CHP: Not the Brad and Jen of energy, but….

By Elisa Wood
September 28, 2011

I hesitate to start this blog with the words “combined heat and power.” You might stop reading.

Okay, so it’s not the Brad and Jen of energy. (That would be solar and wind.) But what it lacks in glamor, it makes up for in constancy and results. It’s an old guy, been around for about a century. And while its name might not sound green, it offers an extraordinarily efficient way to energize buildings.

About once a year, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economyissues findings that raise the profile of combined heat and power, or CHP, for at least a couple of days.

Why bother? Because despite its ponderous name, CHP is a “Wow” approach to energy, one that people should talk about at parties as much as they do solar these days.

CHP units, often used at universities, hospitals and factories, put to good use the waste heat created in producing electricity. Usually, we just let this heat vanish into the sky. But CHP, a form of distributed generation, reuses the byproduct to heat and cool buildings or assist in industrial processes. CHP can produce energy twice as efficiently as a typical centralized power plant because it provides two energy sources from one fuel. We know it works because, as ACEEE points out, CHP “has been cleanly and quietly providing over 12% of U.S. electricity.”

If it’s so good, why don’t we use more of it? The US is trying – at least some areas of the country.

“CHP markets differ considerably among states,” said Anna Chittum, ACEEE senior policy analyst and lead author of ACEEE’s September 28 report ‘Challenges Facing Combined Heat and Power Today: A State-by-State Assessment.’

Do you live in a pro-CHP state? Not if you’re in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

You do, if you’re in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.

(You can find an analysis of your state’s CHP markets and policies here.)

CHP’s woes are not simply a result of bad public policy. Local market factors, utility electricity prices and other influences come into play, not the least of which is today’s stalled economy.

Utilities sometimes discourage CHP development because CHP reduces their sales by letting utility customers produce all or part of their own energy. In addition, CHP tends to be “homeless” in the world of energy regulation and advocacy, according to ACEEE. No big, powerful organization devotes itself to CHP. It has no equivalent to the American Wind Energy Association or the Solar Energy Industries Association. (But you can find information on CHP here and here.)

“CHP is not well understood by regulators, not well-suited for renewable energy programs – because it often is fueled by non-renewable fuels – and too expensive for most short-term energy efficiency programs – because its payback period is long and its upfront costs high compared to many other efficiency measures,” said ACEEE. “Consequently, few state administrations or lawmakers have taken up the cause of CHP.”

So CHP has a public relations problem. It’s not only no Brad and Jen, but it also is downright homeless. Let’s start a trend to get CHP off the street. Open up a conversation at a party with, “Hey, how about that combined heat and power…”

And thank you for reading this blog.

Energy Efficiency and the Solydra Effect

By Elisa Wood
September 21, 2011

Not so long ago the green energy movement celebrated because President Obama used words like ‘renewable energy’ and ‘climate change’ in his inaugural speech. It was a first for a US president.

Now comes the downside of being a political darling.

Opponents of green energy – or rather opponents of its proponents – are using the collapse of California solar manufacturer Solyndra as weaponry. As Scott Sklar of The Stella Group said in his recent blog, “With politicians throwing brickbats at each other, the green industries are right in the middle dodging these projectiles.”

Sure, Solyndra doesn’t embody the state of the green energy industry – it’s just one company. But the average person rushing to work hears only the thud of the brickbats… something about solar and financial collapse, scandal, expensive green energy and wasteful government spending. They are left with the impression that something is amiss with the world of green energy.

How will this affect the energy efficiency industry?

Energy insiders are quick to point out that in the scope of energy failings, the Solyndra collapse is small. And, of course, solar and energy efficiency are two different industries, even if both are ‘green.’ But those are fine points that most people miss, as they pick up only the background noise about the Solyndra collapse.

That’s the bad news for energy efficiency; the good news is that the industry has been getting a tremendous amount of positive press lately, and it may counter the Solyndra effect. Those reports leave the busy person rushing to work hearing something about energy efficiency jumpstarting a national market, creating jobs, and lowering electric bills. Consider some of this week’s news.

