Dru Crawley, Father of EnergyPlus, on Predicting Smart Buildings 40 Years Ago

Dru Crawley has long championed the promise of integrated building systems—essentially anything that may be labeled today as “smart.” If your work or research relates to sustainable design, energy modeling, or net-zero buildings, you probably are familiar with technology that Crawley helped originate and develop: EnergyPlus, the U.S. Department of Energy’s open-source energy simulation program that serves as the engine for many modeling platforms. During his multidecade career at the DOE, he also oversaw the Commercial Building Initiative, now known as the Better Buildings Initiative.

Today, Crawley is a Bentley Fellow and the director of building performance research at the engineering infrastructure software company Bentley Systems. Based in Washington, D.C., he is also active on the ASHRAE board.

In this episode of the Smart Buildings Technology podcast, Crawley reflects on the state of the smart building industry, how his decades-old predictions have panned out, and the obstacles hindering our path to a smarter future.

Crawley has written more than 125 papers and articles on building energy efficiency, sustainability, and renewable energy, but the two referenced in this episode are linked below:

“Commercial Building Systems Integration Research,” by Carol M. Gardner and Drury B. Crawley, American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, 1988.

“Developing a Roadmap to the 21st Century for Commercial Buildings,” by Drury B. Crawley, U.S. Department of Energy, 2001.