The $40 billion hiding in US buildings

Elisa WoodBy Elisa Wood
April 29, 2013

 

A pretty big wad of money – $40 billion – is hiding somewhere inside the lights, AC, thermostats, furnaces and fans of our offices, stores, hospitals and schools.

 

That’s the amount of money the federal government estimates we can save annually by reducing energy use in commercial buildings 20 percent by 2020.  To achieve the goal, the Obama administration in 2011 initiated the Better Buildings Challenge, a way to encourage investment, share information and create demonstration projects that save energy.

 

It’s no small effort. Finding energy savings in buildings can be a Where’s Waldo-style mission.  Hidden from view are faulty valves and switches, lighting controls that don’t jive with human activity, and malfunctioning appliances that suck up energy.

 

But the federal program – along with other state, city and corporate efforts – are leading to intriguing technologies and demonstration projects.

 

Seattle’s Bullitt Center

In Seattle, a building that describes itself as the world’s greenest, opened April 22. The 50,000 square-foot Bullitt Center is designed to be 83 percent more efficient than is typical. But it isn’t stopping there. Its owners want to achieve complete energy and water self-sufficiency over a year.

 

The Bullitt Center is engaging in a certification process called the Living Building Challenge, one of the toughest badges of honor for a building to achieve.  The standard goes beyond just saving energy and water, and requires that the building helps restore the natural environment.

 

Of course the Bullitt Center has solar panels, occupancy sensors and data displays that show energy use and emissions – all that you would expect of a contemporary green building. But it also has other interesting design elements. The building’s mechanical workings are in plain view so everyone inside can better see what’s going on.  Ninety percent of the lighting is natural. Tenants must adhere to electricity budgets as a term of the lease, and they share in any net metering profits the building accrues.  The structure is heavy timber, not the usual steel or concrete of most office buildings. Water will come only from rain treated onsite.

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April 29, 2013 | | Tags: , , , , , | 5 Comments »

What’s Denver doing on the EV-Ready list?

Cara Miale

Guest Blog by Cara Miale
April 20, 2011

Looking at the list of the most EV-ready cities just released by Ford, it’s no surprise many of them are coastal. On the east and west coasts energy is pricey, so the pressure is on to achieve innovation that will control costs and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

But what’s up with Denver out there in the middle of the map, all by its lonesome?

Government leaders in Colorado, and Denver specifically, have long been committed to sustainability and energy efficiency. Denver has worked hard over the years not only to position itself as a national leader in sustainability, but also to lead by example.

Denver was home to the first “Green Fleet” of city-use vehicles in the early 1990’s, which now includes 138 hybrid electric vehicles. The city hosted the greenest Democratic National Convention to date, and shows continued focus through clean-energy legislation. Its concentration of clean-energy workers and companies is on the rise, and Colorado continues to attract more venture capital financing for clean-tech start-ups than nearly any other state.

And, we’re not so alone after all. Denver is also participating in a U.S.-China “Eco Partnership” sponsored by U.S. Department of the Treasury, which is focused on the implementation of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

On the forefront of the EV-push is the Colorado Plug-In Working Group, which engages communities (like Denver and Boulder), government and private businesses to facilitate EV market growth. Current members are no strangers to the scene: Xcel Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Rocky Mountain Institute, Denver Metro Clean Cities Coalition and the Governor’s Energy Office.

In putting together its list of EV-ready cities, Ford looked at several criteria including complementary state and regional activities. Of these, Denver has no shortage:

  • Intellectual resources abound. Colorado’s universities are actively researching how to increase efficiency of electricity generation and transmission and testing smart grids, and collaborating with Colorado-based national labs.
  • Greenprint Denver was established by then-Mayor Hickenlooper to position Denver as a national leader in sustainability and integrate environmental impact considerations into the city’s programs and policies.
  • The Utilities & Transmission Program at the Governor’s Energy Office (GEO) has its sights set on working with utilities to increase the proportion of demand-side management within their resource portfolios.
  • Denver P2 Partners, a pollution prevention program, works with small businesses to increase participation and adoption of sustainable practices that go beyond compliance. It’s developed industry-specific criteria to target environmental issues and concerns specific to auto repair shops. Reducing transportation pollution is one of five criteria that auto repair shop must address to maintain certification through the program. While “educational training on hybrid and alternative fuel vehicle maintenance” is listed as an elective criterion, a partnership with Denver P2 Partners could be easily expanded and used to enlist auto repair shops to support EV implementation. 
  • Voluntary Ozone Reduction program. The City & County of Denver’s Environmental Transportation Coordinators hit the streets during critical summer months to educate employees about ozone pollution and  ways to reduce ozone levels.
  • Recharge Colorado Rebate Program has pumped more than $90 million into the Colorado economy since late April 2010.
  • A year ago, Colorado company UQM Technologies received a $45 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to expand operations of its electric motor factory, accelerating electric vehicle projects across Colorado.
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April 20, 2011 | | Tags: , , , , | No Comments »

Lower energy prices: Now you see them, now you don’t

By Elisa Wood

November 13, 2008

When combined with efficiency, solar homes can achieve ‘net zero’ – they consume no more energy than they produce. It is likely we will see a growing number of net zero homes built as more states reach what is called ‘grid parity’ – the cost of solar energy becomes no higher than the power we buy from our utility. Industry insiders say that about a dozen states already have reached this goal.

This is all good news. But at some point – maybe soon – the laws of supply and demand kick in, creating an odd dilemma for the clean energy industry. Net zero homes and other efficiency measures reduce the amount of power we need from utilities. And as demand drops, so do utility prices. Suddenly, solar energy is once again more expensive than utility power. Clean energy, in effect, becomes undercut by its own good work.