• The New York Times reported Tuesday that Lockheed Martin and Barclays plan to invest up to $650 million over the next few years to retrofit buildings in Sacramento and Miami using Property Assessed Clean Energy financing. The Carbon War Room put together the consortium, which the article said represents “the most ambitious effort yet to jump-start a national market for energy upgrades that many people believe could eventually be worth billions.” Interestingly, the deal also includes an insurance plan that backs the energy savings. Offered by Energi, such insurance is a relatively new product for the energy efficiency industry and one that could help projects secure financing.
• Conservation Services Group, a national energy services firm, has signed more than $100 million in new, expanded and renewed contracts, much of it retrofit and weatherization work. The company says it is bucking the ailing economy. Since 2008 CSG’s employment has grown 68 percent, and its revenue has increased from $62 million to more than $100 million.
• The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy found an “extremely” low default rate among energy efficiency loans in a report issued this week. The default rate hovered around 0-3% throughout the life of 24 loan programs studied. It remained that low even during the near collapse of the real estate market. Small commercial banks and credit unions do most of the lending, but bigger banks are now moving into the market. The loan market has barely begun to show its full potential, according to ACEEE.
• And there is this quote from the New York Times review about Daniel Yergin’s new book, “The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World.” The Pulitzer Prize-winner spends 800-pages exploring the energy industry, and in his conclusion “focuses on the importance of thinking seriously about one energy source that ‘has the potential to have the biggest impact of all.’ That source is efficiency.” The Times goes on to say: “It’s a simple idea, he points out, but one that is oddly ‘the hardest to wrap one’s mind around.’ More efficient buildings, cars, airplanes, computers and other products have the potential to change our world.”

We will soon know whether Solyndra has any lasting influence on public perception or is a news cycle blip. If 10 percent of the population holds an unshakeable belief, a tipping point occurs, and the “idea spreads like flame,” according to a study by scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute reported by Intelligent Utility. The green energy industry has worked hard in recent years to capture public sentiment. Has it achieved the tipping point? Solyndra will be a test.

Squinting toward retirement: A boon for the lighting industry

By Elisa Wood
September 14, 2011

Americans report in surveys that they are likely to retire later than expected as a result of this economic downturn that doesn’t seem to want to quit. While that’s bad news for golf courses and Florida real estate, it helps one industry: energy efficient lighting.

We are squinting, rather than sprinting toward retirement these days. As part of the post-50 crowd, I very much appreciate good lighting in my work space, and I discovered that I am not alone in researching a recent report on lighting.

Why do we geezers need better lighting? A 60-year-old employee’s eyes receive only 40 percent as much light as a worker who is 30 to 40 years younger, according to a paper by Leviton. These older employees tend to dislike the one-size-fits-all lighting of most commercial buildings; in fact, find it stressful.

Lighting is best when tailored to the needs of the individual. This can be done by giving employees manual override of automated lighting, so that they can adjust brightness and color depending on what they are doing in their work station at any given moment. And of course that is one of the features touted by lighting control manufacturers – the ability of consumers to customize lighting preferences.

Why worry so much about worker comfort? Happy workers tend to stay in their jobs, and that saves employers money, says a white paper “Personal Control: Boosting Productivity, Energy Savings” by the Lighting Controls Association. New employees need about 13.5 months on the job to achieve maximum work performance. As a result, worker turnover costs a business about 1.2 to 2 times the salary allotted for the position. Research indicates that workplace design plays a significant role in employee satisfaction. And right now many people dislike the lighting, heat and acoustics of their workplace, even young folk.

Improving lighting doesn’t necessarily mean giving employees their own remotely control light bulbs – although it helps. The Light Right Consortium looked at six different lighting options in a typical office space in Albany, New York. Between 81 percent and 85 percent of employees said they were comfortable with a lighting design that provided direct/indirect lighting and wallwashing. By comparison, designs that provided light only from above received a ‘comfortable rating’ from only 69 to 71 percent of study participants. But the combination that the employees liked most included direct/indirect lighting, wallwashing and dimming controls that allowed workers to customize their lighting. This design won a ‘comfortable’ rating from 91 percent of employees.

