A leading provider of supportive services to families in Ward 8 is constructing a new state-of-the-art headquarters with help from the District of Columbia’s Department of Energy and Environment’s DC Property Assessed Clean Energy (DC PACE) financing program. The Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative, Inc. (FSFSC), an anchor of the community for over 20 years, will use PACE financing at low tax-exempt rates to fund green building improvements for their new home in historic Anacostia. This is the first use of PACE with tax-exempt funds in the nation. This marks the fifth DC PACE deal closed under Mayor Bowser’s Administration, representing over $5.2 million in clean energy and water investments, with other major PACE deals in the pipeline.
The project includes the renovation of a vacant furniture store on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue into the new offices for FSFSC, which is currently located a few blocks from the site. The first floor will become the first “Busboys and Poets” restaurant and bookstore east of the Anacostia River.
Read the full story. (Urban Ingenuity)
Factories and other industrial energy users could make significant improvements in energy efficiency, saving money, cutting energy demand and reducing carbon emissions.
But the same measures that help homes and commercial businesses lower their energy use aren’t necessarily viable or attractive for industries, and energy efficiency isn’t always a priority for manufacturers dealing with myriad financial and technological challenges.
So the national non-profit Advanced Energy Economy Institute and other advocates are trying to push the issue of industrial energy efficiency to the forefront and to involve industrial users in policy and technology efforts, including through a series of roundtable discussions with industrial customers, utilities and other stakeholders in Illinois, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The next event in Illinois will be held on October 11.
The institute also held a meeting in Illinois in August in conjunction with the Clean Energy Trust and Northwestern University’s law school and Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern.
Read the full story. (Midwest Energy News)
E4TheFuture recently commissioned Tohn Environmental Strategies to perform a review and analysis of recent literature documenting residential building energy efficiency-related health impacts. Ellen Tohn’s research team* surveyed 25 studies that relate specifically to energy efficiency (EE) improvements. We will soon share these detailed results.
Our aim is to build understanding and access to relevant data that can support inclusion of health impacts as a public benefit of EE, while identifying where research gaps exist and/or where research can be improved and leveraged. Our goal is also to collaborate with others to explore new integrated approaches to improving indoor air quality that combines health and EE industry actions, in coordination with the U.S. DOE’s Roadmap for Integrating Health and Home Performance.
Read the full story. (E4TheFuture blog post)
During the past few months I have been energized by the great work happening to create the National Energy Efficiency Registry (NEER). More than 150 experts have been reviewing the NEER’s draft principles and operating rules to be released for public comment in the spring of 2017. You’re invited to learn more and get ready to add your voice!
What is the NEER?
If you haven’t heard yet, this is what all the buzz is about:
–Consider the market transformation that has been driven by Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).
–NEER will harness similar transformative power for energy efficiency by creating a transaction processing platform that allows EE Providers to document energy savings in a robust transparent manner to demonstrate progress toward energy goals and potential compliance with existing and future state and federal environmental regulations.
Read More (E4TheFuture)
The government is a lot of things. One of them is a building owner. Indeed, owning and operating facilities are two of the things it does most.
According the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), an arm of the government – at the local, state or federal level – owns about 14 percent of the commercial buildings in the United States. The breakdown is that about 4 percent of government buildings are federally owned, 24 percent are owned by the state and 72 percent are locally owned.
That’s interesting. What is even more interesting is that those buildings are far more energy efficient than non-governmental buildings, at least as of 2012. The EIA says that from 2003 to 2012 the government reduced the average energy consumption per square foot of the buildings it controlled from 105,300 Btus per square foot (Btu/sqft) to 81,200 Btu/sqft. Non-governmental commercial buildings also moved in the right direction – but not by as much. Energy intensity in these structures shrank by 12 percent, from 91,000 Btu/sqft to 80,000 Btu/sqft.
Read the full story. (Energy Manager Today)
Virginia manufacturers and industries would gain billions in benefits from better energy efficiency, while also cutting their carbon output, according to two new studies.
