Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump has selected Rick Perry to run the Department of Energy (DOE). This week, Perry testified in a confirmation hearing before the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and while it’s clear he supports policies that increase domestic energy production, he also indicated that he’ll support DOE’s efforts for energy efficiency in buildings.
Perry said he’d continue to back DOE’s role in pioneering new energy-efficiency technologies. He also pledged to help Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) pass the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act, also known as the Shaheen-Portman bill in honor of the Ohio lawmaker and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the co-sponsors.
A study by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) estimates that by 2030, Shaheen-Portman could create more than 190,000 jobs, save consumers $16.2 billion a year, and drastically reduce CO2 emissions.
Donald Trump is ready to take an ax to government spending.
Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy, The Hill has learned.
The changes they propose are dramatic.
The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.
Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.
Following the dismissal of a bill in the legislature, a controversy over who sets and reviews rates for Virginia’s utilities moves to the state Supreme Court.
Briefs are due at the court by this Thursday for the challenge to a controversial 2015 law that protects electric utilities from rate reviews by regulators for five years.
By many accounts, it could be the strongest affront thus far to monopoly utilities which have benefited by long-running support from state lawmakers.
At issue are provisions of the law pushed successfully by Dominion Virginia Power and Appalachian Power. It originated as Senate Bill 1394 and enabled the utilities to earn higher profits without answering to biennial rate reviews, in return for a freeze on base rates.
Previous rate reviews have produced significant refunds to ratepayers. The cumulative total of refunds owed ratepayers during the period Senate Bill 1349 is in effect could exceed $1 billion, according to James C. Dimitri, a member of the three-person State Corporate Commission (SCC).
Critics of the law received a boost December 14 when Dimitri and his fellow commissioners, Mark C. Christi and Judith Williams Jadgmann, confirmed what ratepayer advocates argued when Senate bill 1349 was introduced and have continued arguing since then.
Critics note that while base rates would be frozen, foregoing regulators’ rate review allows Dominion and Appalachian Power to earn whatever profits they can generate while tacking on additional “riders,” or rate adjustment clauses, that further drive up the bills customers pay.
The hop notes are pine and citrus, chased by toasted malt and a finish of lithium-ion.
That’s right, one of the iconic American pale ales is now officially produced with the help of advanced energy storage technology. Sierra Nevada Brewing Company has installed 500 kilowatts/1 megawatt-hour of Tesla Powerpack batteries at its Chico, California brewery. From humble roots as a West Coast craft brewery, Sierra Nevada has gone national in a big way, and can now brew 1.4 million gallons of beer onsite at a time.
That brewing generates frequent but predictable peaks in the company’s demand, which translate into hefty demand charges on the monthly electricity bill. In 2016, Sierra Nevada paid more for demand charges than for actual electricity, said Sustainability Manager Cheri Chastain.
By discharging power from the Powerpack bank at times of peak consumption, Sierra Nevada can avoid the worst of these charges, reducing the cost of doing business and also relieving some stress on the grid.
This deployment marks an early entry in the beer-making industry’s relationship with advanced energy storage. It’s a conceptually resonant pairing, as beer represents, among other things, energy contained inside a metal vessel for discharge at a later time. The Maui Brewing Company has also installed Powerpack batteries, said Tesla spokesperson Alexis Georgeson.
Michigan passed the legislation for a Commercial PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) program in 2010. Businesses and commercial properties in participating municipalties can retrofit their buildings with renewable energy and energy efficient systems by borrowing money from a private lender, and repay the loan via a special assessment on their local property tax. It has taken longer for municipalities to opt in, and consequently, the state’s PACE programs didn’t really get started until 2016. Tommy Deavenport, Chief Operating Officer of Petros PACE Finance, explained how commercial PACE came to Michigan.
“Petros PACE Finance, LLC has completed a $718,000 Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) transaction with a Michigan property owner that will fund significant energy efficiency upgrades to a 36-year-old commercial facility.
Property owner Delta Business Center, LLC plans to install a new HVAC system, LED lighting, high-efficiency fans, modern building automation system and skylights in its Delta Business Center, a 93,000 square foot light industrial building that previously housed the Lansing State Journal printing and distribution facility.
The investment is expected generate more than $1.8 million in energy savings over the 20-year life of the loan. The project will be financed without any out-of-pocket expense to Delta Business Center, LLC through the Lean & Green Michigan PACE program.”
