Every workday, 2.25 million American energy efficiency professionals are on the job. Many install insulation and advanced building controls and improve HVAC systems. Their work isn’t always recognized, but I strongly believe that it should be! For starters, energy efficiency (EE) cuts waste and costs while improving health and comfort.
Our new report, Energy Efficiency Jobs in America, offers insights about EE companies and workers. I was surprised to learn that although only six percent of the U.S. workforce are veterans, eleven percent of energy efficiency workers are veterans
(Read more) E4TheFuture
The start of football season is a great time to acknowledge the sports complexes that are excelling in energy efficiency. Check out these five sport venues that are taking “save energy and save money” to the next level by optimizing energy use before, during, and after each game.
1. Philadelphia Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field (a.k.a. The Linc). In 2003, the Eagles launched their Go Green program and since then has been awarded LEED Silver Certification from the US Green Building Council. By retrofitting the complex with energy-saving lighting, the Eagles have thus far saved up to five years in electric costs. The building’s installed automated lighting saves over $50,000 a year through shutdowns when a room is not in use.
2. Miami Heat’s American Airlines Arena. The Heat has taken huge strides toward energy efficiency by lowering its energy consumption by 53 percent while at the same time saving $1.6 million each year.
(Read more) Energy Efficiency Day
The non-profit E4TheFuture has just released a report that says energy efficiency employs 2.25 million Americans, and puts Virginia in the top ten.
There has been a dramatic increase in energy efficiency jobs in Virginia since last census in 2013. “Energy efficiency grew from a $300 million industry in 2013 to a $1.5 billion industry in 2016,” said Chelsea Harnish, Executive Director of the Virginia Energy Efficiency Council that promotes and lobbies for the industry.
“Just this year, the General Assembly passed a bill that commits the electric utilities in Virginia to spend over a billion dollars on efficiency programs for consumers over the next decade,” said Harnish.
E4 says Virginia has over 76,000 people in construction, installing energy-saving windows and doors, air conditioning, insulation, lighting and manufacturing appliances.
Listen to the interview here (NPR: Community Idea Stations)
News flash! The U.S. energy efficiency industry is becoming known as a jobs powerhouse. Why? Because it now supports a workforce of 2.25 million and continues to increase. I feel honored to spread this good news that buoys us beyond politics to unite a focus on the positive.
Our new report, Energy Efficiency Jobs in America, articulates the scale and scope of jobs across the country, with details for all 50 states. Energy efficiency (EE) is the largest sector in the U.S. clean energy economy.
You may ask, “What is an EE job?” According to Energy Efficiency Jobs in America, EE jobs are the delivery of goods and services that lower energy use by improving technologies, appliances, buildings, and energy systems.
(Read more) E4TheFuture
If your community recently experienced a historic heatwave, you’ve probably come to appreciate air conditioning (AC) units in a way you didn’t before. We often overlook the importance of everyday home appliances and how critical they are in making our lives more comfortable. Yet AC units–and other common office and household appliances such as refrigerators, clothes washers, and heat pumps–do more than just help us live comfortable lives.
Thanks to national standards that require appliances and equipment to be more energy efficient, your AC and other appliances also spur economic growth and create jobs. According to a new report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), national appliance standards created or sustained nearly 300,000 jobs in 2016 and are projected to support 553,000 jobs by 2030.
(Read more) Energy Efficiency Day
Southern Company and its Alabama Power subsidiary are proactively simulating what one possible future may hold for energy providers and their customers with the first-of-its-kind Smart NeighborhoodTM. In a rapidly changing energy landscape, this initiative will help Southern Company adapt and continue providing clean, safe, reliable, affordable energy to the customers and communities we serve.
Nestled in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, the Smart Neighborhood consists of 62 high-performance homes equipped with smart technologies and powered by a community-scale microgrid, made up of solar panels, battery storage and a natural gas generator. These pieces have been integrated into one initiative which will enable Southern Company to better understand the impact of high-performance construction standards and advanced customer technologies to our core mission.
When it comes to developing high-performance homes, there are two main building blocks that need to be considered: 1) the building envelope (or shell) and 2) the equipment inside of it. For the Alabama Power Smart Neighborhood each home features both components.
Read more (Alliance to Save Energy)
Virginia lawmakers are expected to fill an open seat this month on a state board that could determine whether the state becomes a regional leader on renewable energy, energy efficiency and grid modernization.
“The State Corporation Commission is where the rubber meets the road,” says Cale Jaffe, director of the Environmental and Regulatory Law Clinic at the University of Virginia.
Government agencies and the Legislature can lay out rules for pollution control and energy generation, but it’s the commission that has the power to say ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ to related proposals by utilities.
Virginia’s Grid Modernization and Security Act (SB966) went into effect July 1.
