All-Electric Leadership Awards 2021-2022 Selection Committee

Peninsula Clean Energy is honored to bring together this selection committee of outstanding building design and electrification experts. The committee members will review each awards submission based on demonstration of leadership, innovation, building energy impact and quality of the application. Submissions will have multiple reviewers to score each application, and these scores will be discussed among the selection committee members.

Learn more about the All-Electric Leadership Awards here.

Jeff Aalfs

Building Energy Consultant, ArcturusHD
Jeff Aalfs works as a Building Energy and Green Building Consultant, helping architects and builders meet the requirements of the Building Code, as well as exploring strategies to improve the energy efficiency, sustainability and health of building projects.

Jeff is a Council Member representing the Town of Portola Valley, and has been a Board Member for Peninsula Clean Energy since its inception in 2016, serving as Vice Chairman of the Board for two years, and Board Chair since March of 2018. He lives in Portola Valley with his wife and two children.

Sharon Blocklow
Sharon Block 

Director of Sustainability, Green Building Consultant Bright Green Strategies
Sharon is the Director of Sustainability and founder of Bright Green Strategies. Bright Green Strategies a firm specializing in comprehensive residential energy, sustainable design and green building certification. She is a LEED for Homes Quality Assurance Designee (QAD) and has worked with the LEED for Homes program since its inception. She oversees and supports a network of LEED Green Raters in California and Canada. She was awarded Build It Green’s GreenPoint Rater of the year in 2012.

Ida Clair

State Architect at California Department of General Services Division of the State Architect (DSA) 
Ida Clair, AIA, LEED AP BD+C is the State Architect for the State of California, appointed by Governor Newsom in 2021, where she leads the organization in providing design and construction oversight for California’s public K-12 schools and community colleges. She previously served as Principal Architect for DSA, where she managed the accessibility, sustainability, and fire & life safety programs for public K-12 schools and community colleges, directed CALGreen and Access Code regulatory development, and administered the Certified Access Specialist (CASp) Program. 

Ida believes in the power of solutions through active engagement of stakeholders.  She encouraged partner state agencies to engage in the collaborative process with a variety of stakeholders early in regulatory development, including state and national sustainability leaders, and representatives of professional organizations in the design and construction industry, resulting in the BSC/DSA/HCD CALGreen Carbon Reduction Collaborative, an ongoing effort to augment carbon reduction strategies in the current and future editions of CALGreen. With a motto of “educate before we regulate” Ida has advanced the sustainability and resiliency of public school and community college construction with a targeted education and outreach program, and in collaboration with state and national sustainability leaders, encourages California school districts to engage in school facility sustainability planning through assessment, data collection, benchmarking, and monitoring. 

 

David Kaneda

Thought Leader, IDeAs Consulting
For over three decades, David Kaneda has collaborated on electrical system designs for many of the greenest buildings in the US. He is an internationally recognized expert on designing sustainable electrical systems, including power distribution, lighting and daylighting, renewable energy, microgrids and EV charging. He has collaborated on the electrical design of over 40 – net zero energy buildings, including the IDeAs Z Squared Design Facility in 2005; the first net zero energy commercial office building in the United States.

He has also led the electrical designs for dozens of LEED Platinum and AIA COTE Top 10 projects, including ground breaking projects such as the Packard Foundation, 435 Indio Way, the Venter Institute and the Sonoma Academy Janet Durgin Guild and Commons.

David believes that our industry needs to transition rapidly to building high performance, all electric, green buildings. He has shared his expertise on the subject over 100 times at national and international conferences and has been invited to lecture at 10 universities and colleges and published several white papers on sustainable electrical system design.

David serves nationally on the General Services Administration’s (GSA) Green Building Advisory Committee. In 2014, he co-chaired their Net Zero Energy Task Group and currently co-chairs the Energy Storage Task Group. He also serves on the GSA National Register of Peer Professionals and AIA California’s Committee on the Environment and is a Professional Engineer, a Fellow in the AIA and a LEED Fellow.

Lisa Schmidt

President and CEO, Home Energy Analytics
Lisa and her husband, Steve founded Home Energy Analytics (HEA) in 2010 to help residents reduce their energy consumption via smart meter analytics. HEA manages a residential energy reduction program, HomeIntel, for PG&E and has helped over 15,000 families save energy and money.

Lisa received a BSEE from UT Austin and moved to Silicon Valley in 1982 when the main industry was still designing and manufacturing integrated circuits. She worked on software used in IC design at a variety of companies, primarily startups. She and Steve became increasingly worried about the devastating effects of climate change and turned their startup talents to HEA. Lisa has spent the last 10 years working with local communities, state regulators and IOUs to promote smart meter analytics as the most advanced and cost-effective ways to reduce household energy consumption. Lisa has served on the Los Altos Hills City Council since 2021.