Define ‘green’ please

By 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 areport 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).

In addition, once the building has a label, the information has to be simple for potential buyers to access. IMT recommends that states post the data on easy-to-navigate web sites that allow searches by address, benchmarking metrics, owner’s name, and traditional real estate characteristics, such as building size.

Two major approaches exist to rate buildings, says the report. Asset ratings “measure the structural energy performance of buildings based on simulated operating conditions.” Operational ratings, on the other hand, measure how much energy a building actually consumes. China tends to use asset ratings, while most US jurisdictions, so far, seem to prefer the operational approach.

How quickly will energy performance labeling catch on? It’s clearly become a hot topic, and the IMT report will help jurisdictions that want to move forward. Still, creating the rules is a state-by-state or even city-by-city effort, as is often the case when it comes to US energy policy. So we may be scratching our heads for awhile about what it means when we hear a building described as ‘green.’

Denver: From the brown cloud to the green light

Guest 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.

The key to this success could be Denver’s “Green Teams” – groups of green-minded friends, families and neighbors who are interested in learning about energy efficiency and other green initiatives, and who seek to expand community participation in the city’s programs. Working closely with Greenprint’s residential program managers, outreach includes offering energy efficient measures like free income-qualified weatherization, subsidized home-energy audits and free CFL porch bulbs.

Buildings

Denver has several policies aimed at improving the energy efficiency of its buildings—including strict energy regulation for new ones—giving it a strong rank in this category as well. According to the index, for every 100,000 people in Denver, there are 10.2 LEED-certified buildings. Denver makes plenty of great offers to improve energy efficiency, such as incentives for building retrofits, but does not require energy audits that could uncover further inefficiencies.

The index scored 27 cities, among the most populous in the US and Canada, across nine categories – carbon dioxide, energy, land use, buildings, transport, water, waste, air quality and environmental governance – and is composed of 31 indicators, both qualitative and quantitative. Click here to read the full US and Canada Green City Index, a research project conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, sponsored by Siemens.

Cara Miale is a freelance writer in Denver, Colorado and a frequent contributor to Energy Efficiency Markets.

Where to find jobs in energy efficiency

By 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 theAssociation 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.

“In short, metropolitan areas, large and small, are now and will increasingly be the nation’s critical centers of clean economy talent, innovation, and finance and so its top hubs of commercialization, deployment, and trade,” the report said. “Regions and metropolitan areas, in short, are not a part of the national clean economy; they are that economy.”

Looking at broader regions, it’s not surprising to find California and the West responsible for the most clean economy jobs, when measured as a percentage of total employment. About 2.2 percent of the jobs in the West are related to the clean economy. The Northeast comes in second at 2.1 percent, followed by the Midwest’s 2 percent and the South’s 1.8 percent.

What kinds of businesses produce clean economy jobs? The young upstarts – or at least they’re responsible for the recent mercurial job growth.

Here’s how Brooking/Battelle explained this phenomenon. “Old establishments in the clean economy (those born before 2003) created an average of just three jobs for every one establishment from 2003 to 2010 while new establishments created 37 jobs. This compares favorably to new establishments nationally which created just 10 jobs per establishment over the same period.”

How much do these jobs pay? Quite a bit.

Brooking/Battelle found that clean economy jobs pay about 13 percent more than typical US jobs, and have a median wage of $44,000. AESP said 80 percent of those who responded to its survey cited vacant jobs in energy efficiency with salaries of $50,000 to $100,000 and 28 percent said jobs were untaken at salaries of $100,000 to $150,000.

So spread the word. Not all the economic news is gloom and doom. Energy efficiency and the clean economy are hiring.

A no-granola case for energy efficiency

By 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.

“Even more exciting, we actually check in with the companies six months and 18 months after the fellows have gone. What we’ve seen is that projects accounting for 86% of the energy savings are underway or completed,” she said.

The program has grown substantially, from a handful four years ago to 49 companies with 57 students this year. Half of the companies are repeat participants. Some of the businesses have offered students full-time jobs upon graduation.

“What we found is that there are a lot of barriers that companies face to implementing energy efficiency – knowledge barriers or organizational barriers or maybe the IT guys aren’t talking to facilities managers,” Reyna said.

The Climate Corps program introduces “an external force” to overcome the barriers, one that can “crunch the numbers” and “speak the same language as the financial people,” she said.

In short, rather than receiving a finger wagging, the companies are shown in their own tongue at their own facility the value of green – and there is no granola left on the power point.

Visit Elisa Wood at RealEnergyWriters.com and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets Newsletter.

