The California Institute for Energy and Environment at CITRIS and Banatao Institute has been awarded a $2 million grant from the California Energy Commission for Super-GX, a project that will demonstrate demand response strategies in large commercial buildings. 

CIEE is pleased to announce Aoyu Zou, a third-year PhD student in Architecture, as the 2025 Art Rosenfeld Award for Energy Efficiency winner. His research tackles the challenge of matching building HVAC operations with renewable energy generation from the grid.

A recent episode of KQED’s housing and climate podcast, Sold Out, revisited the Oakland EcoBlock pilot project since it was first featured in 2023. Led by researchers at the CIEE and the CITRIS Climate initiative, EcoBlock is addressing climate change at the urban block scale.

For over three decades, CIEE’s logo has evolved alongside its work in energy and climate research. As the Institute’s mission has changed, so too has its visual identity. The latest logo refresh honors the Institute’s legacy while balancing accessibility, versatility, and recognizability for the modern age.

Rich Brown joins the California Institute for Energy and Environment as an academic researcher, where he will work on the Oakland EcoBlock project.

Over 150 building professionals, college faculty, and students attended the annual conference, which was co-hosted by CIEE’s Building Efficiency for a Sustainable Tomorrow (BEST) Center and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).