Lighting is a booming industry. The use of LED lighting, alone, is expected to grow by 30 percent in 2011 and become a $1 billion market by 2014, according to a study, “Enterprise LED Lighting Research Report,” by Groom Energy and Greentech Media. The study targets the market for commercial and industrial LED lighting. Similar growth is occurring in the lighting controls market. Pike Research sees global revenue for lighting controls rising from $1.3 billion to $2.6 billion by 2016. Businesses, not households, are driving this growth.

Many factors account for the lighting industry’s enviable boom. But one, I think, is that it enjoys a feature most green energy products do not. Efficient and well-planned lighting provides immediate and concrete satisfaction. In contrast, I may really like the idea of my employer installing solar panels, but my senses won’t register a difference in the building’s electricity. In that regard, efficient lighting may be the “cell phone” of energy that the industry has sought for so many years – a product that can attract the mass market and turn conventional technology on its ear.

See Elisa Wood’s report “Energy Efficient Lighting Explained: A guide for business people who aren’t lighting techies”

Energy efficiency is so in right now Part II: The delight factor (and more energy puns)

Guest blog by Cara Miale
September 8, 2011

Last week, we looked at how the energy efficiency industry is working on its cool factor (Dare I say sex appeal?), to make clean energy more accessible to the masses.

Perhaps a bikini charger doesn’t make much difference when the grid is under great strain as it was this summer; but it does get people thinking about alternatives that could lead to – or add up to – more important changes.

Time to shed some light on lighting. An energy efficient approach to lighting has gained traction in the commercial world – with wireless controls, dimmers and aclear ROI for building owners. But so far, consumer touch points have largely revolved around bulb efficiency standards – which are dull, governmental and even intrusive.

There are very cool things on the horizon, like Professor Haas’ LED-light-based data transmission, which could feed our hunger for greater capacity for cell phones and all things Wi-Fi. Here are some other lighting innovations that might generate excitement at home (or rather, at your slick downtown condo):

• Mood lighting made simple. No, please – don’t get up. This LED lightbulb from Sharpcomes with a tiny remote that allows you to turn the bulb on and off, increase or decrease the brightness and even adjust the color temp (for mood lighting, perhaps?) all without lifting a finger (er, ok, barely lifting a finger). Its life is long, its efficiency impressive, but perhaps more importantly – it has novelty potential we haven’t seen since the clap-on, clap-off lamp control. The bulbs start around $40 – not cheap for the average consumer – but then again, what are a couple of Jacksons compared to how smooth you’ll look on date night?
• Party on the patio. The Oasys from Sol is a complete unit that houses their aiSUN controller, batteries, and LED fixture. When darkness falls, the party doesn’t have to end: reliable light (and again, spiffy dimming capabilities) can be yours. Although we must say, their website needs a few tips on more accessible language if they’re going to get through to us.
• Energy on display while you’re away. These days, being cool is not always about how much money you can spend – you also get bragging rights for snagging great deals (hence the Groupon boom) and saving money. The PowerCost Monitor is an inexpensive, DIY system that reads home electricity usage and transmits it to your iPhone or iPad – so you can see how much energy your pad (your house, that is) is gobbling while you’re away. You can slice and dice your data and track usage in kilowatt-hours (zzzzz) and in dollars and cents (even better).

Blue Line Innovations and People Power have also done a great job of connecting with the consumer market – they not only use mobile apps to drive their technology; they’re also all over social media, and recently moved their technology to the cloud through a partnership with PlotWatt for real time updates. They even use video to explain their product activation to users.

These are a few of my favorite, cool energy gadgets. Do you know others? Let’s encourage the trend; post in the comments section here any you’ve come across.

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

Efficiency is so in right now

Guest blog by Cara Miale
August 31, 2011

In the movie The Social Network, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want ads on an early version of his social network; he understands that first and foremost, his site has to be cool. And ads, he says, aren’t cool.

