Alireza Bozorgi, LEED Green Associate

Real estate professionals, such as investors, owner-occupants, and lenders who are involved in the investment decision-making process are increasingly interested in sustainability and energy efficiency investment. However, current tools and techniques, both technical and financial, typically used for assessing sustainability on their own are unable to provide comprehensive and reliable financial information required for making high-quality investment decisions. Sustainability investment often includes non-cost benefits, value implications, as well as substantial risk and uncertainty that current methods do not simultaneously incorporate in their assessment process. Through a combined quantitative and qualitative approach, this research creates a new systematic assessment process to consider both cost and non-cost savings and therefore the true financial performance of a set of sustainable options in the context of value and risk, while explicitly deriving and including various uncer...

This educational review describes the classification of paroxysmal events and a four-dimensional epilepsy classification system. Paroxysmal events are classified as epileptic and non-epileptic paroxysmal events. Non-epileptic events are, in turn, classified as psychogenic and organic paroxysmal events. The following four dimensions are used to classify epileptic paroxysmal events: ictal semiology, the epileptogenic zone, etiology, and comorbidities. Efforts are made to keep these four dimensions as independent as possible. The review also includes 12 educational vignettes and three more detailed case reports classified using the 2017 classification of the ILAE and the four-dimensional epilepsy classification. In addition, a case is described which is classified using the four-dimensional epilepsy classification with different degrees of precision by an emergency department physician, a neurologist, and an epileptologist. [Published with video sequences on www.epilepticdisorders.com].

Feedback/behavior-based programs have been recognized as a mechanism to provide deeper energy savings and higher customer satisfaction. However, due to the limitations of robust ex post program evaluation data, there are significant uncertainties associated with the performance of these emerging programs, particularly, their cost-effectiveness as there is very little program cost data available. This paper presents study results on the impacts and costeffectiveness of feedback programs within a real DSM portfolio while explicitly considering uncertainties. Using recent field data and a field-proven DSM analytics tool plus Monte Carlo simulations, the paper first analyzes the potential impacts of five feedback types on increasing a typical DSM portfolio’s savings. Second, a detailed cost-effectiveness analysis is conducted using four standard screening tests (TRC, PAC, RIM, and PCT) for two types of feedback programs, Enhanced Billing and Real-Time Feedback. Third, the top three most...

Currently, many investment decisions concerning energy retrofits are made directly based on the outcomes of energy simulations. However, there are various uncertainties inherent in the energy retrofitassessment process, both at the energy simulation and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) levels, which can result in inaccuracy of energy performance forecasts and therefore, inappropriate investment decisions. Through a case study, this paper presents a procedure for deriving and including the uncertainty associated with various factors in energy retrofit option assessment and clearly demonstrates how to generate probability distributions for final financial outcomes required for investment decision-making such as NetPresent Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR). These distributions provide decision makers with more insight into the risks associated with achieving the expected outcomes. The simulation process proposed in this paper could be used by modelers to improve the level of...

Design professionals typically do not report the true value of sustainable building to their clients in reliable and understandable terms. It is necessary for designers, particularly architects, to understand how investment professionals value their investment choices, what techniques traditionally they use to evaluate their alternatives, and how they account for risk and uncertainty in their investment decision making process. In this paper, first, the deficiency of current building performance tools, such as building simulation programs, sustainability certifications, simple financial methods and building performance-based techniques in evaluation of sustainable buildings are presented. Recommendations are then provided regarding the additional knowledge of financial, risk and uncertainty modeling that designers need if they want to estimate and communicate a more complete assessment of value to the real estate decision makers. The Discounted Cash Flow approach is explained as a f...

Energy consultants, design professionals, and property professionals have widely used building energy modeling tools to project energy performance when evaluating energy efficiency investment. These models help decision makers to explore the potential savings, estimate the simple payback (PB) and simple return on investment (ROI), compare the various energy efficiency systems and strategies (EESS), and select the most cost-effective options based on the results of their financial analyses. However, the primary issue with these financial outcomes is that they typically only focus on installation and operational costs when estimating the return on investment (ROI). Many benefits of energy efficiency investment, such as reduced risks and increased asset revenue, are beyond these analyses and ignoring them in the financial analysis may lead to poor investment decisions. In this paper, primary challenges in evaluating the financial performance of energy efficiency investment are addresse...