Bob Reedy, solar energy research director for the Florida Solar Energy Center http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/, sees “an uncomfortable zone” occurring in the next five to ten years when energy regulators will need to rethink utility rates. Utilities will still need to cover their fixed costs and may find it difficult to do so as efficiency reduces their energy sales. So regulators may raise utility rates, making solar power cheaper once again.

This oscillating price position for power in some ways mirrors what is happening in the transportation fuel market now. Gasoline prices are falling. How will consumers and policymakers respond? Will we expect them to stay low and get lazy about diversifying toward cleaner fuels?

Given the political climate – Obama is pushing for more renewable energy – it may seem unlikely. But history suggests that the clean energy industry should be wary. The post-Carter years offer a cautionary tale. Solar and efficiency advocates may want to start now educating consumers and policymakers that low energy prices can vanish quickly.

Visit Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

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November 13, 2008 | | Tags: , , , , | No Comments »

Toasting Pop-Tarts cheap: How electricity may solve our energy woes

By Elisa Wood

October 23, 2008

We tend to talk about electricity in terms of its problems — it degrades the environment, costs too much and messes up scenic views. But the Manhattan Institute’s Peter Huber takes a different stand in his new report “The Million-Volt Answer to Oil.”

Huber says electric power may be the cheap, efficient resource we seek to give America energy independence. He divides energy into two camps: electric power and transportation fuel. Our energy woes stem from our dependence on oil for transportation. To get over $4 per gallon gas, he says, we need to connect our transportation fleet and home heating systems to cheap 4 cents/kWh electricity.

“We spend roughly half as much on electricity—about $350 billion a year—as we’re currently spending on $100-a-barrel oil, and electrically powered systems do more, faster and better, than oil-fired alternatives,” he says in the report.

Huber’s theory opens the door wide for use of plug-in hybrid cars and electric heat pumps. “If we could deliver electricity straight to electric motors connected to our wheels, it would deliver miles at a price that most current car engines could match only on gasoline priced under a dollar a gallon. Delivered to our homes at off-peak prices, electrical heat would cost homeowners a lot less than $4-a-gallon heating oil,” he says.

Of course, electricity doesn’t cost 4/kWh cents everywhere. Some places it is 19 cents/kWh. And no matter where you live, the price goes up and down dramatically all day, depending on how many customers use power at any given time. When the East Coast is winding down its work day and its electricity prices fall, the West Coast is still going full tilt and its electricity prices rise. The trick is to transmit the cheap power quickly from place to place, and keep it rolling over four time zones by building a new and sophisticated high-voltage transmission backbone that can handle such movement.

“A kilowatt-hour of electricity toasts as many Pop-Tarts in Palo Alto as it does in Poughkeepsie; an efficient, integrated market with cheap, long-distance transmission available would charge everyone the same price for toasting them,” he says.

The technology exists, and it is not terribly pricey, to create such a transmission system. Huber estimates that building a 21,000-mile grid to network all major sources electricity, and push wind power from the Midwest to the coasts, would add roughly 0.3 cents/kWh to the current 9-cent/kWh average retail price of electricity.

He points out that a single 765-kV transmission line can move “almost 1 percent (4 GW) of the total average power generation of the entire United States, or 0.5 percent of the power that Americans collectively consume during the most power-hungry minute of the year.”

With such a transmission system in place, developers could build power plants and wind farms in rural expanses, rather than the crowded coasts where people object to the intrusion on their space.

Last, he points out that very few US power plants now use imported oil as a fuel, and instead use domestic sources, increasingly renewable. “With electricity, America controls its own destiny,” he says.

As Huber tells it, electricity is not part of the energy problem, but is the overlooked solution.

See the report at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/eper_03.htm.

Visit Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

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October 23, 2008 | | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »

How Long Will Efficiency Be the Favored Choice?

By Elisa Wood
June 26, 2008

Energy efficiency creates an odd sort of market. Nothing (lack of energy use) competes for customers against something (energy generation).

There is no free lunch and even nothing, energy efficiency, costs something. But for now it is cheaper than its main competitor, the power plant.

In fact, it is often three times less costly to install efficient light bulbs, better insulate buildings or pursue other forms of efficiency than to buy power. Specifically, energy efficiency costs about 3 cents/kWh compared with the 9 cents/kWh it takes just to cover fuel costs from a baseload gas-fired generator, according to a June 19 presentation on power prices by the staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission http://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/06-19-08-cost-electric.pdf.

Given its cost competitiveness, efficiency is increasingly called upon as a “first fuel.” A growing number of states require that utilities use as much efficiency as possible – reduce consumption as much as possible — before building new plants or signing power deals.

As a result, the energy efficiency business is booming.  And it is beating power plants as the favored alternative not just because it is cheaper; it also is cleaner, and consumers like it better. As Suedeen Kelly, FERC commissioner, said: “There is decreasing enthusiasm for building and an increased enthusiasm for demand-side resources.”

Indeed, since January 2007, 50 coal plants have been canceled or postponed; only 26 remain under construction. Meanwhile, state after state revamps energy policy to make efficiency a priority. The potential exists for the US to have an economy by 2030 that is 70% larger than today’s, but uses no more energy than it did in the mid-1990s, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy http://www.aceee.org/tstimony/Laitner%20Senate%20Testimony%20June%2025%202008.pdf.

Of course, at some point the nation must build new power plants to meet growing demand. Nothing cannot replace something forever.  A growing economy needs energy.

So, how long will the efficiency industry boom? How long will efficiency hold this favored position in the marketplace? That’s not easy to answer. But one thing seems apparent. Energy prices are not going down any time soon. The FERC report warned that we appear to be at “the beginning of significantly higher power prices that will last for years.”  If this proves true, energy efficiency’s run as the favored fuel has just begun.

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June 26, 2008 | | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments »
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