Unlike Zuckerberg (well, at least in the beginning), the energy efficiency industry hasn’t quite grasped the value of being cool. It’s an industry that hopes to be popular because it’s right, and it uses less-than-sexy language like “demand-side management” and “load following device” to describe itself. Sure, being “green” seems to have taken off, but when it comes to efficiency, well, it’s hard to build a cool brand around an industry that so loves its technical jargon.

Luckily, the industry is beginning to wake up. This week and next we’ll take a look at how the energy efficiency industry is working on its cool factor. No pun intended.

Gadgets like portable music devices, smart phones and cameras have long been must-haves for the “it” crowd. And next, charging them in unique and efficient ways will be the rage.

Enter the itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie, photovoltaic bikini – proof that form-meets-function stands a chance beyond the energy nerd. We’ve seen the solar-charger backpacks, laptop cases and other wearables like military uniforms – but nothing says sexy like a chick in a bikini.

That may be why designer Andrew Schneider came up with this hot little number: a custom-made solar bikini retrofitted with 40 1×4” PowerFilm Solar photovoltaic film strips that are sewn together with conductive thread and end in a USB port.

That’s right – even beach babes care about energy efficiency. A gal in a solar bikini can generate enough energy to charge her iPhone with an output similar to that of a laptop’s USB port – and look good while doing it. Since no energy is actually stored in the bikini, wearers can still take an “unplugged” dip and return to charging when the suit is completely dry.

Ok, so perhaps solar panels need some time before they’re sexy enough for the runway. But the intention behind the swimsuit suggests we’re headed in the right direction: there are easy, fun and energy efficient ways to support that hip lifestyle of yours.

And speaking of, if you’re looking for something form-meets function but with a little more coverage, stay tuned for iDrink – men’s solar swim trunks with enough surface area to keep your drinks cold.

Final note: A very limited number of suits are available from Solar Coterie, although you might have to skip the snow cones if you want one. The cost of the solar bikini will range from $500-$1,500 and up, depending on the design.

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

How much money can new lighting save your business?

By Elisa Wood
August 24, 2011

Am I average?

That’s the question that often hits me when someone quotes an ‘average’ statistic. The ‘average’ business or household seems almost mythological. Few of us fall right on that point on the line.

The same is true when it comes to often quoted energy efficiency savings statistics. For example, the US Environmental Protection Agency says that replacing one old-fashion incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light will save on average $69 over the product’s lifetime.

Will your business save that much by installing new light bulbs?

Several factors come into play, some that you can control, the most obvious being how much you turn on the light.

Another important dynamic, not often discussed, is your electric rate. Rates vary dramatically through the United States. In coming up with the $69 savings figure, the EPA assumed an electric rate of 11.3 cents/kWh. If you operate a business in North Dakota, you’re paying a lot less than that for electricity, about 6.8 cents/kWh, so your savings from a CFL will be lower. If you’re in Hawaii, you are paying a lot more, about 28 cents/kWh, so your savings will be greater.

Take a look at this frequently updated chart of electricity rates in the 50 states. Is your business in one of the pricier states? If so, an investment in new lighting may quickly pay back. After you’ve found your electricity rate, you can go to this calculator and gauge what you’ll save if you switch from old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs to CFLs. This will give you a closer idea of your savings, although even with this calculation we still are dealing to some degree with averages. The electricity rate in the chart is the average for utilities in your state. Your utility can provide your specific rate.

Businesses are increasingly contemplating saving energy – and costs – by installing efficient lighting, not only CFLS, but LEDs and lighting controls. This is partly because lighting accounts for somewhere between 20 percent and 50 percent of the electricity commercial enterprises use, so the savings can be substantial. On a larger societal level, efficient lighting for businesses is important because US commercial buildings represent 47 percent of the total growth in energy expected in the US between 2010 and 2020.

Elisa Wood is a co-author of “Energy-Efficient Lighting Explained: A guide for business people who aren’t lighting techies,” published by RealEnergyWriters.com and The Daily Energy Report.

