certain groups are underrepresented or have been historically excluded from STEM fields. These groups include, but are not limited to, those based on race, ethnicity, and gender—and this gap needs to be addressed. Diversity of thought can be achieved through teams consisting of students from different majors and minors. If there are barriers to entry present that affect the racial, ethnic, and/or gender breakdown of your team, please elaborate. As part of the next generation of building science thought leaders and researchers, you have a unique opportunity to influence this industry. The diversity statement is your opportunity to describe your team’s diversity of background and thought, both generally and as applicable to your chosen Challenge.
- The Project Team Background does not count toward the 5-page Project Challenge Submission.

Project Challenge Submission (up to 5 pages, single-spaced)
- Select 1 of the 3 Challenges to address.
- Investigate the background of the Challenge and consider related stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affected by the problem, a part of the supply chain, or manufacturing of the technology product(s), as well as those who may have decision-making power and are able to provide solutions (technical or nontechnical solutions, such as policies). For example, you could include stakeholders who have previously experienced environmental pollution or a high energy burden. Refer to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Justice and Environmental Justice initiatives, as DOE plans to deliver 40% of the overall benefits of climate investment to disadvantaged communities.
- Write a 1- to 2-paragraph problem statement, focusing on a specific aspect of the problem and the stakeholder groups affected by or involved in the problem. The stakeholder groups can be from a specific location, socioeconomic status, age, or demographic (e.g., people living in subsidized housing). The problem statement should clearly identify the injustices (energy or environmental) that the stakeholder group experiences. Students should consider social implications related to the identified injustices.
- Write a holistic solution that addresses or solves the specific problem from your problem statement. A holistic solution is one that includes a technical component as well as one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, and/or other. Address the requirements for your selected Challenge. Include graphs, figures, and photos. Discuss how your solution will impact your stakeholders, especially those who have experienced the injustices that you described in your problem statement.
- Develop a technology-to-market plan or a market transformation plan, depending on the chosen Challenge.
  - A technology-to-market plan describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to installation on real buildings, or integrated into the design of real buildings, and includes a cost/benefit analysis. This does not need to be exhaustive and should include comparing the solution to current or existing technologies or practices. Benefits, such as building energy reductions and improved occupant health or productivity, should be evaluated. The plan should also identify at least one key stakeholder barrier for implementation (in addition to cost) and address how the proposed solution will overcome that barrier. The plan should also discuss what key stakeholder(s) should be involved to commercialize the technology and then sell and install the technologies with your target market(s).
  - A market transformation plan describes how the team envisions increasing the adoption and use of the already commercialized idea in the market, including sales or distribution channels, outreach mechanisms, and other relevant details. The plan should also describe who the team would partner with to implement the idea (e.g., utilities) and how the collective team would increase market adoption.
- Include references. References will not count toward the 5-page maximum.

Appendix (optional, no page limit)
- Teams may wish to add an appendix. This is optional and might not be reviewed by the judges.
- The appendix has no page limit.

Please submit the following information to the corresponding submission prompts on jumpintostem.org. The abstract and image for Challenge winners and Challenge finalists will be published on the JUMP into STEM website.

Abstract (up to 250 words)
- Please include an abstract of your project. The abstract may be displayed on the jumpintostem.org website.

Image (file size limit: 5 MB; filetype: .jpg)
- Please submit an image that represents your project. This can be a photo or a figure from your paper. The image may be displayed on the jumpintostem.org website.

Evaluation Criteria

Solution (40%)

Holistic Solution: a technical solution, as well as one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, or other. How well does the proposed solution address the problem?
Feasibility: overall feasibility and potential, including viability.
Novelty: the originality and creativity of the solution and how significant the contribution will be to the building industry.
Applicability to stakeholders: how well the solution addresses the problem statement and associated stakeholder community.

Market Readiness and Impact (30%)

Technology-to-Market Plan or Market Transformation Plan: depending on the Challenge, either a technology-to-market plan or a market transformation plan is required, including cost/benefit analysis and identified key barrier(s) for stakeholder implementation, along with how the proposed solution will overcome the barriers. In addition:
- For technology-to-market plans: How feasible is the proposed plan to bring the solution from a paper concept to installation or integration with real buildings or building designs?
- For market transformation plan: How feasible is the proposed solution at providing market intervention and increasing market adoption?)
Market characterization and readiness for proposed idea: description and understanding of the market and stakeholder group, and how the solution will create value, both economic and other, to drive industry adoption.
Impact: the overall potential impact of the solution. For example, can the solution be extended to communities, similar stakeholder groups, or a nationwide solution?

Diversity and Justice (20%)

Diversity statement and project team background: how well the team addresses the diversity gap in the building science industry in their diversity statement. This includes how the team brings perspectives from a variety of backgrounds including students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This also includes students from many different disciplines—ensuring diversity of thought. (See the diversity statement section in the challenge requirements.) This also includes how well the teams connect their mission statement and biographies to their problem statement.
Environmental and Energy Justice: how well the proposed solution addresses environmental and energy justice.

Submission (10%)

Submission Requirements: how well the team follows all submission requirements.

Citations

Alliance Commission on National Energy Efficiency Policy. 2013. The History of Energy Efficiency. Washington, DC: Alliance to Save Energy. https://www.ase.org/sites/ase.org/files/resources/Media%20browser/ee_commission_history_report_2-1-13.pdf.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2017. “American households use a variety of lightbulbs as CFL and LED adoption increases.” https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31112.
Pew Research Center. 2021. “Internet/Broadband Fact Sheet.” https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/#who-has-home-broadband?menuItem=89fe9877-d6d0-42c5-bca0-8e6034e300aa
Levin, Blair and Mattey, Carol. 2017. “In infrastructure plan, a big opening for rural broadband.” Brookings Institution: The Avenue. February 13, 2017. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/02/13/in-infrastructure-plan-a-big-opening-for-rural-broadband/.
Cort, K.A. 2013. Low-E Storm Windows: Market Assessment and Pathways to Market Transformation. Richland, WA: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. https://www.pnnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-22565.pdf.
Initiative for Energy Justice. https://iejusa.org
Whole Building Design Guide. 2020. “Consider Non-Quantifiable Benefits.” https://www.wbdg.org/design-objectives/cost-effective/consider-non-monetary-benefits.

