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WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Department of Energy started a $450 million program this week to fire up large-scale retrofit programs in order to bring greater energy efficiency to businesses and households.
Through the program, which is backed by Recovery Act funds, the DOE wants to stimulate development of "pioneering innovative models" that when deployed nationally will make energy efficiency more accessible to business and residential utility customers. By upgrading energy nationwide, about $100 million could be saved each year in power costs, according to the DOE.
"Energy efficiency isn't just low-hanging fruit; it's fruit lying on the ground," U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said in a statement.
"We have the tools to reduce energy use at home and at work and to provide huge savings to families and businesses on their energy bills," Chu said. "But use of these technologies has been far too limited because we lack the simple and effective ways for people to access them."
More details about the program are available from the DOE.
Daylighting Retrofit in a Hangar at Wheeler Army Airfield in Hawaii — Image by Scott Bly, courtesy of NREL.
Buildings
Can you really save $100 million?
If the program is as advertised, the private sector should have seen this opportunity and acted on it a long time ago. This program breaks even in about 5 years at a discount rate of 5%. Saving electricity or any form of energy in an industrial building is a lot different than in an office building. Excessive energy saving on lights can simply drive up the costs of winter time heating. Saving money on equiptment inside of a building plus a few layoffs can render a building inefficient with respect to air conditioning. The result could be the short cycling of the air conditioning equiptment and the increase in the humidity. This energy savings can end up as an expensive mold problem. Energy saving projects in the Seventies did not take into consideration the effect on the living space. This shortened the life of some homes or at least the bathroom in colder climates.
Daylighting is a great idea but it makes the cost of repairing the roof and the next roof replacement more expensive. It also makes the roofing job more dangerous for the next roof replacement. People fall thorough skylights every once in a while. It does not change the OSHA required light levels that are still in place. I seriously doubt that the total cost of energy saving projects will yield real savings when the total cost of operating the building is considered.