Companies usually don’t allow managers from other businesses to poke around their facilities, with television cameras no less, and criticize how they do things.
But that is just what happens in “Better Buildings Challenge Swap,” a reality-video series produced by the Energy Department in which two companies give each other an up-close look at their in-house energy uses and practices. The first season, with three episodes, stars Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. and Whole Foods Market Inc., and has more than 400,000 hits on YouTube.
Each episode is produced in the faux-dramatic style typical of competition-based reality television series. The two evaluating teams, comprising three members from each company, are free to roam about the other’s operation, take notes and issue judgments. Afterward, both sides join around a table to discuss what it thinks the other is doing right—and where it could improve.
The results can be revealing, sometimes embarrassingly so. But, the Energy Department hopes, productive as well.
Read the full story and watch the videos. (Wall Street Journal)
SANTA CLARITA, Calif.—The KB Home development here looks like any other middle-class subdivision in Southern California—rows of stucco houses with tiled roofs and two-car garages—except for the sticker on the entryway of one of its showcase units.
The sticker displays the average monthly cost to heat and cool the home and run the appliances: $119, compared with $252 for a standard-built home of similar size. If an owner adds solar panels, the monthly bill would drop to near zero.
Buried inside the extra-thick walls of these homes are layers of high-density fiberglass insulation flanked by rigid foam boards taped together at the seams to forge a thermal barrier. Every crevice, duct and electrical outlet is coated with a special sealant to prevent leakage.
“We’ve turned the home into an airtight fortress,” says Jacob Atalla, KB Home’s vice president for sustainability. All of the nearly 2,300 houses the company built in California last year were equipped with similar energy-saving features. Some had even more. The company presold all of them, at premiums of 1.5% to 3.8% above the price of similar homes without those features.
Read the full story. (Wall Street Journal)
Companies usually don’t allow managers from other businesses to poke around their facilities, with television cameras no less, and criticize how they do things.
But that is just what happens in “Better Buildings Challenge Swap,” a reality-video series produced by the Energy Department in which two companies give each other an up-close look at their in-house energy uses and practices. The first season, with three episodes, stars Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. and Whole Foods Market Inc., and has more than 400,000 hits on YouTube.
Each episode is produced in the faux-dramatic style typical of competition-based reality television series. The two evaluating teams, comprising three members from each company, are free to roam about the other’s operation, take notes and issue judgments. Afterward, both sides join around a table to discuss what it thinks the other is doing right—and where it could improve.
The results can be revealing, sometimes embarrassingly so. But, the Energy Department hopes, productive as well.
Read the full story and watch the videos (Wall Street Journal).
Charley Juris, recently retired as a custom home builder, thought his career was behind him when took a phone call from a neighbor who thought her furnace was on fire. Fortunately, it wasn’t – but he enjoyed helping her find the most energy- and cost-efficient solution to replace it.
That experience launched him toward what is now a one-stop shop in Alexandria, Virginia designed to help owners of existing homes who want to cut their energy bills way back – to near-zero where possible – without sacrificing comfort.
Juris’ success in a state with relatively low electricity rates and virtually no government or utility incentives for conserving energy or renewable energy systems signals how a market for integrated and holistic energy solutions may be underserved in Virginia and perhaps elsewhere. Juris calls his answer to this market need the Energy House Solutions Center.
After fielding, and turning down, requests from potential clients for one-off installations of more efficient energy systems, “that’s where my idea of a solutions center hit me,” said Juris, who recently turned 62. Rather than take on one-off jobs, he embarked on recasting customers’ entire energy systems and supporting materials such as the latest insulation.
Charley Juris
Charley Juris
“The only way to make it work is to be part of the overall design and construction process. We help people design energy efficiency into the remodels and work with contractors we’ve vetted who have proven to us they’ll do it right and for a fair price.
Read the full story. (Southeast Energy News)
During a day-long tour of three locations receiving energy efficiency improvements, Governor McAuliffe challenged Dominion Virginia Power to accelerate outreach efforts by attending 400 events in the next 12 months, reaching as many as 240,000 people. This would double the number of events held and people reached by Dominion compared to last year. The outreach is intended to educate Virginians about the value of energy efficiency in reducing energy consumption and lowering their power bills.
“The progress we have made over the past year demonstrates the impact simple, low-cost energy efficiency measures can have on lowering energy bills,” said Governor McAuliffe, speaking at the first of three stops today. “In addition to working directly with consumers to use energy more efficiently, I am challenging Dominion to expand its efforts to educate people on the value of energy conservation and how reducing energy consumption can save them money. Our electric utilities are in the perfect position to drive this education and outreach, which is what this challenge is all about.”
“We accept Gov. McAuliffe’s challenge to reach even more low-income customers with solutions to reduce energy consumption,” said Robert M. Blue, president of Dominion Virginia Power. “We will continue to place strong emphasis on the energy efficiency measures that any consumers can take to reduce energy usage and save on their bills.”
Read the full story. (Governor’s press release)
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)
The Virginia Energy Efficiency Council is seeking proposals from subject matter experts in the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) field to help us provide technical and legal services to local governments in Virginia who are considering the creation of PACE financing programs.
Download the RFP.
Important Dates:
8/25: Registration deadline; deadline to ask up to 5 questions
9/1: All submitted questions, with answers, will be sent to all registered applicants
9/8: Proposals Due
It’s not easy working in the energy efficiency world — that wonky sphere focused on tweaking homes and appliances to get us to use less energy, and so, contribute less to climate change.
It’s a place where you see constant successes — Obama’s administration has put in place dozens of new standards to make products more energy efficient — but can’t ever seem to get much credit for them. After all, who notices the energy that they never use? Who is acutely conscious of doing more with less?
Energy efficiency takes a huge number of forms, ranging from weatherizing a house to upping the fuel efficiency of vehicles. A new report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a prominent nonprofit that both researches and promotes energy efficiency, makes the case that it has truly been transformative, and in a way that is quantifiable, over the past several decades.
Read the full story. (Washington Post)