Resilience for All in the Wake of Disaster

“Urban Legos” by Karon Elliott Edleson (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Note that this challenge was for the Fall 2021 competition.

The objective of this challenge is to develop holistic solutions to improve the resilience of the built environment, making equity a central focus of the proposed solution by strengthening the ability of communities—especially those that are underserved, marginalized and vulnerable—to adapt, persist, and recover in the event of natural or manmade disruptive events.

Background

People across the globe are experiencing an increased frequency and severity of disruptive events,¹ including record-setting heatwaves, winter storms, extreme rainfall, floods, drought, wildfires, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, chemical and biological hazards, and fires. These events—natural or manmade— cause damage to natural and built environment and infrastructure, and threat to public health, safety and well-being. They result in interruptions or loss of essential services that adversely impact access to potable water, sanitation, food, energy, safe air, livable indoor conditions, communication, and transportation. The heatwave in the Pacific Northwest, the wildfires in California, the 2021 winter storms, and the COVID-19 pandemic are just a few of the recent examples.

Communities that are underserved, marginalized and vulnerable typically face a significantly larger challenge in the event of such stresses and often lack the capacity to recover. These communities include those that experience barriers to social, economic, political, and environmental resources due to ethnic and racial discrimination, low socioeconomic status, disadvantaged background, illness, or disability; communities located in rural areas or impoverished urban sectors; and populations at a higher risk for poor health. Globally, between 1996 and 2015, 68.3% of all the people who died due to natural hazards belonged to lower-middle and low-income groups.^2,3

Resilience is the ability to adapt to, persist in the face of, and rapidly recover from a potentially disruptive event.⁴ Resilient design is the intentional design of buildings, landscapes, communities, and regions in response to these stresses.⁵ Equitable resilience brings together the strategies for resilient design that account for the social distribution of those stresses and responses and aims to also strengthen the resilience of disadvantaged communities.⁶

Strategies to improve the resilience of buildings, communities, and infrastructure focus on robustness, resourcefulness, rapid recovery, and redundancy. Robustness is the ability to maintain critical operations and functions in the face of a crisis. This includes the building itself, the design of the infrastructure (office buildings, power generation, distribution structures, bridges, dams, levees), or system redundancy and substitution (transportation, power grid, communications networks).

Resourcefulness is the ability to skillfully prepare for, respond to, and manage a crisis or disruption as it unfolds. This includes identifying courses of action and business continuity planning; training; supply chain management; prioritizing actions to control and mitigate damage; and effectively communicating decisions. Rapid recovery is the ability to return to and/or reinstitute normal operations as quickly and efficiently as possible after a disruption. Components of rapid recovery include carefully drafted contingency plans, competent emergency operations, and the means to get the right people and resources to the right places. Redundancy means that there are back-up resources to support the originals in case of failure.⁷

Strategies for improving resilience of buildings include all aspects of building structure, enclosure, energy systems, operations, and building use.⁸ Community-level strategies require a multipronged approach, using a combination of mandatory upgrades, incentive programs, funding mechanisms, and education/outreach programs to develop more resilient building stock. These may also include smaller or more incremental strategies to gradually improve resilience or institute larger-scale coordinated programs to respond to critical deficiencies. Depending on the hazards, these strategies may also include redefined functions of buildings and creating community facilities (resilience hubs) that can serve during emergencies and interruptions to services.⁸

Many technologies are emerging to improve the resilience of the U.S. building infrastructure and electricity grid. For example, smart grid technologies use communication and information technology to collect information on the behavior of customers and to automatically work to improve efficiency and reliability in distributing electricity.⁹ Microgrids¹⁰with distributed energy resources¹¹ include small-scale units of power generation which operate locally and are connected to a larger power grid at the distribution level, thereby improving the quality and reliability of service.¹² Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings have an optimized blend of energy efficiency, energy storage, renewable energy, and load flexibility technologies enabled through smart controls.¹³

The idea that resilience is a positive trait that contributes to sustainability is widely accepted. Yet some recent studies identify situations where promotion of resilience for some locations may come at the expense of others,¹⁴ or enhancement of resilience at one scale, such as the level of the community, may reduce resilience at another scale, such as the household or individual.^15,16 Equity concerns often arise due to uneven patterns of resilience. Therefore, additional work is needed to identify ways that these research and implementation efforts penetrate to the underserved communities and do not reinforce existing inequities or create new ones.¹⁷

Slides

The Challenge

The first step to meeting the equitable resilience challenge is to understand the vulnerability that various communities face, and then address the vulnerability for equity and resilience cohesively. Students may consider strategies for achieving resilience at the building scale or community scale for new construction, existing buildings, or communities. A community could be a small neighborhood or a geographic region of any scale. Students may develop solutions guided by the Resilient Design Principles¹⁸ and utilize available resilient design tools.^19,20

Students should develop a problem statement related to building or community resilience that includes a challenge for making resilience more equitable. Student submissions should:

Describe the scope and context of the problem based on a real problem(s) in the United States.
Identify affected communities, making sure to include underserved, marginalized and/or vulnerable communities.
Develop a holistic solution to address the problem at a building scale or a community scale. The solution should include technical aspect as well as non-technical aspects such as policy or economic solutions. At a building scale, solutions may focus on new building designs or existing building retrofits.
Discuss how issues of equity are incorporated into strategies to promote resilience.
Discuss appropriate and expected impacts and benefits of the proposed solution. These may include quantifiable and nonquantifiable benefits,²¹ such as health and safety of affected population, size of community affected, number of households relocated, avoided cost of losses, loss of businesses, loss of lives, etc.
Develop a plan that describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to implementation. For example, a technology-to-market plan for a commercially viable, market-ready product for real buildings and communities, and/or integration into the planning and design process.