Jennifer Kefer, executive director of the Alliance for Industrial Efficiency, said its research found industrial energy efficiency could cut carbon emissions by 175 million tons nationwide in 2030.
“Process efficiency improvements, boiler upgrades, replacing chillers, insulation, even things as simple as lighting,” Kefer said. “Our report demonstrates very clearly that one can cut carbon while saving money.”
According to research from the Georgia Institute of Technology, industries in Virginia could save nearly $10 billion over a decade and a half
Read the full story. (Public News Service)
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the shift in American identity that we’re seeing pop off the pages of our Pulse studies. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of us who say buying/using eco-friendly products is an important part of our personal image. This shift in self-image coincides with another interesting shift, an actual shift in consumer behavior. As a researcher, I have had the privilege of spending multiple days with consumers from all walks of life from all over the country doing ethnographic research. I am always fascinated by the discrepancy between what people say they do and what they actually do. That’s why it’s so exciting that we’re seeing evidence of not just a shift in attitude but also a shift in behavior.
Behavior is the key difference this year. There is no doubt consumers’ behaviors are in the process of shifting. In this year’s Eco Pulse™ (soon to be released), we not only see that consumers’ attitudes and beliefs are strongly green, we also see consumers acting on those attitudes and beliefs. Ninety percent of our survey respondents think the average person should be taking concrete steps to reduce his or her environmental impact. Even more interesting is that consumers are putting their money where their mouths are. We are seeing indications of actual behavior change – changes in purchasing behavior based on the environmental record of manufacturers.
Read the full story. (The Shelton Group)
Meanwhile, several roundtable participants, including executives from businesses large and small that are involved in renewable energy projects, congratulated McAuliffe for his administration’s support of solar and wind energy and efforts to promote energy efficiency. Discussion focused on clean energy projects completed, underway or proposed, as well as on how utilities, state government and regulators, including legislators and the State Corporation Commission, could provide additional support for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
One sponsor of Thursday’s event was Advanced Energy Economy, a national association of businesses whose stated mission is to transform public policy to enable rapid growth of advanced energy companies. J.R. Tolbert, a vice president for Advanced Energy Economy, said before the roundtable that McAuliffe “has done more under his watch to open up our state to investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency than any other leader.”
Read the full story. (Roanoke Times)
SAVING our planet from the worst effects of climate change won’t be cheap. A new report from the United Nations says that the world will need to mobilize $90 trillion in public and private capital over the next 15 years.
As a point of comparison, global gross domestic product in 2015 was $73 trillion. But there is no question that the world needs to ramp up its transition to a low-carbon, environmentally sustainable and resilient economy, and to do so rapidly. The question is, how do we pay for it, given the limited availability of government funding, particularly in developing countries?
The answer: private financing. The good news is that there is a global abundance of private capital. To unlock these riches, governments must create conditions that encourage private investment in clean technologies and sustainable development. With smart, well-designed and coordinated policies, financing models and instruments like bonds and incentive programs, countries have the potential to solve some of the planet’s most pressing environmental challenges while still maintaining economic growth.
Read the full story. (New York Times op-ed)
Energy efficiency and solar advocates have on occasion butted heads over which option should be implemented in homes and buildings first and how much should be installed before the other is considered. Here at ACEEE we believe that, like market solutions vs. energy efficiency programs, this is a false choice. Both are valuable and can, and should, work together as an integrated solution to create cleaner and cheaper energy. While energy efficiency is just as clean as solar when it comes to emissions, efficiency by itself can’t produce energy for customers looking for a clean energy option, and solar without energy efficiency can’t reach the full extent of its potential.
However, in recent years, some solar companies and some consumers have been employing a solar-first strategy in the residential sector—installing solar systems without paying much attention to energy efficiency. This strategy has been spurred in part by substantial solar tax credits, net-metering rules in place in most states, and the availability of solar financing that reduces or even eliminates the initial purchase price, replacing the up-front cost with monthly payments that extend over many years.
Read the full story. (ACEEE)
