CalBEM’s purpose is to empower California’s building energy modeling (BEM) community to identify, explore, and prioritize the challenges they share, and then support solutions to those challenges to help promote low-carbon buildings.

Speaker and session proposals are open for the CalBEM 2026 Symposium in Sacramento, CA. Each year, the Symposium brings together participants to identify and pursue systemic solutions in building energy modeling that advance California’s climate action goals. 

We are inviting proposals for talks, panels, and interactive sessions that:

• Share practical experience applying BEM and related tools in real projects, programs, or codes
• Highlight emerging methods, data, and tools that improve modeling practice or program design
• Explore policy, market, and workforce issues that affect how modeling supports California’s clean energy and decarbonization goals
• Address equity, workforce development, codes and standards, implementation challenges, and technical content

What we are looking for

Sessions can be:

• Panels or facilitated discussions (10 minute presentation per panelist)
• Plenary or special topic presentations
• Lightning talks, what we call Power Talks (5-minute presentations)
• Workshops or hands-on sessions

How to submit

Please submit your proposal using our online form:

CalBEM 2026: Session Proposal Form – Fill out form

Submission deadline: May 29, 2026

If you have an idea but are not sure how it fits, please still submit it; the planning team can help shape topics, suggest panel combinations, or adjust formats to make the most of the ideas we receive.

Speaker fixed fee

Participation in the CalBEM Symposium is free, but we recognize that travel and time are not. To help offset costs, CalBEM offers a small fixed speaker fee for accepted sessions. The fee is intended to support travel or other direct expenses; details will be provided upon acceptance.

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Catch up on CalBEM 2O25:

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What is CalBEM?

CalBEM (California Building Energy Modeling) is a stakeholder collective and an annual statewide event hosted by Southern California Edison on behalf of the California Investor-Owned Utilities. CalBEM collaborates to identify and pursue systemic solutions in building energy modeling that advance California’s climate action goals. CalBEM participants come together each year at the annual Symposium to join interactive collaboration sessions and learn from energy modeling leaders across CA. Workshop sessions will cover each of CalBEM’s three Working Groups: Streamline & Simplify Processes, Educate Users, and Improve Capabilities & Accuracy.

Read more about CalBEM’s core goals and what the Working Groups are up to these days.

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