Downloadable Challenge Description

Requirements

Please submit the following as one PDF document.

Project Team Background (up to 2 pages, single-spaced)
- Form a team of 2‒4 students. These students represent the project team and will all consult on the problem.
- The Project Team Background should include:
  - Project name, team name, and collegiate institution(s)
  - Team mission statement
  - A short biography for each team member; this should include information such as major, level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and other relevant background information such as experience with building science, future career goals, and formative experiences that shaped each individual’s contribution to the Challenge.
  - Diversity statement (minimum 1 paragraph, 5‒7 sentences): One of JUMP into STEM’s key objectives is to encourage diversity of thought and background in students entering the building science industry. There is a diversity gap in STEM, meaning that certain groups are underrepresented or have been historically excluded from STEM fields. These groups include, but are not limited to, those based on race, ethnicity, and gender—and this gap needs to be addressed. Diversity of thought can be achieved through teams consisting of students from different majors and minors. If there are barriers to entry present that affect the racial, ethnic, and/or gender breakdown of your team, please elaborate. As part of the next generation of building science thought leaders and researchers, you have a unique opportunity to influence this industry. The diversity statement is your opportunity to describe your team’s diversity of background and thought, both generally and as applicable to your chosen Challenge.
- The Project Team Background does not count toward the 5-page Project Challenge Submission.

Project Challenge Submission (up to 5 pages, single-spaced)
- Select 1 of the 3 Challenges to address.
- Investigate the background of the Challenge and consider related stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affected by the problem, a part of the supply chain, or manufacturing of the technology product(s), as well as those who may have decision-making power and are able to provide solutions (technical or nontechnical solutions, such as policies). For example, you could include stakeholders who have previously experienced environmental pollution or a high energy burden. Refer to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Justice and Environmental Justice initiatives, as DOE plans to deliver 40% of the overall benefits of climate investment to disadvantaged communities.
- Write a 1- to 2-paragraph problem statement, focusing on a specific aspect of the problem and the stakeholder groups affected by or involved in the problem. The stakeholder groups can be from a specific location, socioeconomic status, age, or demographic (e.g., people living in subsidized housing). The problem statement should clearly identify the injustices (energy or environmental) that the stakeholder group experiences. Students should consider social implications related to the identified injustices.
- Write a holistic solution that addresses or solves the specific problem from your problem statement. A holistic solution is one that includes a technical component as well as one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, and/or other. Address the requirements for your selected Challenge. Include graphs, figures, and photos. Discuss how your solution will impact your stakeholders, especially those who have experienced the injustices that you described in your problem statement.
- Develop a technology-to-market plan or a market transformation plan, depending on the chosen Challenge.
  - A technology-to-market plan describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to installation on real buildings, or integrated into the design of real buildings, and includes a cost/benefit analysis. This does not need to be exhaustive and should include comparing the solution to current or existing technologies or practices. Benefits, such as building energy reductions and improved occupant health or productivity, should be evaluated. The plan should also identify at least one key stakeholder barrier for implementation (in addition to cost) and address how the proposed solution will overcome that barrier. The plan should also discuss what key stakeholder(s) should be involved to commercialize the technology and then sell and install the technologies with your target market(s).
  - A market transformation plan describes how the team envisions increasing the adoption and use of the already commercialized idea in the market, including sales or distribution channels, outreach mechanisms, and other relevant details. The plan should also describe who the team would partner with to implement the idea (e.g., utilities) and how the collective team would increase market adoption.
- Include references. References will not count toward the 5-page maximum.

Appendix (optional, no page limit)
- Teams may wish to add an appendix. This is optional and might not be reviewed by the judges.
- The appendix has no page limit.

Abstract (up to 250 words)
- Please include an abstract of your project. The abstract may be displayed on the jumpintostem.org website.

Image (file size limit: 5 MB; filetype: .jpg)
- Please submit an image that represents your project. This can be a photo or a figure from your paper. The image may be displayed on the jumpintostem.org website.

Evaluation Criteria

Solution (40%)

Holistic Solution: a technical solution, as well as one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, or other. How well does the proposed solution address the problem?
Feasibility: overall feasibility and potential, including viability.
Novelty: the originality and creativity of the solution and how significant the contribution will be to the building industry.
Applicability to stakeholders: how well the solution addresses the problem statement and associated stakeholder community.

Market Readiness and Impact (30%)

Technology-to-Market Plan or Market Transformation Plan: depending on the Challenge, either a technology-to-market plan or a market transformation plan is required, including cost/benefit analysis and identified key barrier(s) for stakeholder implementation, along with how the proposed solution will overcome the barriers. In addition:
- For technology-to-market plans: How feasible is the proposed plan to bring the solution from a paper concept to installation or integration with real buildings or building designs?
- For market transformation plan: How feasible is the proposed solution at providing market intervention and increasing market adoption?)
Market characterization and readiness for proposed idea: description and understanding of the market and stakeholder group, and how the solution will create value, both economic and other, to drive industry adoption.
Impact: the overall potential impact of the solution. For example, can the solution be extended to communities, similar stakeholder groups, or a nationwide solution?

Diversity and Justice (20%)

Diversity statement and project team background: how well the team addresses the diversity gap in the building science industry in their diversity statement. This includes how the team brings perspectives from a variety of backgrounds including students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This also includes students from many different disciplines—ensuring diversity of thought. (See the diversity statement section in the challenge requirements.) This also includes how well the teams connect their mission statement and biographies to their problem statement.
Environmental and Energy Justice: how well the proposed solution addresses environmental and energy justice.

Submission (10%)

Submission Requirements: how well the team follows all submission requirements.

