I’ve been saying
this for years, but it’s great to see the superb
American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) chiming in to the Virginia Department of Natural Resources. Here are a few key points from their Regulatory Filing regarding Gov. McAuliffe’s EO-57, Development Of Carbon Reduction Strategies For Electric Power Generation Facilities. Here are a few key points by ACEEE, with my comments in parentheses and italics following. Note that all of these are total “no brainers,” but of course in Dominion-dominated-and-corrupted Virginia, they haven’t happened and probably won’t happen unless Dominion is confronted head-on by our political leadership.
- “Energy efficiency is an important strategy to reduce emissions in the electric power sector. As it lowers electricity use, it avoids emissions of greenhouse gases and other harmful pollutants. Energy efficiency can substantially reduce carbon pollution from the electricity sector in Virginia, often at lowest cost.” (That’s why energy efficiency was dubbed “negawatts” by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, as “the cheapest watt is the one that’s never created.”)
Read more (Blue Virginia)
As the hours tick down to the People’s Climate March this weekend, cities and private business are already forging ahead on climate action, upping the tempo and intensity each year. From deploying available technology more widely to innovating to push the boundaries of existing solutions, there are opportunities in front of us to make our cities more vibrant, productive, healthy, and resilient. Yet in most cities, one of the biggest solution remains mostly untapped.
The Problem with Buildings
When you look at a coal-fired power plant billowing smoke or a highway packed with cars with exhausts fuming into the air, it is easy to actually see the pollution being emitted. However, when it comes to city skylines, it is difficult to visualize the vast quantities of fuel, water, and electricity used to keep our lights, heat, air-conditioning, and computers running. How our buildings use resources is a largely invisible—but pervasive—threat to our environment, health, and resiliency.
Powering our buildings accounts for 40 percent of all U.S. energy use and generating this energy and water produces harmful pollutants. As a result, buildings are also responsible for almost as great a portion of CO2 emissions—in some cities, buildings produce over 70 percent of carbon emissions.
Building energy use has major economic ramifications as well, costing Americans more than $400 billion a year. Much of this energy and water is wasted due to inefficient building design and operations. In addition to the severe effects on the environment, this leads to unnecessarily high utility bills, missed opportunities for job creation and economic development, and diminished quality of life.
Read more (Huffington Post)
Our new research reveals that sales of learning thermostats, a very popular form of intelligent efficiency, are expected to be three times as high this year as they were in 2013. This surge suggests broad future use of technologies that can save dramatic amounts of energy.
In recent years, ACEEE has explored the benefits of intelligent efficiency, our term for energy efficiency made possible by the responsive, adaptive, and predictive capabilities of information and communication technologies (ICT). These technologies can save energy by improving control and operation of systems, facilities, organizations, and even neighborhoods. Many products and services make up intelligent efficiency, producing savings in every sector of the economy. Yet very little quantitative information is available to help us understand its breadth and reach.
ACEEE’s new study documents the recent growth in use of intelligent efficiency across the US economy. It identifies how and how much ICT is being used to save energy. Our analysis focuses on four sectors of the economy – buildings, manufacturing, transportation, and government services – where intelligent efficiency applications are most common and are having the greatest impact on end-user energy consumption.
More than two dozen applications of intelligent efficiency with the potential to save significant amounts of energy have seen market acceptance. Each application has distinct features and benefits, and some applications are used in multiple sectors. What’s the potential impact of such overlap? Our analysis answers that question and quantifies market acceptance of each application with one or more indicators such as annual sales or product availability.
For example, learning thermostats reduce energy use in residential buildings and are a key component of many utility-sector energy efficiency and demand-response programs. They also contribute to smart city benchmarking initiatives. In 2013, 2 million smart thermostats were sold, but this year that number is expected to triple. Sales in the larger product category of home energy management (HEM) is projected to increase from $273 million in 2013 to $1.8 billion in 2020. As the sales of these products increase, the share of homes with HEM products is expected to increase. In 2015, only 5% of homes had some type of HEM device, but the number is estimated to reach 19% by 2021.
Read more (The Energy Collective)
Golden State leaders are encouraging trendsetting Californians to “Do Your Thing”TM to set the pace for energy efficiency. State political, environmental and business leaders stand in support of Energy Upgrade California’s launch today of a new campaign for smarter energy use.
Starting today, Energy Upgrade California is putting new energy behind educating all Californians about smarter energy use to make California cleaner, healthier and more prosperous by:
- Reducing pollution from power plant carbon emissions
- Decreasing pollution-related health costs and promoting an active outdoor lifestyle
- Creating jobs and economic development
“Californians are pioneers. Through the Energy Upgrade California program, we will continue to lead in energy efficiency,” said California Senate Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, a primary author of the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015. “We’re setting a new standard by showing how one of the great economies of the world can cut greenhouse gases and create new companies that bring clean, affordable power to our energy grid.”
