Define ‘green’ please

Elisa WoodBy Elisa Wood
July 27, 2011

Describing a building as ‘green’ makes a lot of people cringe. The word is overused. And what does it mean exactly?

Serious efforts are underway to move away from the hype and offer a more specific analysis of a building’s energy performance. Think nutritional labels for food, except in kilowatt-hours instead of calories.

In fact, more than 50 national, regional and local governments have created policies to rate and disclose the energy efficiency of commercial buildings, according to the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT). They include the European Union, China, Australia and Brazil.

In the US, two states have such policies, California and Washington, as do five cities: Austin, Washington DC, New York City, San Francisco and Seattle.

These programs already place more than 60,000 buildings, totaling 4.1 billion square feet of floor space, under energy rating and disclosure rules. Meanwhile, Massachusetts is considering standards, as is the city of Portland, Oregon. And many more local and state governments are expected to follow. To help them, IMT this week published a report that details best practices in building labeling.

Why label buildings the way we do food? When a building has an energy performance label, buyers and sellers better understand its market value, IMT says.

“The premise mirrors transparency rules in other market sectors, such as nutritional labels on food and fuel economy ratings on vehicles, which are recognized around the world as consumer protections and keystones of free and fair enterprise,” says IMT, which is a Washington, D.C. group that seeks ways to overcome market failures in the energy efficiency industry.

While building labels may be a good idea, they are not always easy to create. For starters, property owners must be able to access data on how much energy their buildings consume. For large buildings, with many tenants, this can be difficult.  Sometimes tenants have their own electric meters. Building owners must go to each tenant to seek the data, a cumbersome task at best. And some tenants may refuse to supply the information. Here utilities can help, says IMT, by agreeing to aggregate a building’s total energy use and supplying it to the owner (while keeping individual tenant data confidential).

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July 28, 2011 | | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »

Denver: From the brown cloud to the green light

Cara MialeGuest blog by Cara Miale
July 20, 2011

When it comes to the green energy race, it’s not over until it’s over. Just look at the city of Denver.

For years the Mile High City was notorious for its brown cloud, a dirty layer of pollution that not only marred the city’s pristine mountain image, but also caused serious health problems.

Now Denver is the fifth greenest city among 27 rated in the recent US and Canada Green City Index. It falls just behind San Francisco, Vancouver, New York City and Seattle, and ahead of Boston and Los Angeles.

What made the difference for Denver?

No one factor won the day, but the index highlights Greenprint Denver, a city office that coordinates environmental programs across various agencies, engages community members to further its mission, and tracks and publishes results. The program supports Denver’s ambitious policies that promote green energy and energy efficiency in homes or businesses through subsidies or tax breaks, as well as projects to increase locally produced energy. Greenprint Denver is identified in the index as a best-practice model of environmental governance.

Energy

As Congress debates ways to undercut federal lighting standards, Denver is giving energy efficiency the green light – literally. In 2010 alone, the city installed 2,000 LED bulbs in 200 traffic signals.

Electricity consumption in Denver is nearly half the index average, at 184 gigajoules per $1 million of GDP. Greenprint Denver’s proactive program supports several energy saving initiatives:

- Evaluation of 300 municipal buildings for solar powered installations

- Assistance to low-income households to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, including attic insulation assessments

- Strict energy regulation for new buildings

Colorado’s Energy Efficiency Resource Standard also sets electricity savings goals of at least 5% of 2006 peak demand and electricity sales by 2018 for Colorado’s two investor-owned utilities. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission extended the electricity sales reduction goals through 2020.

Other initiatives on Denver’s energy to-do list include:

- Install solar PV cells with a combined capacity of four megawatts on city buildings and public schools

- Retrofit the Central Library to improve energy efficiency and reduce bills, saving an estimated $150,000 a year 

Environment

Denver was one of only three cities (the other two were New York and Washington DC) to score full marks in the environmental governance category.

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July 20, 2011 | | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »

Where to find jobs in energy efficiency

Elisa WoodBy Elisa Wood
July 13, 2011

Here’s something you don’t hear people complain about much these days: worker shortages.  That is, unless you’re in energy efficiency, an industry that is booming as others are busting.