Citations

Harvey, Chelsea. 2018. “Extreme Weather Will Occur More Frequently Worldwide.” Scientific American. February 15, 2018. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/extreme-weather-will-occur-more-frequently-worldwide/.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture + Planning. 2021. “Equitable Resilience, 2018-2021.” https://lcau.mit.edu/equitableresilience.
United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. 2016. “Poverty and Death: Disaster and Mortality, 1996-2015.” https://www.preventionweb.net/files/50589_creddisastermortalityallfinalpdf.pdf.
National Infrastructure Advisory Council. 2009. Critical Infrastructure Resilience: Final Report and Recommendations by National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC).
Resilient Design Institute. 2021. “What is Resilience?” https://www.resilientdesign.org/what-is-resilience/.
Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism. 2019. “Equitable Resilience: A Necessary and Under-Investigated Aspect of Sustainable Urban Systems.” https://lcau.mit.edu/conference/equitable-resilience-necessary-and-under-investigated-aspect-sustainable-urban-systems.
Whole Building Design Guide. 2018. “Building Resilience.” https://www.wbdg.org/resources/building-resiliency.
Boston Green Ribbon Commission Climate Preparedness Working Group. 2013. Building Resilience in Boston: Best Practices for Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience for Existing Buildings. https://www.greenribboncommission.org/archive/downloads/Building_Resilience_in_Boston_SML.pdf.
US Department of Energy. 2021. “The Smart Grid: An Introduction.” https://www.energy.gov/oe/downloads/smart-grid-introduction-0.
US Department of Energy. 2014. “How Microgrids Work.” https://www.energy.gov/articles/how-microgrids-work.
US Department of Energy. 2021. “Distributed Energy Resources for Resilience.” https://www.energy.gov/eere/femp/distributed-energy-resources-resilience.
US Department of Energy. 2021. “Solar Integration: Distributed Energy Resources and Microgrids.” https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/solar-integration-distributed-energy-resources-and-microgrids.
Rocky Mountain Institute. 2021. “Grid-Interactive Energy-Efficient Buildings (GEBS).” https://rmi.org/our-work/buildings/pathways-to-zero/grid-integrated-energy-efficient-buildings/.
Pike A, Dawley S, and Tomaney, J. 2010. “Resilience adaptation and adaptability.” Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2010, 3:59-70.
Adger, W, Arnell, N, and Tompkins, E. 2005. “Successful adaptation to climate change across scales.” Global Environmental Change 15:77-86.
Sapountzaki, K. 2007. “Social resilience to environmental risks: a mechanism of vulnerability transfer?” Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal 18:274-297.
Liechenko, R. 2011. “Climate change and urban resilience.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 3:164–168.
The Resilient Design Institute. 2021. “The Resilient Design Principles.” https://www.resilientdesign.org/the-resilient-design-principles/.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “US Climate Resilience Toolkit.” https://toolkit.climate.gov/.
US Green Building Council. 2018. “Resilient by Design: USGBC Offers Sustainability Tools for Enhanced Resilience.” https://www.usgbc.org/sites/default/files/2018-USGBC-Resilience-Brief-041118.pdf.
Whole Building Design Guide. 2020. “Consider Non-Quantifiable Benefits.” https://www.wbdg.org/design-objectives/cost-effective/consider-non-monetary-benefits.

Equal Access to Healthy Indoor Air

Photo by RTA Architects, David Lauer Photography.

Note that this challenge was for the Fall 2021 competition.

The objective of this challenge is to develop a holistic solution to address indoor air quality (IAQ) inequities in the United States. This topic relates to both the technical aspects of IAQ as well as other areas including IAQ-related policy, epidemiology, environmental justice, community economic impact, commercialization, codes and standards, and appropriate metrics development.

Background

Poor IAQ in buildings can result from the infiltration of outdoor air pollutants as well as from the generation of air contaminants from indoor sources. Outdoor air pollution can be generated by sources such as power plants and industries, traffic emissions from major highways or roads, and wildfires. Indoor sources include combustion equipment and appliances, installed or stored products and materials (e.g., off-gassing of volatile organic compounds from furniture, cleaning products, and building materials), mold, pests, pets, indoor smoking, radon, legacy building materials like lead and asbestos, etc. The degradation of IAQ is exacerbated by poor ventilation.

Most Americans spend approximately 90% of their time indoors, where air pollutants can be two to five times more concentrated than outdoors.¹ Consequently, prolonged exposure to poor IAQ can lead to respiratory and cardiovascular health problems including respiratory infections, allergies, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchitis, sick building syndrome, and lung cancer.² Acute exposure (over hours) to air pollutants can cause irritation to the nose, throat, and eyes and aggravate asthma, lung disease, bronchitis, and respiratory disease in susceptible individuals.³ In addition, poor IAQ may also lead to increased school and work absenteeism and loss of work productivity due to reduced cognitive performance.⁴ In extreme cases, serious and life-threatening situations can arise due to poor IAQ. More than 100 people die each year in the U.S. from unintentional exposure to carbon monoxide gas from portable generators and other fuel burning appliances and products.⁵ Throughout the United States, radon is the number one cause of lung cancer among non-smokers, and secondhand smoke is the third leading cause of lung cancer, responsible for an estimated 3,000 lung cancer deaths every year.⁶

Prior research has shown that households with lower socioeconomic status encounter greater concentrations of indoor air pollutants based on multiple factors such as age of the house, area of peeling paint, water leaks, neighborhood street noise and traffic density, proximity to factories, presence of rodents, mean floor area, occupant density, presence of cracks in floors and walls, etc.⁷ A study from Peters et al.⁸ showed that holes in the wall or ceiling that are found more often in the houses occupied by lower socioeconomic status households were associated with a 6- to 11-fold increase in kitchen cockroach allergen concentrations. The official poverty rate in the United States in 2019 was 10.5% of the total population—approximately 34 million people.⁹ A substantial body of literature demonstrates that poor housing conditions, which are often directly associated with socioeconomic status of the household, can contribute to increased infectious disease transmission, injuries, asthma symptoms, lead poisoning, and mental health problems—both directly (e.g., because of environmental hazards) and indirectly (e.g., by contributing to psychosocial stress that exacerbates illness).¹⁰

Besides socioeconomic status, vulnerability to poor IAQ can depend on several other factors including age of the occupants, density of housing, home ownership status (renter versus homeowner), race, ethnicity, occupation, and infrastructure dependence.¹¹ The interplay of these multiple factors leading to IAQ inequity will collectively affect the solutions used to address the problem.

