Energy research and the cobbler’s children

By Elisa Wood

November 5, 2009

Scientific research has brought us products that offer greater energy efficiency. But is research, itself, energy efficient?

Evan Mills, staff scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, raises this question and points out what may be a largely untapped market for energy efficiency companies: research labs. (See Environmental Science & Technology, http://eetd.lbl.gov/emills/pubs/pdf/sustainable-scientists.pdf.)

US researchers “unwittingly” spend about $10 billion annually on energy, he says in the article, and could cut the bill by half through sustainable practices.

It’s important to take a look at research efficiency because labs are often energy intensive. Researchers may work in hyper clean environments with sophisticated air ventilation, or they may need data centers with vast air-conditioning. Thus, a lab’s utility bills can be “staggering,” he says. Consider CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, whose 230-MW capacity needs costs $80 million per year; or the US Department of Energy’s data centers, which pay $100 million per year for energy.

Money saved through efficiency could be channeled into more research. Yet only 1 to 3% of research labs operate in “green” facilities. LBNL has created a model energy efficient lab setting at its Molecular Foundry, a nanotechnology lab in Berkeley, California. With LEED gold certification, the facility has achieved energy savings 28% beyond California’s already aggressive building standard. http://www.kawneer.com/kawneer/north_america/en/news/releases/LBNL_Release_FINAL.pdf

Typically, laboratory’s can find energy savings by using  premium-efficiency fume hoods and laboratory equipment, avoiding over-ventilation, limiting pressure drop in the ventilation system, engaging in energy recovery, minimizing simultaneous heating and cooling, and properly sizing space conditioning equipment to match energy needs, according to Mills.

He recommends that we reduce energy costs by including efficiency requirements in research solicitations. Labs could then calculate the cost of efficient equipment or building improvements into a proposal’s capital expenditures.

“Doing the right thing isn’t the only reason to strive for improved sustainability,” Mills says in the article. “The scientific enterprise depends on availability of ample energy and can be fettered by its cost. In the 1980s, LBNL’s particle accelerators were responsible for the vast majority of site-wide energy use. Indeed, the Bevatron’s [a particle accelerator] energy budget only allowed for ten months of experiments each year. At the time, raising the energy efficiency of the process (e.g., through improved magnets and power supplies) trimmed consumption and costs sufficiently to enable a full year of experiments to be conducted.”

Today, it appears energy research has succumbed to the syndrome of the cobbler’s children who have no shoes. Science discovers efficiencies, but doesn’t necessarily put them to use for its own purposes. Given our growing mastery of common efficiency practices in homes and businesses, research labs represent a new frontier for the energy efficiency industry.

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

Is waste heat the silver bullet?

By Elisa Wood

August 13, 2009

The energy industry tends to get stuck on certain words. Silver bullet is one of them. Insiders and policymakers often like to say there is no silver bullet to fix US energy woes. We need a portfolio of solutions – renewables, efficiency, smart grid, transmission expansion, coal sequestration, etc.

That may be true, but Tom Casten begs to differ. Casten is a bit of a rock star in the field of decentralized power. He has more than 30 years in the business and leadership positions in key organizations. It’s not unusual to see him quoted on energy not only in the trade press, but also in magazines like Forbes. So folks looking at alternatives tend to listen to him.

“I think there is a silver bullet, and I think it is all about the way the world makes power,” he said at the International District Energy Association conference in June. (Listen to his presentation at www.districtenergy.org.)

Or rather, it’s about the way the world wastes energy.

“Generation inefficiency is the elephant in the room. Nobody talks about. We put all kinds of policies into doing other things and ignoring that because most of industry makes money on this inefficiency,” he said.

The inefficiency he describes is the waste heat that power plants emit. It accounts for about two-thirds of plant fuel use, and it ends up floating into the sky unused. Weirdly, we know how to solve this problem, we have for decades – through combined heat and power plant. These plants marshal the waste heat and pipe it, so that it can be used for other purposes, such as steam energy for a college campus or an industrial process.

