In 2009, awareness about the positive impacts of energy efficiency was raised to new heights. From President Obama's vision of energy efficiency stimulating job growth to U.S. Energy Secretary Chu calling himself "an energy conservation nut," the promise of energy efficiency solving a host of 21st century challenges became widely known.
What is less known is that energy efficiency was a central component of every one of the climate bills debated in Congress in 2009. And for good reason. With buildings responsible for 40 percent of the nation's energy consumption, the opportunity for significant savings is real. In fact, the USGBC estimates that greater building efficiency can meet 85 percent of future U.S. demand for energy, and a national commitment to green building has the potential to generate 2.5 million American jobs.
The concept of energy efficiency stands apart from other cleantech and green building initiatives in a very important way: It's relatively cheap. If you think about it, the cleanest and cheapest kilowatt of energy is the one never used. So even if there is an upfront cost to put efficiency measures into place, the return is never-ending. That means within a few months or years, you're putting money back into your pocket. That's a form of green we can all agree on.
With the new-found awareness of the potential of energy efficiency, 2010 promises to be a year of action. There are three key factors that get people to take action: incentives, funding and solutions that are proven to work.
Standards That Create Incentives
Incentives come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from local or federal legislation that mandates better efficiency, to building owners taking advantage of the marketing benefits that come with being LEED or Energy Star certified.
Whether or not a climate bill is passed in 2010, there are already 26 states and nearly a thousand U.S. cities that have environmental standards for new construction and retrofitting existing buildings.
LEED certification has also seen explosive growth in recent years. The 2009 Green Building Market and Impact Report found LEED registered green building activity has grown to a cumulative total of more than 7 billion square feet worldwide since the standard was launched in 2000 -- more than 40 percent growth in 2009. I believe these trends are here to stay.
Breaking Down Barriers to Funding
Funding is no longer the barrier it once was. Communities across America are applying for Department of Energy grants for use in a variety of commercial and residential efficiency programs. In addition, new creative financial programs are becoming available, such as the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) bond programs enacted in more than a dozen states in the past year.
Combine these programs with tax credits and utility rebates, and the opportunities for building owners are greater than ever before. Because of the savings efficiency provides, I believe we'll continue to see new financing options in the years ahead that will accelerate the adoption of efficiency programs.
Advanced Building Systems Technology
What's most exciting to me, however, is how new technologies are elevating the possibilities when it comes to efficiency. In 2009, we saw more examples than ever of information technology being applied to operating the physical environment, such as buildings.
This convergence -- sometimes called operations technology -- is transforming the way buildings are managed, and it's leading to unprecedented improvements in energy performance. Another important benefit of using technology to manage building systems is the ability to "see" what's happening, and use that information for maintenance and to ensure savings persist over time.
I believe there will be an increase in the rate at which new technologies are introduced, and as these technologies are proven to work, acceptance will grow, spurring faster adoption by the industry -- and opening up new business opportunities.
We're already seeing this within the controls contracting industry where they're building new revenue streams by expanding their energy services offerings to existing clients, helping those clients achieve real returns on their capital investments.
Efficiency achieved by applying new technologies equals job growth, energy security and saving green. That's a winning combination that I believe will grow exponentially in 2010 and the decade that follows.
Nathan Rothman, B.E.P., CSDP, is the founder and CEO of Optimum Energy LLC.
Images by Robb Williamson, courtesy of NREL.
Consumer energy saving scams
The good news is that there is much good being done, and progress made.
But open4energy, who looks at the small business and consumer segment has found it to be rife with misleading claims on savings capabilities and worse.
We are desperately asking for help to educate 110 million homes, and 27 million small businesses that power factor correction does not save 35% of your electricity. Power factor means the phase of amps to volts, and although high is better, here are few small businesses and almost no consumers where correcting the power factor will make any difference to their bill, let alone save anything.
open4energy is working with scamraiders (http://scamraiders.com) to do what we can. Google is powerless to intervene, too big to be the internet watchdog, and with the scams at "near fraud" can only encourage publishers to block suspect ads.
We are offering to share our list of some 140 domains cluttering the internet search results, and adSense ads to all who would use them.
This link explains it all: http://adtumbler.com/per/reg/nesc/gps/link/welcome
This is a link to the directory of the worst offenders:
http://open4energy.com/forum/home/scam/energy_saving_scams
In appreciation readers, each person informed is one less scam!
EIA doubts EE, Chu?
I agree with Nathan and Energy Secretary Chu about the great future of EE. However, if Secretary Chu is calling himself "an energy conservation nut," his employees at the EIA haven’t heard his message.
The EIA, in the recently published AEO2010 energy forecast reference case states, “no further policy-induced conservation measures are assumed beyond those in existing legislation and regulation, nor does the reference case assume behavioral changes beyond those observed in the past.” http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/overview.html
The EIA goes on to forecast, “A total of 24 gigawatts of coal-fired generating capacity are added from 2008 to 2030…and “Total U.S. primary energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) increase 8.7 percent in the AEO2010 reference case, from 5,814 million metric tons in 2008 to 6,320 million metric tons in 2035, or an average of 0.3 percent per year. http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/overview.html
Someone needs to inform the EIA that many good EE actions are happening and many more are forthcoming. Or, are they right?
Frank Zaski
breaking down barriers
Nathan,
This is a trend that is slowly but surely being realized across the board. Previously, regardless of the vast energy savings available over time, it was difficult for businesses or individuals to front the initial capital costs required to upgrade.
As you note, this simply isn't the case anymore. The funding options are endless. Interestingly, up here in Canada, publicly funded retrofitting programs, such as your PACE program, are not yet mainstream.
It seams, and I think this is still a view uniformly held by most governments, that there will always be a heavy reliance on market-driven solutions from private industry. Nothing spurs faster adoption, like you suggest, than innovation. One company that I work with has taken this market driven approach to finding solutions. Greenscape Capital Group funds, installs, and monitors the entire energy efficiency upgrade. It's a publicly traded company (GRN on the TSX.V) and the market has quickly responded to this innovation - recognizing the fact that new ideas like this will be needed if we are to achieve any sort of real headway in this space.
The market for this type of innovation is truly massive.
USGBC Claim
...the USGBC estimates that greater building efficiency can meet 85 percent of future U.S. demand for energy.
What does this mean? The simple reading would imply that 85 percent of US energy demand in, say, 2050, could be supplied by building efficiency. This obviously doesn't make sense, since building efficiency doesn't provide energy, but rather reduces demand for energy, relative to some "business as usual" situation.
So, does the USGBC estimate that energy use per building can be reduced by 85 percent through greater efficiency? That would be truly astonishing.
Does the USGBC estimate that 85 percent of the projected increase in total energy use could be eliminated if buildings were made more efficient? That seems possible, but what would be involved in achieving this? Does that mean that all new buildings would have to incorporate best current technology? Would new efficiency technology have to be developed? Would current (or future) technology have to be retrofitted into all existing buildings?
Without context, it's hard to tell what this estimate means.