Improvements in IAQ could dramatically improve overall human health; however, to be implemented widely, solutions should not add significantly to the building’s energy use or to homeowner or renter energy bills. IAQ improvement solutions such as increased ventilation rates in buildings can even reduce the incidence and transmission of respiratory diseases including COVID-19.¹² Due to the multi-faceted impacts of IAQ improvement solutions, technological solutions alone cannot be realized impactfully without taking policy-related, economic, and other nontechnological considerations into account.

Examples of technological solutions for IAQ improvement include the use of portable air purifiers, upgrades to heating, ventilating, and air conditioning filters, kitchen range hoods that vent exhaust outside, heat recovery ventilators, and motion-activated mechanical exhaust fans. However, these solutions may be unaffordable to the economically disadvantaged population. Recent technological developments in indoor environmental sensing, modeling, and control capabilities can be leveraged to potentially optimize for IAQ and energy efficiency and improve the affordability and access of these solutions to a wider population. More innovation is needed to increase the affordability and widen the access of smart or sensor-driven and other recently developed IAQ solutions.

On the other hand, policies provide a basis for generating solutions at a nontechnological level. Examples of a policy-level approach include the health and safety inspections and necessary corrective actions built into the operating procedures of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs, and several other non-federal programs from the states, local governments, and non-profit organizations. Pathways are also needed to enhance the delivery of effective and impactful solutions to IAQ inequities to end users in a cost-effective and practical manner.

Slides

The Challenge

The JUMP into STEM competition asks teams to investigate holistic solutions and explore impactful factors (such as science, policies, awareness, information technology, codes and standards, and economics) behind inequities in IAQ. Teams must develop a problem statement to address IAQ inequities for a specific stakeholder group and present a holistic response that includes a technical solution or process as well as other components such as policy, awareness, information technology, and economic solutions.

Suggestions for student teams to work on include but are not limited to the following:

Characterizing indoor air quality to provide better guidance for policy development. (Examples include developing novel metrics related to IAQ based on established scientific findings and the relationship between IAQ and health. Analogous to the outdoor air quality index, such quantitative metrics could then highlight the status quo as well as guide intervention strategies or occupant behaviors for mitigating the harmful effects of indoor air contaminants.)
Managing IAQ in buildings through targeted sensing and ventilation strategies.
Focusing on a specific pollutant source, building type, or geographical location.
Generating or analyzing relevant data through mobile applications, machine learning, and databases that are helpful in making informed decisions at either the building or community level.
Developing innovative financing mechanisms to upgrade existing buildings with an improved IAQ solution, etc.
Developing new mechanisms of collaboration between existing programs and agencies that can co-address IAQ issues in tandem with other issues such as energy efficiency. For example, OneTouch program model that connects WAP, Lead hazard abatement, and HUD rehab funded programs through lead sharing in Vermont.¹³ WAP, Zero Energy Ready Homes (ZERH), and Home Performance with ENERGY STAR® (HPwES) are some of the existing federal programs funded by DOE that include IAQ as well as energy efficiency elements with respect to buildings.

Students should develop a problem statement and propose a solution related to building or community-scale IAQ issues. Student submissions should:

Describe the scope and context of the problem based on a real building and/or stakeholder group in the United States
Identify affected communities, making sure to include socioeconomically vulnerable communities when compared against groups with high socioeconomic status.
Develop a holistic solution including technical, policy-related, or economic aspects to address the IAQ problems at the building or community scale. At a building scale, solutions may focus on new building designs or existing building retrofits. At a community scale, the solutions may focus on community behavioral patterns, local infrastructures, community awareness, etc.
Discuss appropriate and expected impacts and benefits of the proposed solution. This should include a cost/benefit analysis of the proposed solution and should also include noneconomic impacts whenever possible. The noneconomic impacts could include items such as environmental impact, noise level, security challenges, logistical challenges, health risks, safety hazards, workmanship quality, and speed of implementation.
Develop a plan that describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to a final implementation that is useful to the end user. Examples include a detailed plan to convert the idea to a commercially viable, market-ready product for existing buildings and/or communities; or a roadmap to integrate the idea into a new construction or retrofit project.

Downloadable Challenge Description

Requirements

Please submit the following as one PDF document.

Project Team Background (up to 2 pages, single-spaced)
- Form a team of 2‒4 students. These students represent the project team and will all consult on the problem.
- The Project Team Background should include:
  - Project name, team name, and collegiate institution(s)
  - Team mission statement
  - A short biography for each team member; this should include information such as major, level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and other relevant background information such as experience with building science, future career goals, and formative experiences that shaped each individual’s contribution to the Challenge.
  - Diversity statement (minimum 1 paragraph, 5‒7 sentences): One of JUMP into STEM’s key objectives is to encourage diversity of thought and background in students entering the building science industry. There is a diversity gap in STEM, meaning that certain groups are underrepresented or have been historically excluded from STEM fields. These groups include, but are not limited to, those based on race, ethnicity, and gender—and this gap needs to be addressed. Diversity of thought can be achieved through teams consisting of students from different majors and minors. If there are barriers to entry present that affect the racial, ethnic, and/or gender breakdown of your team, please elaborate. As part of the next generation of building science thought leaders and researchers, you have a unique opportunity to influence this industry. The diversity statement is your opportunity to describe your team’s diversity of background and thought, both generally and as applicable to your chosen Challenge.
- The Project Team Background does not count toward the 5-page Project Challenge Submission.