We use combined heat and power to generate only about 80,000 MW, about 9 percent of US total electric capacity. Of course, combined heat and power doesn’t make sense in all circumstances.  But an Oak Ridge National Laboratory study released in December says the US could increase combined heat and power to 20% of capacity.  Some Europeans countries have achieved this level –and they lack the large number of factories found in the US that can use the waste heat.

ORNL says it would take some regulatory tweaking to move the market to 20%. But one thing is for certain, there is no lack of interest in combined heat and power these days. The US Department of Energy recently offered $156 million in grant money for combined heat and power projects. By the time bids closed in mid-July, the DOE had received 359 applications for projects totaling $9.4 billion, according to Rob Thornton, IDEA president. “We knew it was going to be oversubscribed, but we never envisioned it being a 25 to 1 ratio,” he said.

Whether waste energy will emerge as the silver bullet remains to be seen, but clearly there is no longer a shortage of those aiming this bullet toward its target, the elusive werewolf of inefficient energy.

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

Who gets the EE stimulus money?

By Elisa Wood

February 19, 2009

The ink is dry on President Obama’s signature to the federal stimulus bill and word is out that energy efficiency receives more than $20 billion. How will homeowners and businesses benefit?

Two sources offer an excellent break-down on the incentives: the Alliance to Save Energy and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, a unit of the US Department of Energy. EERE goes so far as to give the page numbers in the bill that address certain incentives.

Here is a snap shot of where some of the energy efficiency funds will go.

Housing & Buildings

• $5 billion for low-income weatherization assistance, plus an expansion of people who are eligible. An increase in the funding level to $6,500 per home.
• About $4.75 billion to Housing and Urban Development for public, low-income and Native American housing
• Tax credit for existing homes extended and increased to 30 percent of cost, up to $1,500 for 2009 and 2010
• About $8.9 billion for federal buildings, including $4.5 billion for green buildings and $3.6 billion for Department of Defense energy efficiency initiatives

Appliances

• $300 million for the Energy Star Program and for matching grants to states that offer rebates to consumers for buying Energy Star appliances.

Technology

• $4.5 billion for smart grid projects
• Up to $2.3 billion allotted for a 30 percent investment tax credit given to those who manufacture renewable energy, energy storage, energy conservation, efficient transmission, and carbon capture and sequestration items.

Transportation

• $400 million to encourage the use of plug-in hybrids
• $17.7 billion for public transportation and rail
• $2 billion for the manufacture of advanced batteries

Other

• $3.1 billion for state energy programs and $3.2 billion in block grants for local governments
• $500 million to prepare workers for jobs in renewable energy and energy efficiency
• $9.75 billion for public safety and other government services, including renovation to “green” schools

Further details are available at http://ase.org/content/article/detail/5388 and http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/enn.cfm

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

Energy Efficiency Markets chooses its favorites of 2008

By Reid Smith
January 8, 2009

We appreciate the entries submitted for Energy Efficiency Markets’ first annual ‘best of’ contest. It is difficult to select winners in an industry that is burgeoning with innovation. We hope you find our selections as intriguing as we did. Please continue to email us (realenergywriters@comcast.net) about interesting projects – we’d like to highlight them periodically in our weekly newsletter:

1. Best appliance: Energy orb

Remember the mood rings we wore as kids? The stone changed color depending on how we felt. Here is a variation on the theme: an orb that signals the energy mood of a building, glowing angry red when energy use is high and green when consumption is low. A kind of smart meter, this crystal ball helped Oberlin College students cut back by 56% on energy use in their dorms. What’s interesting is that the kids don’t pay energy bills – still they responded to the magic ball. http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/12/18/power-meters-help-homeowners-track-and-cut-their-energy-use/

2. Most innovative public policy: Connecticut

Connecticut tends toward gutsy moves when it comes to energy policy. The state is embracing innovation to reduce its electric rates, which hover around the second or third highest in the nation. We like Connecticut’s energy efficiency certificate or “white tag” trading program, which takes a page from the successful renewable energy certificate market now in several states. Companies, colleges, hospitals, factories and others earn the tags or credits for their energy reductions. They then sell credits to utilities or others who need them to meet state energy efficiency mandates. http://www.incisivemedia.com/energyrisk/Environmental_Risk/PDFs/Spring2008/7_EnvRisk_EnergyEfficiency.pdf