A Green Cloud is a Transparent Cloud

By Eric Woods
Pike Research
Guest Blogger, Energy Efficiency Markets
June 22, 2011

At Connectivity Week in Santa Clara, recently, I took part in a series of panel discussions on data center energy efficiency. The discussions covered a wide range of issues from the practicalities of infrastructure optimization to the possible role of data centers in demand response schemes. There was a particular focus on the importance, and also the challenge, of making a closer connection between overall data center efficiency and the effective work being done by IT equipment. A more general theme was the sheer complexity of the changes happening in the data center industry. It seems everything is in flux, from changes in the power grid to the impact of smart devices on IT demand. This is the context in which operational changes like the move to more dynamic management of power and cooling infrastructures and the introduction of virtualization are taking place.

In the midst of these changes, it was a pleasure to hear what some of the leading companies are doing in terms of increasing the energy efficiency and lowering their environmental impact of their data centers. An important point was made about the benefits of sharing good ideas, experience, and best practice. The data center professionals at the event, which included people from Cisco, NetApp, and Sybase/SAP, were generous with the insight they provided on what they are doing in their data centers and the challenges they face. The question was also asked why some data centers are less willing to talk about the specifics of their operation. While commercial sensitivities are often cited, the issues that are being addressed in terms of cooling efficiency, for example, can hardly be seen as business critical. More importantly, lack of transparency makes it harder to assess the real environmental impact of a given data center.

This discussion came back to me as I read the latest Greenpeace report on the environmental performance of the IT industry. In the report, “How Dirty Is Your Data?“, the organization takes a critical look at the environmental impact of the growth in data centers. Greenpeace is largely positive about the role that IT can play in reducing carbon emissions and other forms of environmental damage. It also recognizes the impact of the move to cloud computing on demand patterns and on how the industry operates. However, the report makes the case, that cloud computing will only be as green as the data centers that support it. We have made a similar point regarding how realizing the potential environmental benefits of cloud computing depends on how the model is actually instantiated. One of Greenpeace’s strongest criticisms of current practice is that there is still a tendency among some of the biggest players in the cloud space to build data centers in low-cost energy regions that are largely dependent on coal-powered generators. The organization’s bust-up with Facebook over this issue is well-known, but it points out that other major cloud providers have also shown inconsistency in their location planning for data centers. The irony, of course, is that these decisions are often being made in parallel with much-lauded moves to use more renewable energy in other data centers or to improve the energy efficiency of operations. On the positive side, Greenpeace sees some signs of more considered and transparent strategies for data center location emerging, with Yahoo! cited as a pathfinder in this regard.

However, the strongest point made by the Greenpeace report and the one that connects back to the discussions in Santa Clara, is about the general lack of transparency on these issues. As the report says, “much of the information that would allow us to assess the net benefits of the cloud by measuring the true environmental cost…is missing.” The role of data centers as “the factories of the Technology Revolution” means that we need to develop greater visibility on the choices being made about their energy consumption and their energy sources. Any company has the right to keep its operational data private, but customers, investors, and employees have a right to know how well it is living up to its own ethical claims and how it compares with its competitors on the sustainability of its operations. If cloud computing is to live up to claims of being a greener solution, then we need more open reporting and standard metrics on energy use in data centers to enable an objective assessment of how well providers are performing.

Pick up a free copy of Energy Efficiency Markets newsletter at RealEnergyWriters.com.

Is the energy efficiency service markets still MUSH?

By Elisa Wood
June 8, 2011

We hear a lot about energy efficiency these days, but who is actually pursuing it?

In recent years most of the big players that install efficiency measures, the energy service companies (ESCos), have found work largely in the MUSH market: municipal and state governments, universities, schools and hospitals. In fact, a report in June 2010 by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the National Association of Energy Service Companies found that MUSH made up 70% of the work done by ESCos.

Private businesses, on the other hand, were backing away from making energy efficiency improvements when the report was written. A year has passed. Is the market still MUSH?

I looked at the projects announced by the big players in recent months. Here’s a sampling of a few.

• Ameresco struck deals with the Greensboro Housing Authority, Boston Housing Authority, state of Alaska for public university buildings, New York State School District, Penn State University and City of Portland, Maine.
• Chevron Energy Services is bringing efficiency to East Side Union High School District in San Jose, California; North Carolina Central University; the city of Victoria, Texas; as well as Orange County, California and Santa Monica College.
• Noresco is working with the state of Hawaii, Fort Worth Naval Air Station, the Allendale County Schools in South Carolina, Capitol Hill and Elkhart County, Indiana.
• And on and on as I made way down the list of large ESCos.