Project Challenge Submission (up to 5 pages, single-spaced)
- Select 1 of the 3 Challenges to address.
- Investigate the background of the Challenge and consider related stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affected by the problem, a part of the supply chain, or manufacturing of the technology product(s), as well as those who may have decision-making power and are able to provide solutions (technical or nontechnical solutions, such as policies). For example, you could include stakeholders who have previously experienced environmental pollution or a high energy burden. Refer to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Justice and Environmental Justice initiatives, as DOE plans to deliver 40% of the overall benefits of climate investment to disadvantaged communities.
- Write a 1- to 2-paragraph problem statement, focusing on a specific aspect of the problem and the stakeholder groups affected by or involved in the problem. The stakeholder groups can be from a specific location, socioeconomic status, age, or demographic (e.g., people living in subsidized housing). The problem statement should clearly identify the injustices (energy or environmental) that the stakeholder group experiences. Students should consider social implications related to the identified injustices.
- Write a holistic solution that addresses or solves the specific problem from your problem statement. A holistic solution is one that includes a technical component as well as one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, and/or other. Address the requirements for your selected Challenge. Include graphs, figures, and photos. Discuss how your solution will impact your stakeholders, especially those who have experienced the injustices that you described in your problem statement.
- Develop a technology-to-market plan or a market transformation plan, depending on the chosen Challenge.
  - A technology-to-market plan describes how the team envisions bringing its idea from concept to installation on real buildings, or integrated into the design of real buildings, and includes a cost/benefit analysis. This does not need to be exhaustive and should include comparing the solution to current or existing technologies or practices. Benefits, such as building energy reductions and improved occupant health or productivity, should be evaluated. The plan should also identify at least one key stakeholder barrier for implementation (in addition to cost) and address how the proposed solution will overcome that barrier. The plan should also discuss what key stakeholder(s) should be involved to commercialize the technology and then sell and install the technologies with your target market(s).
  - A market transformation plan describes how the team envisions increasing the adoption and use of the already commercialized idea in the market, including sales or distribution channels, outreach mechanisms, and other relevant details. The plan should also describe who the team would partner with to implement the idea (e.g., utilities) and how the collective team would increase market adoption.
- Include references. References will not count toward the 5-page maximum.

Appendix (optional, no page limit)
- Teams may wish to add an appendix. This is optional and might not be reviewed by the judges.
- The appendix has no page limit.

Abstract (up to 250 words)
- Please include an abstract of your project. The abstract may be displayed on the jumpintostem.org website.

Image (file size limit: 5 MB; filetype: .jpg)
- Please submit an image that represents your project. This can be a photo or a figure from your paper. The image may be displayed on the jumpintostem.org website.

Evaluation Criteria

Solution (40%)

Holistic Solution: a technical solution, as well as one or more of the following components, as appropriate: economic, policy, commercialization, codes and standards, or other. How well does the proposed solution address the problem?
Feasibility: overall feasibility and potential, including viability.
Novelty: the originality and creativity of the solution and how significant the contribution will be to the building industry.
Applicability to stakeholders: how well the solution addresses the problem statement and associated stakeholder community.

Market Readiness and Impact (30%)

Technology-to-Market Plan or Market Transformation Plan: depending on the Challenge, either a technology-to-market plan or a market transformation plan is required, including cost/benefit analysis and identified key barrier(s) for stakeholder implementation, along with how the proposed solution will overcome the barriers. In addition:
- For technology-to-market plans: How feasible is the proposed plan to bring the solution from a paper concept to installation or integration with real buildings or building designs?
- For market transformation plan: How feasible is the proposed solution at providing market intervention and increasing market adoption?)
Market characterization and readiness for proposed idea: description and understanding of the market and stakeholder group, and how the solution will create value, both economic and other, to drive industry adoption.
Impact: the overall potential impact of the solution. For example, can the solution be extended to communities, similar stakeholder groups, or a nationwide solution?

Diversity and Justice (20%)

Diversity statement and project team background: how well the team addresses the diversity gap in the building science industry in their diversity statement. This includes how the team brings perspectives from a variety of backgrounds including students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This also includes students from many different disciplines—ensuring diversity of thought. (See the diversity statement section in the challenge requirements.) This also includes how well the teams connect their mission statement and biographies to their problem statement.
Environmental and Energy Justice: how well the proposed solution addresses environmental and energy justice.

Submission (10%)

Submission Requirements: how well the team follows all submission requirements.