3. ESCO: CMC Energy Services

The health of any industry depends on truth in advertising. If the efficiency industry overstates what it can achieve, consumers will quickly lose faith. That is why we like the honesty in CMC Energy Services’ Home Energy Tune-uP®. The company calls it a pay-as-you-save residential energy audit program; it identifies the group of improvements in the home that will truly pay for themselves when financed. The whole house audit takes into account how various improvements interact and change your payback. If you install insulation, and you also get a new heat pump, less scrupulous auditors will calculate insulation savings based on your old, inefficient heat pump. That overstates your savings. CMC adjusts its audit to take into account the new heat pump. Consumers get a realistic picture. CMC also uses home inspectors to do the audits, rather than contractors who may have a natural conflict of interest. http://www.hometuneup.com/

4. Demand-response: Energy Curtailment Specialists

The DR market has several emerging players that deserve credit for growing use of the resource. We had a hard time deciding who to choose. We finally selected Energy Curtailment Specialists because of its intelligently packaged “Power Pay.” See http://www.ecsgrid.com for the company’s plain-talk pitch, one that avoids most of the jargon peculiar to demand response programs. FAO Schwarz and the Hyatt Regency are among recent converts to the program.

5. Transportation: Google

Google made a product that is so popular its name has become a commonly used verb. Now the company turns its attention to greening the world. Among other things, Google has a fleet of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) at its Mountain View headquarters for employee use. Following a seven-week experiment, Google announced some impressive performance from its fleet. The PHEVs averaged as much as 93 MPG average across all trips, and 115 MPG on city trips. http://www.google.org/recharge/. Will we eventually “PHEV” instead of drive?

6. Green building and construction: Pairing of green energy and efficiency

Here we honor not so much a company but a concept: the efforts by renewable energy companies to get customers to pursue all cost-effective efficiency before buying green energy. For example, California-based3Degrees, which markets renewable energy certificates (RECs) and carbon offsets, starts by analyzing a building’s carbon footprint. If it finds strong efficiency potential, 3Degress contracts with a third party to take on the project. http://www.3degreesinc.com. Chevron Energy Services offers a good example of successfully pairing solar and efficiency at three campuses of Contra Costa Community College. The $35.2 million Northern California project includes a 3.2-MW solar power generation system, efficient lighting and energy management systems, efficient heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, and high-voltage electrical system replacements. http://www.chevron.com/News/Press/release/?id=2008-01-31

Visit Reid Smith at www.realenergywriters.com and pick up his free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and combined heat & power

By Elisa Wood

Dec. 4, 2008

The universe contains many mysteries. A big one for me is: Why doesn’t the United States use more combined heat and power (CHP)?

It requires an energy geek, of course, to even ask that question. Most of the world knows nothing about CHP, even when referenced by its other name: cogeneration. So it was heartening to see the Department of Energy’s recent effort to educate the public in a Dec. 1 report: “Combined Heat and Power: Effective Energy Solutions for a Sustainable Future.” http://www1.eere.energy.gov/industry/distributedenergy/

What’s the problem with CHP? People are unaware of it – even though it’s been around for 100 years. It could benefit from a marketing makeover, especially a name change. Combined heat and power does not roll off the tongue easily like solar and wind, nor does it evoke an image of efficiency and greenness.

Here is a quick definition: CHP systems are a form of distributed energy (like solar) built close to where they are used. They generate electricity and use the excess heat that is produced to cool or warm the building. So a CHP system uses one fuel to create two resources – power and usable heat. As a result, CHP plants are about 35% more efficient than typical generators.

“CHP may not be widely recognized outside industrial, commercial, institutional, and utility circles, but it has quietly been providing highly efficient electricity and process heat to some of the most vital industries, largest employers, urban centers, and campuses in the United States,” says the report.

It appears the United States may finally embrace the resource. The DOE report proposes that 20% of US generation capacity come from CHP, up from today’s 8.6%. Because CHP is so efficient, its greater use would mean far less greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the report finds that under the 20% scenario, the US could avoid over 60% of its projected increase in carbon dixoide emissions between now and 2030.

