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See how you can hack summer savings!

It’s that time of year again… school’s out for summer! Now that the kids are home for the next few months, you might see your energy bill increase especially on those really hot days when you need to be inside running the AC. No one likes to pay more on their energy bill, so I’m here to share some tips with you so you can keep cool, enjoy the family being together again and save money. Leaving town? I’ll share some tips for the vacationers out there, too, so you can come home to a lower utility bill.

see what our team has been up to over the last month!

Trees can be our biggest weapon against the growth of the urban heat island affect.

There is no better (and cheaper!) solution to both increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than protecting and expanding our existing tree canopies and developing additional canopies. In addition, trees provide extensive water, economic and crime reduction benefits to urban areas.

#UHI Trees TreeCanopies

Can music festivals implement green actions?

See how your building can benefit from a energy audit.

See what the SJVCEO team has been busy with over the last month.

Stay up to to date with the newest California energy efficiency information.

We will help you with a few easy tips and tricks to saving energy this Memorial Day.

When it comes to renewables and energy efficiency there is always good news that carries bad news.

Find what is new in the energy efficiency world within California.

As Americans when we plan out our weekly meals when going to the grocery store our meals consist of at least three meat dishes for the week. Sure meats are protein packed and considered good for us, but are they good for environment?

Here are your wEEkly Updates:

1. First, a reminder that the Commercial Sector Subcommittee Meeting of the California Energy Efficiency Coordinating Committee is going on today! (Click here for more info.) This is an important opportunity to share feedback (or just listen in) on utility and other program administrator business plans for energy programming that are in the works now. To get direct alerts on subcommittee meetings, visit www.caeecc.org.

2. Registration is open for the ACEEE 2016 Summer Buildings Study in Pacific Grove this August. This year’s theme is “From Components to Systems, from Buildings to Communities.” To learn more or register, click here.

Statewide LG EE Best Practices: Weekly Update

Here are your WEEkly Updates:

1. Registration has opened for the 7th Annual SEEC Forum! The Forum will be held June 15th-16th in Riverside, CA and will feature updates from key state leaders, up to 16 breakout sessions sharing local government energy and climate best practices and lessons learned, and constant networking opportunities to learn the latest in energy activities from across the state. Registration is no-cost to local governments. Click here to learn more or to register. 2. Interested in having a CivicSpark AmeriCorps fellow during the 2016-17 service year? CivicSpark is a great way for local governments to find capacity for energy efficiency and sustainability efforts - and educate future local government leaders. The program is recruiting now, and is ready to answer your questions. Informational webinars will be held Wednesday, April 13th at 1pm and Wednesday, April 27th at 10am. Click here to register.

3. Resources and Opportunities at the State Level, 101: In response to local government requests, SEEC will be holding a webinar: State-Level EE 101: Agencies Furthering Energy Efficiency, How they Work, & Resources & Processes Local Governments Can Leverage. The goal will be to give local government energy efficiency leaders a sense of what opportunities there are on the state level to provide feedback, shape current activities, and leverage state requirements and resources in strategic planning and implementation of energy projects. For more information, and registration, click here.

4. Best practices for Zero Net Energy: NREL Commercial Buildings Principal Engineer Paul Torcellini will participate in an upcoming ASHRAE Webcast - Making Net Zero Positive: Solving the Efficiency and Cost Paradox - April 21, 2016 at 1:00pm. Click here for more information and registration.