Citations

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1987. “The total exposure assessment methodology (TEAM) study: Summary and analysis.” EPA/600/6-87/002a. Washington, DC.
Sundell, J. 2004. “On the history of indoor air quality and health.” Indoor Air, 14(s 7), pp.51-58. DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0668.2004.00273.x
Manisalidis, I., Stavropoulou, E., Stavropoulos, A. and Bezirtzoglou, E., 2020. Environmental and health impacts of air pollution: a review. Frontiers in public health, 8, p.14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.00014
Zhang, X., Wargocki, P., Lian, Z. and Thyregod, C., 2017. “Effects of exposure to carbon dioxide and bioeffluents on perceived air quality, self‐assessed acute health symptoms, and cognitive performance.” Indoor Air, 27(1), pp.47-64. https://doi.org/10.1111/ina.12284
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Carbon Monoxide Safety Information for Congressional Offices – Suggested Insert for Constituent Newsletters and E-mails. Available at https://www.cpsc.gov/s3fs-public/pdfs/blk_media_Carbon_Monoxide_Safety_Information_For_Congressional_Offices.pdf (Accessed 8/3/2021).
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “Health Risk of Radon”. Available at: https://www.epa.gov/radon/health-risk-radon#head (Accessed 8/3/2021).
Adamkiewicz et al. 2011. “Moving Environmental Justice Indoors: Understanding Structural Influences on Residential Exposure Patterns in Low-Income Communities.” American Journal of Public Health, 101(Suppl 1): S238–S245. DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2011.300119.
Peters, J.L., Levy, J.I., Rogers, C.A., Burge, H.A. and Spengler, J.D., 2007. Determinants of allergen concentrations in apartments of asthmatic children living in public housing. Journal of Urban Health, 84(2), pp.185-197. Available at: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11524-006-9146-2.pdf (Accessed 8/3/2021)
Semega, J.L., Kollar, M.A., Shrider, E.A., and Creamer, J.F. 2019. “Income and poverty in the United States: 2019.” U.S. Census, Current Population Reports, pp.12-20. Available at https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html (Accessed 7/1/2021).
Saegert, S.C., Klitzman, S., Freudenberg, N., Cooperman-Mroczek, J. and Nassar, S. 2003. Healthy housing: a structured review of published evaluations of US interventions to improve health by modifying housing in the United States, 1990–2001. American Journal of Public Health, 93(9), pp.1471-1477. Available at https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.93.9.1471.
Cutter, S.L., Boruff, B.J. and Shirley, W.L. 2003. Social vulnerability to environmental hazards. Social Science Quarterly, 84(2), pp.242-261. Available at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1540-6237.8402002 (Accessed 7/22/2021).
Morawska, L., Tang, J.W., Bahnfleth, W., Bluyssen, P.M., Boerstra, A., Buonanno, G., Cao, J., Dancer, S., Floto, A., Franchimon, F. and Haworth, C. 2020. How can airborne transmission of COVID-19 indoors be minimised? Environment International, 142, p.105832. Available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020317876.
OneTouch Housing website, Vermont: https://onetouchhousing.com/

Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings (GEB)

Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL 45218

Note that this challenge was for the Fall 2020 competition.

The objective of this challenge is to develop conceptual designs that support BTO’s overall GEB strategy in the areas of 1) intelligent algorithms that optimize the operation of building’s active and passive systems to maximize energy efficiency, and 2) whole-building-level interoperable and low cost automation systems that enable communication with building equipment and appliance to optimize operation to provide grid services.

Background

Buildings are the nation’s primary users of electricity with 75% of all U.S. electricity is consumed within buildings.¹ Perhaps more importantly, building energy use drives a comparable share of peak power demand. The electricity demand from buildings result from a variety of electrical loads that are operated to serve the needs of occupants. These loads are heating, cooling, water heating, appliances, lighting, and miscellaneous electric loads. The electric grid is traditionally “load following,” wherein the generation is controlled, often times centrally, to increase or decrease based on the demand. However, with proper coordination and controls, building loads can be intelligently managed to consume electricity at specific times and at different levels, while still meeting occupant productivity and comfort requirements. This increased demand flexibility can benefit the grid by balancing supply and demand while providing value to owners through reduced utility bills and increased resilience, among other benefits. The demand flexibility can also enable higher penetration of renewable generation sources.

Demand response (DR) programs and Demand-side management programs currently offer an opportunity for consumers to play a role in the operation of the electric grid by reducing or shifting their electricity usage during peak periods in response to time-based rates or other forms of incentives. Existing programs are limited in scope both in number of buildings’ loads engaged and also amount of demand flexibility engaged in a given utility. A significant opportunity exists in engaging this demand flexibility to provide grid services such as load shifting, load shedding, reduction in peak demand, and integration of renewables. Additionally, onsite distributed energy resources (DERs)—such as rooftop photo voltaic (PV), electric vehicle charging, and batteries —can be co-optimized with building electrical loads through demand-side management. Electric grid needs vary significantly by location, time of day, day of week, and season; aligning building load shapes with renewable generation profiles is critical to maximizing the benefit of building load flexibility and higher utilization of renewables. Accordingly, a building may need to manage its electricity load in different ways during these times by reducing load through year-round energy efficiency, shifting load to different times of the day, and/or pre-charging/storing for later use. These methods allow buildings to provide demand flexibility and are a significant focus area of US Department of Energy (DOE).² Additionally, passive technologies (e.g., envelopes, windows, daylighting) increase the efficacy of these strategies by lowering energy intensity.

The ability to take an integrated approach to demand-side management and demand flexibility requires smart technologies, including advanced sensors, controls, models, and data analytics that can meet occupant requirements and respond to changes in the grid, building usage, and weather conditions. Today, behind-the-meter DERs—including energy efficiency, demand response, distributed generation, electric vehicles, and storage—are typically valued, scheduled, implemented, and managed separately. The DOE Building Technologies Office’s (BTO) grid-interactive energy efficient buildings (GEB) vision involves the integration and continuous optimization of these resources for the benefit of the buildings’ owners, occupants, and the grid. BTO recognizes that this is a long-term vision and that there is continuum—from manual operation of buildings to fully automated energy management platforms—that allows for continuously improving integration and optimization.

GEBs are beneficial for both end-users and the grid. Operating an electricity grid is tantamount to balancing supply and demand for different timescales under the constraints of limited generation resources and transmission and distribution capacity. Demand must be met through matching services provided by supply-side entities: integrated utilities, grid operators, generators, and/or distributed generation resources. Demand-side entities such as buildings and electric vehicles may also contribute to balancing supply and demand. In this regard, demand-side contributions can be just as viable as supply-side counterparts. Building owners or occupants that use demand-side management strategies may do so for various motivations, including compensation through lower utility bills, lower rates, or negotiated payments. Additionally, building operating costs may be reduced by avoiding utility demand charges or time-of-use peaks, which may or may not align with the real-time grid needs. Furthermore, owners and occupants may be motivated by environmental or other nonfinancial considerations. These strategies also have the potential to provide grid services, some of which provide benefits to the grid by avoiding or deferring transmission and distribution upgrades and associated capital expenditures, which can prevent utility customer rate increases. Both the utility system and society can realize numerous benefits from using demand-side management strategies such as increased system reliability and resilience, increased DER integration, increased owner/occupant satisfaction, flexibility, choice, and so on.

