ICEBO is an annual international forum of building owners, operators and energy-efficiency experts that focuses on the persistent optimal performance of buildings. The conferences provide a stimulating, cross-cutting exchange among owners, operators, engineers, architects, energy managers, government agencies, contractors, vendors, and building scientists.The Texas A&M Energy Systems Laboratory, a division of TEES, inaugurated the annual ICEBO conferences in 2001 as a forum for the exchange of experience and ideas among those dedicated to ensuring that buildings perform optimally throughout their lives.

ICEBO is an outgrowth of building commissioning, a process initially created to ensure that new buildings operate as they were designed. The importance of the process became apparent in the late 1970s, when new buildings designed to be energy efficient, following the 1973-74 OPEC oil embargo, failed to meet their design targets. Commissioning provided a path through building conception, design, construction, and acceptance to optimize performance.

The success of commissioning spread to existing buildings, retro-commissioning, and previously commissioned buildings, or recommissioning. The Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) obtained a registered trademark for Continuous Commissioning® and CC® to help ensure quality control for the more rigorous measures required for persistent superior building performance. The goal is to ensure that the building systems remain optimized continuously, recognizing the importance of adjustments, when building uses change, and the opportunities for improvements, when advanced technologies are introduced. The ICEBO conference has expanded beyond retrocommissioning and HVAC systems optimization to now include smart campuses and buildings, automated on-going commissioning, fault detection and intelligent software systems. Its goal is to become a building and controls industry driven conference to meet the rapidly expanding needs of investors, owners and operators.

The conference rotates between U.S. and international venues.

  • 2014 Beijing, China
  • 2013 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  • 2012 Manchester, UK
  • 2011 Brooklyn, New York, USA
  • 2010 Safat, Kuwait
  • 2009 Austin, Texas, USA
  • 2008 Berlin, Germany
  • 2007 San Francisco, California, USA
  • 2006 Shenzhen, China
  • 2005 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
  • 2004 Paris, France