Several states are putting policies in place to help advance CHP, particularly energy efficiency portfolio standards. These standards require that energy efficiency make up a certain percentage of the state’s mix of electric resources. Fourteen states allow use of CHP to meet the standard.

CHP also should get a boost from a new 10% federal tax incentive signed into law as part of the financial recovery package in early October. The credit applies to small and medium-sized CHP projects.

That still leaves the problem of the brand name. Suggestions welcome! Preferably something that could make combined heat and power the “Brangelina” of the energy world.

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

Getting Ready for the Next US Industrial Boom

By Elisa Wood

September 4, 2008

Selling large manufacturers on energy efficiency isn’t easy, even though they stand to achieve great bang for the buck. Manufacturers are apt to only consider efficiency improvements as part of a major plant expansion or improvement. Such capital expenditures tend to occur in a cyclical fashion, and manufacturers give little thought between cycles to new efficiency measures.

The good news is that the United States appears to be readying for a new cycle of industrial capital investment, creating a window of opportunity for energy efficiency companies, according to a report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

“Trends in Industrial Investment Decision Making” points to several clues that factories are preparing to refit and expand after years of avoiding the risk of such investments.

•Plant capacity, or level of output in producing goods, is rising to historic levels. High capacity rates encourage factory owners to expand and new competitors to enter the market and build plants.

•Product output per employee is up, a frequent precursor to new capital investment by manufacturers.

•The cost to ship goods to the United States has escalated dramatically because of a shortage of ships and high fuel prices. Thus, it is increasingly cost-effective to produce goods within the country rather than overseas.

These pressures are likely to result in new, long-term investment in factory capacity, the likes of which the United States has not seen in 30 years.

What should energy efficiency companies do to prepare? Start forming relationships with manufacturers now, so that you can learn about their particular investment cycles, as well as the greater market forces that influence their decisions, the report says.

The full report, by R. Neal Elliott, Anna Monis Shipley and Vanessa McKinney, is available free of charge at: http://www.aceee.org.

Visit energy writer Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and subscribe to her free EE Markets newsletter and podcast.

Reducing Hospital Costs through Efficiency

By Elisa Wood

August 7, 2008

The energy and healthcare industries share a mutual woe. Both are experiencing meteoric price increases.

The Alliance to Save Energy projects a household’s energy costs will be about $6,300 this year, representing about 13% of median pre-tax earnings. Meanwhile, the National Coalition on Health Care reports that medical costs rose 6.9%— two times the rate of inflation last year with total spending of $2.3 trillion or $7,600 per person. http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

Fortunately, the U.S. Department of Energy has launched a program that brings energy efficiency to hospitals to drive down energy costs and reduce some of the financial pressure on the healthcare industry. http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/energysmarthospitals/

The program is important because hospitals are significant energy consumers. A hospital’s energy intensity is 2.5 times that of a commercial building. U.S. hospitals spend more than $5 billion annually on energy, which is 1-3% of their budgets and equivalent to at least 15% of profits.

The program’s goal is to improve efficiency 20% in existing buildings and 30% in new construction. Cost savings are expected to be large — every $1 a non-profit hospital saves on energy is equivalent to generating $20 in new revenue, according to the DOE.

Hospitals are particularly good candidates for combined heat & power, which is 70-95% more efficient than conventional power production. CHP, as it is known, achieves this efficiency because it uses the heat produced in the generation process, rather than wasting it, as large grid-connected power plants do. Thus, it is able to use less fuel to electrify, heat and cool a building. http://files.harc.edu/Sites/GulfCoastCHP/Presentations/CHPForHospitals.pdf

CHP also offers hospitals back-up power if the electric grid goes down. During Hurricane Katrina, when almost everything was out of service, the 642-bed Baptist Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi continued to care for patients without disruption because of its 3.2 MW CHP plant.

The DOE offers a free screening for hospitals so that they can see if they are good candidates for CHP http://www.bchp.org/prof-assessment.html#form

Pairing energy efficiency with other societal needs, such as bringing down healthcare costs, makes for good public policy. It offers the proverbial killing of two birds with one stone, or in this case with one coin reducing a double-burden on the average American’s pocketbook.

Visit energy writer Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and subscribe to her free EE Markets newsletter and podcast.