Sixty percent of those responding to a recent survey by the Association of Energy Services Professionals cited a lack of talented workers in energy efficiency.

“Energy efficiency is a rapidly growing segment of the overall energy industry and we believe there is a clear lack of talent that is necessary to fill the positions that are open,” said Meg Matt, the AESP president and CEO.

So where do you find these jobs?

Another recent report, this one by the Brookings Institution and Battelle’s Technology Partnership, sheds some light. Look to major metropolitan areas and young businesses for jobs not only in energy efficiency, but also in other segments of the clean economy, according to Sizing the Clean Economy: A National and Regional Green Jobs Assessment.

In the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the clean economy expanded by 8.3 percent, says the report. Efficiency, renewable energy, biofuels and other clean industries accounted for 2.7 million US jobs in 2010. To put that number in perspective, that’s more jobs than you’ll find in fossil fuels or biosciences, but still less than information technology.

Green jobs in general, and green construction in particular, were clustered in 100 large metropolitan areas. About 73 percent of the nation’s LEED certified green buildings are in these cities. Raleigh and Seattle have strong green architecture and building sectors. The energy saving/ building materials industry is thriving in Houston and Minneapolis. Boston excels in HVAC and building control systems, according to the Brookings/Battelle report.

The findings are in keeping with U.S. economic geography. The 100 largest metropolitan areas “are the nation’s innovation engines,” responsible for 78 percent of the US’ green patents. Further, most of the “highest-impact” U.S. cleantech firms called out in the 2010 Global Cleantech 100 list are based in these cities, particularly Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles, said the report. In all, the100 biggest cities created three-quarters of the clean economy jobs from 2003 to 2010.

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July 14, 2011 | | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments »

A no-granola case for energy efficiency

Elisa WoodBy Elisa Wood
July 6, 2011

I attended a green energy conference nearly a decade ago in Washington, D.C., where several speakers expressed astonishment at the audience’s clothes. People were dressed in business attire. Where were the ponytails? The Birkenstocks?

The event marked a new age for green energy, the beginning of its migration from counter-culture to corporation.

Today green energy is, well, more like conglomeration. But still the industry carries remnants of its former self, the occasional speck of crunchy granola spilling onto the power point presentation. At these times, the industry comes under attack for making its case by using moral or social arguments rather than business fundamentals.

How to solve this problem? Enlist an army.

That’s what the Environmental Defense Fund is doing. It’s called the EDF Climate Corps and its recruits are MBA students.

EDF set up the program four years ago to demonstrate to large companies the business case for becoming more energy efficient. Climate Corps has a dual benefit. The MBA students get the chance to serve as summer interns at major companies; the companies get the benefit of their training in energy efficiency and business.  Dozens of big name companies have since participated, among them AT&T, McDonald’s, Facebook, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, Dow Jones News and Procter & Gamble.

EDF starts by training students in the basics of energy efficiency, providing enough background, so that with their knowledge of business and finance, they can investigate a corporate setting and find ways to improve the bottom line through energy savings.

Emily Reyna, who is now the Climate Corps project manager for corporate partnerships, started as one of the interns four years ago. She was assigned to Cisco, where she sought savings in the company’s 1, 500 data centers or “labs.” She spent the early weeks of her internship touring the labs and investigating energy efficiency initiatives already underway at Cisco.  In her investigation, she discovered that one lab manager had reduced energy costs 25% in six months by installing a kind of smart plug that allows remote control of outlets. The plug can be programmed so that when the outlet idles for awhile, it sends a message to the user. This serves as a reminder to shut off equipment plugged in but not in use.

The smart plug was a good idea, but not one that had been shared across Cisco. Reyna spread the word.  Her analysis showed that use of the smart plug could save Cisco $8 million annually. “I wasn’t an expert in energy savings, but by talking to all of these different lab managers, I was able to identify a best practice,” Reyna said.

Other interns have recommended improved lighting, occupancy sensors, dimmers, variable frequency drives on motors, demand-control ventilation, and a range of other energy efficiency measures that total $439 million in net operational savings.

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July 7, 2011 | | Tags: , | No Comments »