5. For those that missed the AB 802 workshop held by the CEC last week, notes on items discussed and a link to the saved recording on the CEC’s website is available here. Any comments must be submitted to the CEC by April 8th. 6. The Energy Data Access Committee also met last week – a summary of items discussed that may be of interest to local governments is available here. 7. The Alliance to Save Energy’s recent article shares why homeowners should care about building energy codes: energy efficiency adds value to a home. A great initiative adding transparency to this, and empowering homebuyers and sellers to make market-driven choices and improvements is the application of the Department of Energy’s Home Energy Score in Berkeley’s new Building Energy Savings Ordinance (BESO). Read more on the Ordinance's goals, and implementation, here. 8. While on residential programs, congratulations to the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments for a strong first year of their Energy Assessment Screening for Your Home, or “EASY” Program! Supported by the SCE and SCG through the San Gabriel Valley Energy Watch, the EASY Program provides residents with free home assessments and customized home reports with information on smart upgrade opportunities as well as utility incentives to support them. As of January, the EASY Program had provided well over 100 assessments in 19 cities. For more information, click here. 9. High-tech EE in residential: The U.S. DOE has a great story and video on high-tech options on the horizon for residential. Click here to review. 10. Jumping to EE activities in the commercial sector: the U.S. EPA and U.S. DOE have released their 2016 Energy Star Partner of the Year Award winners to honor outstanding achievements in energy efficiency – which include two businesses in California. Click here to learn what these businesses are doing to save energy, and share some great ideas your commercial community partners. 11. More value for commercial partners: for 6 Benefits of Becoming a Sustainable Business, learn more in an Environmental Leader article here. 12. EE Opportunities in IT: Many think of server closets and data centers as spaces that just have to use lots of energy. However, the energy intensity of data center and IT space often makes it ripe for opportunities to save. Microsoft’s new data center Sustainability Chief explains how energy efficiency saves money and allows greater operation in a smaller footprint,here. For more resources on energy efficiency in IT, click here. 13. The California Financing Coordinating Committee has released its 2016 Funding Fair schedule – the Fair events are a great way for local and tribal governments to connect with a variety of financing and funding opportunities for water and energy infrastructure projects. To learn more and review the schedule, click here.

14. Funding review: This was a popular item last week, so for those that missed it: $569M has been made available from federal agencies for energy and other activities – click here to learn more. A new U.S. Department of Transportation grant program has made $800M available, with applications due April 14th: More here.

15. Congratulations also to the City of Hayward for winning the Acterra 2016 Business Environmental Award for its green power initiative at the City’s water pollution plant! Learn more about how the City is leveraging incoming credits from renewable generation to fund energy efficiency and sustainability projects (and connect to a great video on operations at the facility). 16. The California Energy Commission (CEC) has developed a list of Title 24 energy code trainings that will be made available through different ICC chapters. Click here for more information.

17. The CEC’s 2016 Integrated Energy Policy Report (IEPR) Update is underway: click here to learn about scoped Update topics and schedule for release.

As always, you can keep track of relevant events by connecting to the EE Events Calendar, and find more resources being added daily on the EECoordinator website.

#california #seec #energy efficiencies #zeronetenergy

My love note to the Public Sector

Somehow I ended up as the co-chair for the Public Sector subcommittee (really, I volunteered and people were crazy enough to say, 'welcome aboard!') and I've spent the last two months in recruitment mode. If you work in energy efficiency in the public sector, you've probably seen an email from me or from someone forwarding it on my behalf. I'm persistent like that.

What you haven't read or heard is my personal plea to the people I respect most, my colleagues on the Rural Hard to Reach LGP Working Group. In lieu of trying to write out another recruiting message I'm publishing what I shared with my people.

This all began with an earnest email from my colleague at the Mendo-Lake Energy Watch:

"...So I guess my questions back to you and the group are this: do you see the value in attending purely for our LGP-specific (selfish) reasons? Or do you see our attendance more as representatives of RHTR? Will you be speaking as Courtney from SJVCEO or Courtney from RHTR? What do others think about this?

I hope this doesn’t take us too far afield, but I do feel that both the trip and an all-day webcast will be a significant expense for most RHTRers. Before we all jump in it may be good to get some clarification."

For the record, Mendo-Lake Energy Watch never asks the easy questions and yes, my response probably took a full half hour to craft.

"Oh [Mendo-Lake EW], why must you ask such thoughtful questions that require real answers?

Let’s start with March 16th. Yes, it is the kick off for the Public Sector subcommittee. However, it is an incredibly wonk-ish meeting; think datadatadata. The five PAs will present their data analysis. That’s it. If you’re into data and can manage the expense, fantastic. If you’re looking for an entry onto the statewide platform, fantastic this is the place to be. Overall, it’s not a critical date.