“That legislation creates the possibility for clean energy wins, but doesn’t guarantee anything,” explains Will Cleveland, staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, an advocacy organization in Charlottesville. “The commission plays a critical role here.”
“The SCC exists to regulate the monopoly utilities in Virginia,” he continues. “But we have an odd tension here.”
Utility executives are required to maximize profits, but keep rates reasonable and service reliable for captive ratepayers, Cleveland explains.
Read more (Energy News)
The past decade has seen a growing focus on global platforms seeking to move the needle on building efficiency through subnational action, national action and international partnerships. Despite the efforts of these global platforms and partnerships to date, the lack of a high-profile global political dialogue on building efficiency has stalled political backing at the national and international level. Building efficiency is one of the most effective near-term opportunities for achieving national and international climate and energy goals and the time has never been better – or more critical – for spurring a global building efficiency movement.
World Resources Institute and the Alliance to Save Energy convened more than 40 global government, industry and NGO building efficiency leaders in May 2018, at the EE Global Forumin Copenhagen, to kick off a discussion on how best to create an effective global building efficiency movement. The roundtable discussed measures of success, the attributes of successful movements, ways to link national-subnational action to create a strong political agenda, and opportunities to leverage the capabilities and relationships of existing global platforms and partnerships. Building on the conclusions from this discussion, which are outlined below, the partners are planning a follow-up discussion in September.
Measures of Success
To start the discussion, each participant was asked to define one measure of success – ten years from now – for a building efficiency movement. The participants’ responses covered the entire range of building efficiency benefits including reduced energy use, improved health and wellness, increased productivity, increased real estate values, long-term sustainability, greater resilience and de-carbonization. Other measures of success focused on actions, including increased building audits and retrofits, net zero new construction, life-cycle design optimization, availability of financing, low income programs, student education, and implementation of building codes and equipment standards. Finally, several participants suggested indicators linked to people, including improved public understanding of the link between energy efficiency and climate change, continuous engagement by decision makers, and having energy efficiency be as high-profile in the public mind as renewables and as cool as a Tesla.
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Located where the Chesapeake Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean, the City of Virginia Beach is anything but a sleepy resort town. It is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and boasts an economy comprising tourism, national and international corporate headquarters, advanced manufacturing, military bases, and agribusiness.
Besides the beach (the longest pleasure beach in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records), visitors are drawn year-round to Virginia Beach’s many renowned attractions, including:
- The Virginia Beach Convention Center the nation’s first convention center to earn LEED® Gold certification as an existing building from the U.S. Green Building Council;
- The Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, which attracts 650,000 visitors a year and hosts more than 10,000 fish, mammals, birds, and reptiles representing more than 300 species from around the world; and
- The Virginia Beach Boardwalk, three miles of oceanfront access, bike paths, live entertainment, restaurants, shops, and a 12-ton bronze statue of King Neptune.
Keeping the Convention Center, the Aquarium, and 350+ city buildings running in top shape uses a great deal of energy. That means Virginia Beach is a city that understands the value of world-class demand-side energy management in municipal operations. It is also important to note that their efforts have not gone unnoticed. The City won 2nd place in our Local Government category for our 2017 Virginia Energy Efficiency Council awards.
THE CHALLENGE: PERMANENT ENERGY (AND COST) REDUCTION
Virginia Beach’s city government serves its citizens and visitors from more than 350 facilities citywide. By 2010, constant increases in energy costs incurred at these facilities had risen to $20 million a year, a total plagued with “lost” buildings and meter reading errors in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
To address this and other issues, including utility billing, Virginia Beach created the position of Energy Manager and hired Lori Herrick, MBA, LEED Accredited Professional, to lead its energy initiatives and manage municipal energy expenditures. With $5 million from the city, an unexpected $4 million windfall from the U.S. Dept. of Energy, and a mandate to conquer the city’s energy challenges—Ms. Herrick went to work.
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Many of you might know the federal government is the largest energy consumer in the United States, but what you might not know is that the General Services Administration (GSA) is the single largest owner/operator of office space in the United States, controlling over 370 million square feet of rentable space. This is significant because buildings consume a lot of energy. In fact, the residential and commercial building sectors combined to represent 39 percent of the total energy consumed by the entire country in 2017. Recognizing this, GSA has worked to improve the energy efficiency of its building stock to reduce energy consumption, save taxpayer dollars, boost energy independence and decrease stress on critical energy infrastructure.
A recent GSA report – The Impact of High-Performance Buildings – presents the findings of a three-year performance review of 200 GSA-owned buildings, split between 100 high-performance buildings and 100 legacy buildings. Unsurprisingly, the results were clear: high-performance buildings offer a range of critical benefits over other buildings. Perhaps most importantly for taxpayers, GSA estimates that if its entire portfolio met the average efficiency levels of high-performance buildings, the government could save nearly $185 million per year in operating costs.
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