Dr. Alereza is CEO and founding principal of ADM Associates, Inc. In this role, he contributes to every project at ADM. He provides technical oversight, reviews methodologies, ensures that client needs are met, and ensures that ADM’s quality standards are maintained throughout the course of all project work.
Dr. Alereza started his work in energy research and analysis in 1972, immediately prior to the first oil embargo. This work began with an evaluation of residential energy efficiency measures in 11 major cities, funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD). This evaluation used, for the first time, hourly energy simulation modeling of single- and multi-family housing, and for many years the evaluation results served as the only data source for development of cost benefit analysis of residential energy efficiency measures. During the same period, also for HUD, he developed a data acquisition system for a breakthrough site’s Total Energy System. This site generated all the electricity and hot water for several hundred residential units. Trash for these units was collected by a central vacuum system and burned as additional fuel. The data acquisition system provided information on how much heat was generated from the trash.
In the mid-1970s, Dr. Alereza was asked to develop a manual method for estimation of energy use in the U.S. Department of Defense facilities. This project was sponsored by Civil Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) and resulted in a publication by CERL and a technical paper presentation at ASHRAE.
In 1979, Dr. Alereza founded ADM Associates, Inc., to provide energy research and analysis to governmental and utility clients. While serving as ADM’s CEO, he has continuously contributed to the energy analysis field and mentored hundreds of new arrivals to this expanding field. While continuously leading the industry in establishing best practices, ADM is also the oldest energy evaluation firm in the United States still operating under its founding leadership.
During the early 1980s, Dr. Alereza was tasked by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and the Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a simplified energy calculation method to support the development of DOE’s initial residential standard—Building Energy Performance Standards (BEPS). During the course of this work, Dr. Alereza developed the Variable Base Degree Method (VBDM). This method is cited in the ASHRAE Handbook – Fundamentals, as a simplified method for calculation of energy use in residential buildings. The VBDM is presently used by many researchers for evaluation of residential energy efficiency programs. Dr. Alereza later developeed the use of VBDM as an alternative method to demonstrate compliance with California Title 24 requirements for small commercial buildings.
During the mid-1980s, Dr. Alereza developed the first hourly building simulation modeling software that worked with the first generation of microcomputers. The algorithms utilized many of the formulations in DOE-2, in a simplified manner accounting for the calculation limitation of microcomputers at that time. This program was marketed under the name ADM-2.
During the past 30 years, he has directed over one hundred program evaluations for many major utilities and governmental agencies in the United States and Canada. He has made major contributions both in the areas of data collection and methods of analysis. He has been one the pioneers in design of onsite data collection, metering and monitoring, and use of these data to inform building simulation and analysis.
Dr. Alereza has published over 50 refereed papers, manuals, and procedures. He has also served as expert witness in PUC hearings in various jurisdictions.