Recognizing that energy efficiency remains the cleanest, cheapest energy resource, SELC recently filed comments in the North Carolina Utilities Commission in support of changes sought by Duke Energy to its Helping Home Fund—a $20 million, low-income ratepayer assistance program. SELC represents the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the North Carolina Housing Coalition, the North Carolina Council of Churches, and North Carolina Interfaith Power & Light in this docket.

Duke Energy’s efficiency program has the potential to make a significant impact on the bottom line for low-income households, where energy bills require a disproportionate amount of monthly expenses. Energy efficiency improvements such as appliance upgrades, heating/cooling system replacements, wall, floor and ceiling insulation, and duct sealing and repair can greatly improve energy usage in a home, saving families hundreds of dollars every year. These upgrades help to lower customer bills, improve the health and comfort of homes, reduce emissions of carbon and other harmful air pollutants, and create jobs. Low-income families in North Carolina have the most to gain from these efficiency upgrades, but face the biggest obstacles to paying for those investments.

Duke Energy’s proposal includes several commendable improvements to the Helping Home Fund, such as increasing spending limits for home health and safety repairs or appliance replacements and expanding the program to include the facilities of shelters and other nonprofit agencies that serve low-income individuals.

Read the full story. (Southern Environmental Law Center)

In 2002, Stu Rose and Trina Duncan moved into the first home in a tiny Virginia neighborhood focused on achieving net zero energy use and sustainable living. Fourteen years later, the Garden Atriums community near the Chesapeake Bay is complete and nearly independent of the energy grid.

Six of the seven homes are occupied. Husband and wife developers Rose and Duncan have downsized into the final home and have placed the original nearly 5,000 square foot prototype house on the market.

More than 12,000 people have visited the community. Rose has spoken at events ranging from local Sierra Club to a NASA sustainability conference as well as to groups in Ireland, Finland and Canada. He’s also working with a screenwriter on a movie.

Monthly energy bills are zero most of the year and under $100 even during peak times, compared to $200-$400 and more for homes of similar size, Rose says. PV panels and geothermal systems power the homes. Rooftop water heaters provide hot water. Garden Atrium homes build credit with Dominion Virginia Power during the fall, winter and spring and then use those credits when running air conditioning during the summer. Each homeowner pays $8.40 a month for being hooked up to the grid.

Passive energy storage is via stones, fountains and other features that soak up sunlight from the atriums and release heat at night. “The design intent is to be sure there’s enough thermal mass to keep the house comfortable until the sun comes up the next morning,” Rose says.

Read the full story. (Southeast Energy News)

For all of the talk about the disruptive nature of wind and solar on the utility sector, there is another clean energy technology that has already quietly rocked its own industry: light-emitting diodes.

Goldman Sachs recently released 60 charts that show the transformation that’s occurring in the low-carbon economy. The financial institution calls LEDs one of the fastest technology shifts in human history. While wind and solar are challenging the traditional electric generation sector, they have not upended it yet the way LEDs have overtaken the lighting industry. By 2020, LEDs will make up 69 percent of sales and close to 100 percent by 2025, up from nearly nothing in 2010.

The rise of LEDs is no surprise to anyone watching the clean energy industry, but the extent to which the technology is upending traditional, vertically integrated lighting companies is a quiet revolution.

Read the full story. (Greentech Media)

Both political candidates claim that America needs to accelerate economic growth. This is accepted as a worthy goal by Paul Krugman, who notes that “some people I respect believe that trying to get …[the growth rate] back up should be a big goal of policy.” But Dr. Krugman then asks HOW we can do it:

“After all, what do we actually know how to do when it comes to economic policy?”

He is unable to identify specific answers in the article because he is looking at the problem from 40,000 feet. If you start with your feet on the ground, however, you can see several big opportunities. One great way to accelerate economic growth is to reduce energy bills for households and businesses through a large-scale program to make our existing homes and buildings more efficient. This will employ hundreds of thousands of people, some who are working on our buildings and some with jobs created by pumping money into the economy that otherwise would have been wasted.

Read the full story. (NRDC)

The Energy Department announced today it is investing $19 million to improve the efficiency of our nation’s homes, offices, schools, hospitals, restaurants and stores. These projects will develop advanced building technologies that will help American consumers and businesses save money on their utility bills, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create jobs.

Buildings are the largest energy consumer in the nation—accounting for more than 40 percent of the nation’s total energy demand and greenhouse emissions, and resulting in an annual energy bill totaling $430 billion. On average, nearly a third of this energy is wasted. It’s estimated that if the U.S. reduced energy use in buildings by 20 percent, the nation could save nearly $80 billion annually on energy bills.

Today’s 18 innovative projects will develop sensors and energy modeling tools to make our buildings smarter, reduce refrigerant leaks and improve the efficiency of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems, and produce a low-impact, gas-powered heat pump that can operate efficiently in colder climates. The projects will also support renewable energy market penetration through energy storage, pinpoint air leaks and reduce energy losses through the building envelope, and cut electricity use by transmitting sunlight to building interiors.

Read the full story. (DOE press release)

Tempers are rising in America, along with the temperatures.

Two decades ago, the issue of climate change wasn’t as contentious. The leading U.S. Senate proponent of taking action on global warming was Republican John McCain. George W. Bush wasn’t as zealous on the issue as his Democratic opponent for president in 2000, Al Gore, but he, too, talked of regulating carbon dioxide.

Then the Earth got even hotter , repeatedly breaking temperature records. But instead of drawing closer together, politicians polarized.

Democrats (and scientists) became more convinced that global warming was a real, man-made threat . But Republicans and Tea Party activists became more convinced that it was — to quote the repeated tweets of presidential nominee Donald Trump — a “hoax.”

When it comes to science, there’s more than climate that divides America’s leaders and people, such as evolution, vaccination and genetically modified food.

But nothing beats climate change for divisiveness.

“It’s more politically polarizing than abortion,” says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. “It’s more politically polarizing than gay marriage.”

Leiserowitz says his surveys show 17 percent of Americans, the fastest-growing group, are alarmed by climate change and want action now, with another 28 percent concerned but viewing it as a more distant threat. But there’s an often-vocal 10 percent who are dismissive, rejecting the concept of warming and the science

Read the full story. (Associated Press)