Deavenport added, “A total of six projects have been funded in Michigan to date, with five of those funded in 2016 by Petros PACE Finance. We believe the number of projects funded by Michigan’s PACE program is going to grow rapidly in in 2017 and beyond. Our pipeline certainly continues to grow.”
North Carolina renewable energy and energy efficiency businesses have created the equivalent of 34,000 full-time jobs and generate $6.4 billion a year in revenue, an industry group says.
Energy efficiency led the way, the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association said in an annual report, accounting for about half the jobs and $2.5 billion of revenue in 2016. The solar sector ranked second-highest in earnings, with $1.4 billion in revenue.
Since 2007, “the clean energy industry has been one of the few sectors to achieve double-digit job growth throughout the recession and each year since, while steadily reducing costs and slowing the rise in the rates charged by our state’s electric utilities,” said executive director Ivan Urlaub.
The association has produced the report each year since 2008, a year after North Carolina’s legislature ordered electric utilities to include renewable energy and energy efficiency in their mixes of power generation. That law, coupled with now-expired state tax credits and continuing federal credits, launched the industry in the state.
A mark of the industry’s resilience, the association said, is that it has continued to grow despite uncertainty such as conservative political opposition to the policies that launched it.
rid modernization investments are creating a construction boom across America — largely driven by the deployment of solar.
According to the Department of Energy’s latest report on jobs in the energy sector, employment in the electric power sector rose 13 percent in 2016 as utilities and developers built new power plants, replaced aging equipment, and invested in new technologies to manage an increasingly complicated distribution grid.
There are now 860,869 people employed in the electric power sector, an increase of more than 101,000 jobs from 2015. Workers in the construction industry building solar, natural gas and wind power plants accounted for most of the increase, reported DOE. The coming year will likely bring a 7 percent bump in employment across power generation.
Coal has long been the dominant fuel for America’s electric grid, but no longer.Utilities are burning less of it, and miners are digging less of it. Many politicians — including the incoming president — believe the decline of coal is wreckingAmerica’s economy.
But the opposite is happening. Jobs are being created in new areas of the economy.
There were 26,000 megawatts of new power plant capacity installed last year in the U.S. Wind provided 6,800 megawatts of new capacity, natural gas provided 8,000 megawatts, and solar provided 9,500 megawatts, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Chalk up a big win for the Free State! A first-of-its-kind, just-released American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) study shows that the state’s energy efficiency investment portfolio, dubbed EmPOWER Maryland, will save us $4 billion on our electricity bills. These savings accrue thanks to programs delivering solid, tested energy efficiency measures (e.g., more efficient heating and cooling technology, better insulation, less wasteful light bulbs, etc.).
All told the return on investment is almost two dollars for every one dollar invested, as you can see in the summary table below.
From ACEEE report
While the numbers are impressive, the stories behind them are even better.
North Carolina renewable energy and energy efficiency businesses have created the equivalent of 34,000 full-time jobs and generate $6.4 billion a year in revenue, an industry group says.
Energy efficiency led the way, the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association said in an annual report, accounting for about half the jobs and $2.5 billion of revenue in 2016. The solar sector ranked second-highest in earnings, with $1.4 billion in revenue.
Since 2007, “the clean energy industry has been one of the few sectors to achieve double-digit job growth throughout the recession and each year since, while steadily reducing costs and slowing the rise in the rates charged by our state’s electric utilities,” said executive director Ivan Urlaub.
The association has produced the report each year since 2008, a year after North Carolina’s legislature ordered electric utilities to include renewable energy and energy efficiency in their mixes of power generation. That law, coupled with now-expired state tax credits and continuing federal credits, launched the industry in the state.
As we look ahead to the swearing in of President-elect Donald Trump next week, we pause to reflect on the accomplishments of the last eight years under President Obama in continuing a bipartisan tradition of supporting energy efficiency through smart federal policy. Dating back to President Ronald Reagan, who signed the first efficiency standards into law in 1987, every administration – Democrat and Republican – has supported efficiency, including major gains under President George W. Bush. Like his predecessor, President Obama has been a champion of energy efficiency, and as he prepares to leave the White House, we extend our gratitude for the significant progress we’ve made under his tenure. Here are some highlights:
1. Appliance and equipment standards
The Obama administration completed a total of 45 appliance, equipment and lighting efficiency standards that will deliver the following benefits:
● Save 44 quads of energy through 2030, enough to power 1.2 billion homes for a year
● Save consumers and businesses $540 billion on their utility bills through 2030
● Reduce harmful and costly pollution, including CO2 emissions by about 180 million metric tons in 2025