The Challenge

The JUMP into STEM competition is looking for conceptual designs that support BTO’s overall GEB strategy in the areas of 1) intelligent algorithms that optimize the operation of building’s active and passive systems to maximize energy efficiency, and 2) whole-building-level interoperable and low-cost automation systems that enable communication with building equipment and appliances to optimize operation to provide grid services.

Teams can explore solutions appropriate to any and all building uses and building types, including residential buildings, commercial buildings, and campuses and may choose to, but not limited to, work on some of the following research items and strategies:

Interoperability. Innovative approaches to establish two-way connectivity and communications with the building equipment and appliances as well as the grid at low installation and commissioning costs.
Control Algorithm Development. Intelligent algorithms for optimal scheduling of devices that can maintain user comfort while minimizing energy cost. They may also include automated uncertainty management and fault diagnosis capabilities for low operation and maintenance costs. Algorithms could use data-driven and machine learning approaches.
Building Load Shaping to Match Renewable Generation. Control and coordination concepts that enable innovative load shapes to maximize utilization of renewable generation for optimizing occupant energy usage and changing conditions over multiple timescales
Ensuring Occupant Comfort. User-friendly methods to obtain feedback on comfort from occupants while the building is providing grid services

Each team’s solution should include:

Description of the proposed solution. What problem or need does it address? How does the solution address that problem?
Details about how the proposed solution will be integrated with and improve upon the existing approach of the building
How the proposed solution will benefit both end-users and the grid (e.g., quantified potential energy and nonenergy benefits realized through increased automation and user interaction)
A technology-to-market plan for how to scale-up this solution to make an impact on the building industry. The GEB ecosystem includes many different companies and organizations. Radical change does not come easily, so the technology-to-market plan should also address how to scale-up this solution such that an impact on the building industry and the grid can be made.

Downloadable Challenge Description

Additional Challenge Resources

Requirements

Competing in this challenge is open to student teams currently enrolled in U.S. universities and colleges. See the Terms and Conditions for eligibility requirements. Please note that you must begin your Building Technologies Internship Program (BTIP) application before or at the same time as you submit your idea in order to compete in the JUMP competition.

Please submit the following as one PDF document.

Project Team Background (up to 2 pages, single-spaced)
- Form a team of 2 to 4 students. These students represent the project team, and will all consult on the problem.
- The Project Team Background should include:
  - Project name, team name, and collegiate institution(s)
  - Team mission statement
  - A short biography for each team member. Include information such as major, level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, graduate), and other relevant background information such as experience with building science, future career goals, and formative experiences that shaped each individual’s contribution to the challenge.
  - Diversity Statement (one paragraph 5-7 sentences): One of JUMP into STEM’s key objectives is to encourage diversity of thought and background in students entering the building science industry. There is a diversity gap in the industry, meaning that it is underrepresented by certain groups—including, but not limited to, those based on race, ethnicity, and gender—and this gap needs to be addressed. Diversity of thought can be achieved through teams consisting of students from different majors and minors. As part of the next generation of building science thought leaders and researchers, you have a unique opportunity to influence this industry. Please describe how your team is contributing to diversity in building science
- The Project Team Background does not count toward the 5-page Project Challenge Submission.

Project Challenge Submission (up to 5 pages, single-spaced)
- Select one of the three challenges to address
- Investigate the background of the challenge and consider related stakeholders. Stakeholders are those who are affected by the problem as well as those who may have decision-making power and provide solutions (technical or nontechnical, such as policies). Include any market stakeholders, such as manufacturers.
- Write a one- to two-paragraph problem statement, focusing on a specific aspect of the problem and a stakeholder group affected by the problem. The stakeholder group can be from a specific location, socioeconomic status, age, or demographic (e.g., people living in subsidized housing).
- Write a technical solution or process that addresses or solves the specific problem from your problem statement. Address the requirements for your selected challenge. Include graphs, figures, and photos.
- Develop a one- to two-paragraph technology-to-market plan that describes how the team envisions bringing their idea from paper concept to being installed on real buildings or integrated into the design of real buildings. Include cost and benefit analyses in the technology-to-market plan. This does not need to be exhaustive and should focus on comparing the solution to current or existing practices. Benefits such as building energy reductions and improved occupant health or productivity should be evaluated.

Appendix (optional, no page limit)
- Teams may wish to add an appendix. This is optional and might not be reviewed by the judges.
- The appendix has no page limit.

Evaluation Criteria

Technical (40%)

Technical solution or process: how well the proposed technology addresses the problem.
Technical feasibility: the solution’s technical feasibility/potential, including the viability of the proposed technology. For example, solutions that are not technically possible or that lack a technical feasibility discussion will receive lower scores.
Technology-to-market plan: the proposed technology-to-market plan, including the team’s cost/benefit analysis of the solution. How technically feasible is the proposed plan to bring the solution from a paper concept to installation or integration with real buildings or building designs? Costs and benefits can include both monetary and non-monetary evaluations.
Technical response: how well the team’s written submission responds to the technical requests of the challenge.

Innovation (30%)

Market characterization and readiness for proposed idea: team’s description and understanding of the market and how the solution will create economic value to drive industry adoption.
Replicability and scalability: team’s description on how they will produce the product cost-effectively and scale the idea beyond original prototypes.
Novelty: the originality and creativity of the solution and how significant the contribution will be to the building industry.

Diversity and Applicability (30%)

Diversity statement: how well the team addresses the diversity gap in the building science industry in the diversity statement. This includes how the team brings perspectives from a variety of backgrounds, including students from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This also includes students from many different disciplines—diversity of thought.
Stakeholder engagement: how well the team understands their stakeholder community and creates a problem statement around this community’s challenges.
Applicability to stakeholders: how well the solution addresses the problem statement and associated stakeholder community.