My very unscientific survey indicated that MUSH still predominates. And that’s not a bad thing. The MUSH market certainly has a lot of room for energy savings. And federal-stimulus dollars and state clean energy funds are available now particularly for government-backed institutions.

Fewer financial incentives are available for businesses. But even when money is offered, small to medium-size businesses are harder to sell on energy efficiency, especially now. Even if an energy efficiency project offers a quick payback, businesses are reticent to make any initial capital investment. Or in a lot of cases, it’s hard for energy efficiency companies to even get a meeting with busy business people, especially in an economy that has left so many paddling furiously to stay above water.

The state of New York is attempting to crack the business market. One program, funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), tries to make it easier for small businesses to analyze building energy usage.

Few best-of-class monitoring technologies exist for the small business market. But the project uses a combination of inexpensive Onset data loggers and NorthWrite’s Energy Expert Plus, an information management software and service that gathers, analyzes and displays data about a building’s energy performance. The monitoring systems feed the information into NorthWrite software, where it is modeled with inputs, such as utility rates, weather and building characteristics. An analyst studies the report and provides the building manager with recommendations on energy upgrades that will achieve 10% to 15% annual energy savings. Next, NorthWrite connects building managers with NYSERDA-approved contractors that can make the energy improvements.

“What we are providing with NorthWrite MBCx is a service,” said Terrence McManus,NorthWrite’s chief marketing officer. “Building managers could attempt to use these tools independently, but they do not have the time to learn what all the data means. They are already short-handed and responding to tenants needs. This turn-key service makes it easier for them to move forward with energy efficiency measures that provide a quick pay back.”

So that’s one example of an attempt to make it easier for businesses to pursue energy efficiency. I’m guessing there are many similar stories out there. Do you have one? If so, please post it in the comment section here, or email me at elisa@realenergywriters.com. I’d like to use this blog at a future date to highlight non-MUSHY innovations that are drawing the elusive business market toward energy efficiency. Look forward to hearing from you.

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy business writer. See more of her work atwww.RealEnergyWriters.com

Move over Saudi Arabia. Here comes Nash and his dad!

By Elisa Wood
June 1, 2011

As a parent, I don’t expect world changing results when I gripe at my kids. I’m happy if they at least leave a path through the dirty clothes on their bedroom floors.

If you’re like that too, you’ll be a little sheepish when you hear the story of inventor and journalist Pierce Hoover. His 13-year-old son, Nash, kept forgetting to shut off the lights, so Hoover made a very big deal about it, the kind that changes the world.

Hoover took Nash to a local gym to ride an exercise bike that measures energy output in watts. He challenged his son to pedal hard enough to generate enough power to light a 100-watt bulb. Nash found that it took a lot of sweat.

“I wanted to instill in him the awareness that electric power, while inexpensive, doesn’t just flow effortlessly from a socket. Electric energy is the product of a complex infrastructure that runs back through the grid to places where big wheels labor and massive boilers consume natural resources, create heat, and emit waste gasses,” said Hoover in his blog at PopSci.com.

Then Hoover and Nash got an idea. Would it be possible to cross the country peddling their way on just a light bulb worth of energy each day?

With a team of engineer friends, the father-son duo built a human-electric hybrid vehicle with a motor fueled by a battery and kinetic energy generated through pedaling. They leave Virginia June 2 to cross the country to Oregon, a 4,500 mile trip, in the cart-like two-seater, which is powered by a 100-watt battery.

It’s going to be a slow, but scenic trip, reports Hoover who works for PopSci’s parent, Bonnier Corporation. Since the vehicle only travels 25 miles per hour at top speed, they cannot use major throughways. Instead, they’ll follow the TransAmerica Bike Trail, which will add about 1,200 extra miles to their journey.

Rationed at 2,400 watts a day, the father and son will take a three hour rest each day as they recharge their batteries and that of the car, which only holds 1,400 watts. They expect to travel about 60 miles per day.

What kind of mileage does the cart get? As much as 1,000 miles per gallon, according to a news release issued by Popular Science Magazine, which is sponsoring the trip along with GE. The father and son have dubbed the trip the “Eco Tour” and say they will spread a message of conservation.

“The Eco Tour is a fantastic example of technological ingenuity combined with personal conviction, and we’re thrilled to bring our readers along for the journey,” said Mark Jannot, Editor-in-Chief of Popular Science.

Okay, so maybe the Saudis aren’t quaking at the sight of Hoover and Nash pedaling down the road. But still, Hoover is likely to make not only his son, but a lot of other people, think in a more meaningful way about producing and using energy.

You can follow their journey at www.popsci.com/ecotour or twitter.com/popsciecotour.

See more of Elisa Wood’s work at www.RealEnergyWriters.com