Read more (YAHOO! Finance)
It’s not easy to communicate excitement around energy efficiency because it’s all about HVAC upgrades, incremental improvements to boiler systems, and LED lightbulbs. But with the Better Buildings Challenge SWAP–an Apprentice-style energy efficiency face-off in which teams from two organizations try to find wasted energy in the other’s operations–the Department of Energy makes a good show of it. Watching teams of energy professionals nitpick each other’s facilities is surprisingly good viewing, even if the made-for-TV rivalry and portentous voiceover feels too much like The Apprentice at times.
The first installment last year saw Whole Foods take on Hilton Worldwide, before a second pitted the Air Force Academy against the Naval Academy. The latest turns to cities, with Boston taking on Atlanta. Teams from each city visit a range of properties, including airports, libraries, water treatment works, and streets. They find faults in corridor airflows, rhapsodize about rooftop solar panels, and needle each other about phantom light fixtures and the height of heating fans. It’s great fun.
Read more (FAST Company)
More than 1,000 U.S. companies, including some of the nation’s largest manufacturers, are urging Congress to preserve the 25-year-old Energy Star program to promote efficiency in home and business products.
President Donald Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate funding for Energy Star, which encourages efficiency in major appliances, office equipment, lighting and home electronics.
Companies including United Technologies (UTX), Ingersoll Rand (IR) and Staples (SPLS) call the program a model for successful collaboration between the public and private sectors.
In a letter to the Trump administration and congressional leaders, the companies say Energy Star “should be strengthened, not weakened” to encourage businesses and consumers to conserve energy.
United Technologies is the parent company of Carrier heating and cooling, Otis elevators and Pratt & Whitney engines, while Ingersoll Rand is the parent of Trane heating and cooling. Other companies signing the letter include LG Electronics USA, Panasonic Corp. of North America, Samsung Electronics America and Nest thermostats, owned by Google.
Despite efforts in Washington to sideline action on climate change, a growing number of Fortune 500 companies are taking increasingly ambitious steps to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, procure more renewable energy and reduce their energy bills through energy efficiency, according to a new report released today from World Wildlife Fund (WWF),Ceres, Calvert Research and Management (Calvert) and CDP.
Sixty-three percent of Fortune 100 companies have set one or more clean energy targets. Nearly half of Fortune 500 companies – 48 percent – have at least one climate or clean energy target, up five percent from an earlier 2014 report. Accompanying this growth is rising ambition, with significant numbers of companies setting 100 percent renewable energy goals and science-based GHG reduction targets that align with the global goal of limiting global temperature rise to below two degrees Celsius.
Findings from the new report, “Power Forward 3.0: How the largest U.S. companies are capturing business value while addressing climate change,” are based on 2016 company disclosures to CDP, which holds the world’s largest collection of self-reported corporate environmental data, and other public sources.
“American businesses are leading the transition to a clean economy because it’s smart business and it’s what their customers want,” said Marty Spitzer, World Wildlife Fund’s senior director of climate and renewable energy. “Clean energy is fueling economic opportunity from coast to coast without regard for party line. Washington policies may slow this boom, but these companies are making it very clear that a transition to a low-carbon economy is inevitable.”
Read more (Power Online)
Spring brings new growth, new possibilities, and, best of all, a new spaghetti diagram from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) at the Department of Energy.
Every year, LLNL produces a new energy flow chart showing the sources of US energy, what it’s used for, and how much of it is wasted. If you’ve never seen it before, it’s a bit of a mind-blower.
So much information in so little space! (It’s worth zooming in on a larger version.)
Before digging through a few of the more interesting details, let’s get terminology out of the way. LLNL measures US energy consumption in “quads.” What’s a quad?
Well, a British thermal unit (BTU) is a standard unit of energy — the heat required to raise the temperature of a pound of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit. If you prefer the metric system, a BTU is about 1055 joules of energy.
Read more (Vox)
Appliance makers want Congress to ease energy efficiency standards that they say are unrealistic and costly for air conditioners, refrigerators and other equipment — even allowing for future rollbacks.
The industry is lobbying to amend a decades old conservation law that sets minimum efficiency standards for many household and commercial appliances and bars them from being weakened. Manufacturers say regulators should be required to negotiate requirements with them and that some set by the Obama administration are too costly and will drive up prices.
“We thought they went too far in pushing the efficiency too high and not looking at the economic costs for the consumers,” said Stephen Yurek, president of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, which represents companies such as Ingersoll-Rand Plc, which makes air conditioners and heaters. “I think we are going to see a dial back. There is a different philosophy and that is very clear.”
Read more (Bloomberg)
Commercial real estate giant CBRE is always on alert for shifts in federal government policy that might impact its vast property management and investment business.
But the Los Angeles-based Fortune 500 company never anticipated an effort to eliminate a voluntary, cost-effective initiative that has saved its customers millions of dollars and had almost no critics.
In a reflection of how much influence a handful of free-market think tanks wield over the White House, the Trump administration has decided the immensely popular Energy Star program must go.
The fight centers on the Environmental Protection Agency’s 25-year-old effort to boost efficiency in products and services by encouraging companies to compete for coveted, government-issued labels that certify a product or property meets high standards for saving energy and costs.
Read more (Los Angeles Times)