Desert Year: Robust Economy and Lessons of the Sonoran Agave

by Skip Laitner
Guest Blogger, Energy Efficiency Markets
Reposted from Real Climate Economics
August 17, 2011

John ‘Skip” Laitner is an economist, enjoying a desert year while on research sabbatical from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Skip is discovering some surprising insights from his time in the desert that can inform the way one looks at the economy and social systems. In a series of posts entitled Desert Year, Skip lends us his new insights, as well as his 40 years of experience as an energy and natural resource economist, to probe the economic, climate, and energy challenges that confront us.

A Robust Economy

There is a good deal of worry about the robustness of our nation’s economy. And rightly so. Especially since we have about 5 million fewer jobs today than in 2007, even as we have about 10 million more people to support with those available jobs.

In an effort to understand why economic performance has been so lackluster, we are constantly taking our economic temperature. We measure it every way we can. But it is also true that – other than the occasional surprise – what you measure is what you find; and we may not be measuring all of the right things.

The current measure of our economic well‑being is the ebb and flow of dollars transacted in the marketplace. These dollars are usually indexed against things like investment, labor output or population. From these various indices we suppose that we can obtain a reading on how well the economy is doing.

Examining the economy from a resource rather than a market perspective, however, may yield an entirely different understanding of the economic process. To better illustrate this point let us borrow some momentary insights from Arizona’s Sonoran desert environment.

In the desert, similarities in plant appearance are poor indicators of whether or not plants are related to one another. While the agave plants have vegetative structures similar to those of the aloe family, neither plant lineage can be determined until we examine their flowers.

The vegetative parts of both the agave and the aloe plants are mostly products of the very few adaptive mechanisms available to help a plant survive in the desert.

These survival mechanisms include extensive root systems and the ability to store water in the leaves and stem of a plant. With so few adaptive features available to them, even plants from unrelated families may look very much alike.

Flowers, in contrast to the plant structures, are the result of intricate relationships with the animals that pollinate them. Because of this dynamic two‑way interaction with animals and insects, flowers are more complex than the leaves or stems of a plant.

The relationship between the agave and the aloe plants is revealed, not by looking at their vegetative structures, but by comparing their flowers and fruits. It turns out that despite initial appearances, the Sonoran Agave and the South African Aloe have entirely different histories and origins.

In a similar way, we may develop a different understanding of why the nation’s lagging job creation is so lackluster if we measure it in a wholly different manner. And here we might build on the work of my colleagues Bob Ayres and Benjamin Warr in their book, The Economic Growth Engine: How Energy and Work Drive Material Prosperity. Measurements might include, for example, not just how much energy we are actually throwing at our various economic processes. More critically, we might ask how efficiently we actually might be in converting that energy into useful goods and services. This might reveal different insights than if we only ask how many dollars are consumed in the production process.

As the data from Ayres and Warr might suggest, when viewed from an energy rather than a market perspective, the American economy is perhaps 13 percent energy (in)efficient.

It takes energy to explore, mine and produce or transform coal, the oil and the natural gas needed to power our homes schools and businesses. And it takes energy to clean up the many wastes produced by that production and consumption of energy. Based on 2005 data we waste, in short, about 87 percent of all the energy consumed in our various economic activities.

As we might imagine, that level of huge waste creates an array of costs that might otherwise constrain a more robust economy. That level of waste adds a very large burden to our air, land and water resources. But we would not find this out by looking only at the dollar transactions of the marketplace. As with the Sonoran Agave and the South African Aloe, we need to look at more than the familiar indicators to understand the full historical relationships that determine the robustness of our nation’s economy.

John A. “Skip” Laitner is Director of Economic and Social Analysis for the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), based in Washington, DC. Tucson is his family’s hometown, and he likely will be there through August of 2012. He hopes to provide a new posting roughly every week over this next year. While these columns do not reflect the official opinion or views of ACEEE, its board or its staff, he can be reached atjslaitner@aceee.org.