Sachs, Harvey

   
Position: Director, Buildings Programs
   
Institution: American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE)
   
   
Harvey M. Sachs, Ph.D, is the ACEEE’s Director of Buildings Programs. His responsibilities include a wide range of efforts focused on standards and market transformation for the residential and commercial sectors. This includes building codes, equipment standards, and a large effort on market transformation to increase utilization of better products and practices. Market transformation activities include evaluating emerging technologies as candidates for sustained market transformation programs, and specific programs to spur the market acceptance of energy-saving technologies and practices such as efficient transformers and better furnace fans, commissioning of existing buildings, and improved air conditioner installation and maintenance practices.

Sachs has a broad background in technology, field studies, and policy work. He trained as a geological oceanographer, but turned his attention to indoor air pollution and energy efficiency while on the Princeton University faculty. He worked on radon distribution and diagnostics, asbestos, and formaldehyde. In the late 1980s, Sachs served as Assistant Commissioner in the New Jersey Department of Commerce, Energy, and Economic Development, responsible for energy policy, demand side management programs, and power plant siting. He was Policy Director of the Center for Global Change, University of Maryland, and helped EPA set up its ground source heat pump programs. More recently, he was technical director of the Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium, responsible for its R&D, environmental programs, and education and training. He is active in ASHRAE and other research activities.