ASHRAE Winter Conference brings nine tracks to Chicago

At ASHRAE's Seattle decarbonization conference, the most-attended sessions dealt with the financial and technical challenges of building decarbonization. Next to that, the Chicago program reads like the next chapter: a broader look at the HVACR technology and engineering behind projects once the budget is approved.

What Seattle's crowds came for

The Seattle conference ran under the theme "Decarbonization That Delivers: From Policy to Projects to Performance." Alongside its technical sessions, the program ran seven sponsor technology talks and three keynotes.

The attendance pattern is the telling part. According to ACHR News, the most-attended Seattle sessions included discussions of the financial and technical challenges of building decarbonization. One covered making the business case for decarbonization, from low-cost wins up to capital projects. Another covered tools, costs and case studies. A third popular session looked at exhaust air heat recovery, thermal energy storage and geothermal, along with the incentives that can make those technologies pencil out.

A keynote panel of state and local officials talked about building performance standards and how to cut the compliance burden while balancing statewide consistency against local needs. ASHRAE's 2026-27 president, Sarah E. Maston, framed the event as a way to turn shared knowledge into action on real projects.

Chicago's track list picks up where those rooms left off. The retrofit track continues the Seattle conversation directly. Refrigeration, residential systems and thermal networks widen it.

How the nine tracks were built

ASHRAE opened its call for abstracts in April, HPAC Engineering's Karen Buckley Washington reported.

The April call for abstracts requested papers for these tracks:

• Residential HVAC Research and Demonstration
• Thermal Network Systems and Energy Storage
• Nexus of Real and Artificial Intelligence
• Decarbonization Retrofits
• Research Summit
• Refrigerants and Refrigeration
• Fundamentals and Applications
• HVAC&R Systems and Equipment

ASHRAE's newly announced technical program also introduces an Application Notes in Professional Practice track, made up of individual presentations on lessons learned, proven engineering approaches and solutions that apply to real-world projects.

Technical conference chair Li Song, quoted in the April announcement, pointed to real-world performance studies in residential HVAC, including advanced heat pumps and smart controls across different housing types. The program now holds research papers and field notes side by side.

Which tracks fit which teams

The retrofit track is the most direct carryover. The abstract call scoped it to cutting emissions from existing buildings through control changes, commissioning, and system or equipment replacement. ACHR News describes it as a chance to work through upgrades that meet rising performance expectations. Owners of older portfolios facing local performance standards will probably get the most out of it, since controls and commissioning work often comes before any capital replacement.

Thermal network systems get dedicated sessions, including district heating and cooling, networked building energy modeling and advanced control setups that tune energy systems as operating conditions change. The track looks at energy distribution at both the building and campus level. If you run a university, hospital or corporate campus and you're deciding between plant-by-plant upgrades and shared thermal infrastructure, this track is the closest match.

The AI track, titled Nexus of Real and Artificial Intelligence, is narrower than its name suggests. The call for abstracts puts the emphasis on how human expertise and AI-enabled controls work together in data center environments, campus design and power delivery. Data center operators and the engineers designing for them are the obvious audience. Refrigeration sessions cover equipment selection, system design and refrigerant practices, with uses that run from food preservation to vaccine storage.

There's a limit to the idea that this is a buyer's program. The Research Summit and Fundamentals and Applications tracks cover active research and theory, and many papers were written to meet journal standards rather than to settle a purchasing decision. A facilities director looking for vendor comparisons will find more of them on the McCormick Place floor than in the session rooms. The value of the sessions is in method and evidence.

Chicago's host committee and the opening night

The Winter Conference is an annual event that rotates cities and is held in Chicago every three years, according to the ASHRAE Illinois Chapter, which is the host committee.

The Welcome Party is the first major event of the conference and will be held at Carnivale, 702 W. Fulton St., on Jan. 23. The chapter says approximately 700 ASHRAE members will attend, space is limited and the event always sells out. The chapter says more than 500 local members will pass through its hospitality suite at the Marriott Marquis during the conference. About 500 members and their guests register for Member's Night Out on Tuesday, the last major event of the conference. ASHRAE's conference page lists technical sessions, ALI courses, committee meetings, networking events, social gatherings and the AHR Expo, and registration is now open.

The thing to watch in January is the Application Notes track. If its rooms fill, that could be a sign practitioners want proven field results more than another round of research. That could shape how future ASHRAE programs balance the two.