Where things get real is in the subcommittee meetings in April, May and June. That’s where the bones of the business plans start coming together and the greatest opportunity for influence exists.

As to which Courtney is speaking? Well, that’s a tough one. In this effort I’m doing my very best to just be Courtney, Public Sector subcommittee co-chair. In that I view my role as a harvester of people. I have a decent crop of contacts and I know who needs to be engaged. Now, I can’t force anyone to get involved but I can nudge and cajole to the very best of my ability. I’m less concerned about having my voice heard because frankly I’m always talking and furthermore I can only speak really well about my region, my communities, my people. I can BS pretty well on a larger scale but it’s not authentic and authenticity always sways more than a good talk.

You all are the real deal; the authentic voice of Mendocino. Of Redwood. Of Monterey. Of San Luis Obispo. Of the north Valley. Of the Sierras, north and south. I’ve seen each and every one of you work your magic and can only imagine how that could play out in this process.

On a final thought, and thank you for the complement about representing RHTR well, but it can’t just be me. I can get emails opened and people to look up for a moment but I have so many initiatives that I am engaged in that it may start to blur and the importance of one may get lumped in with another. I encourage each member of RHTR to get involved for their own reasons, for their own community. We all align nicely, but the truth is there’s just as much different about us all as there is the same. I can be an advocate for rural California, but gosh, I am so much better as a chorus of many than a voice of one.

Okay, that wasn’t the final thought. Regarding that we’ve already taken a lead, sure. We did. We issued a lovely memo that had a positive response. Parts are even getting included in initial presentations. You know as well as anyone that leadership isn’t just showing up at the beginning and letting things run their course. In this effort it is going to take strong, persuasive presence through September 1. I’m in it for the long haul. I’ll go up to bat against every other public sector interest out there, but if it’s just me the numbers game of the saaaaaaaaaaa and aaaaaaaaaaaaa and sssssssssssssssss and ssss are going to eventually outnumber me. Program design will sway the way of the strong influence and in this scenario strong numbers of really smart people are going to have the advantage.

I encourage you to jump in. If not on the 16th then later in the game, but it would be a shame for all of our communities if any one of you sat this one out.

Now, that was my plea to my rural people, but my plea to the rest of California is no different. We are all part of the public sector. We pay taxes. We receive services from National, State and regional governments in our communities. In the next five years the landscape of California energy will have more to do with economic growth and resiliency than it has in the past ten. This is a monumental opportunity to get engaged and shape what energy efficiency programs look like in your community.

To get get engaged start by signing up for the Public Sector contact list--provide your email address and make sure you select the 'Public Sector Subcommittee' button. Once you're signed up take some time to go through the CA Energy Efficiency Coordinating Committee website at www.caeecc.org There you can review the presentations from the Public Sector kick-off meeting on March 16th, learn how to make comment and provide input in the process, and see other's comments. You can even read a very important memo issued by a group of really smart people who just happen to live in the most rural parts of California (yeah, I heart them, they know it).

At risk of repeating myself, I've never known a more passionate group of people than those that work in energy efficiency in the public sector--you're all a bunch of crazy motivated, highly intelligent, sleep lacking individuals and if you're not involved in this effort we all miss out. Please, engage today. Let your voice be heard!

*If you need to play catch up as to what this whole Public Sector subcommittee and Energy Efficiency Coordinating Committee stuff is, go ahead and check out Jordan Decker's EE Coordinator blog; she's done the best distillation of this highly complex issue that I've read to date.

**Yeah, I redacted some of that email. Can't let all our secrets out!

Follow our blog if you like what you see. http://sjvceonews.blogspot.com/

#ca #public sector #lgp

Should the United States Military be Exempt?

The United States military is one of the most powerful forces in the world. Soldiers are well trained and well equipped, but do you know the other part of the piece it takes to sustain that powerhouse? Well I can tell you... a lot of fossil fuel. All of the military's bulky machinery runs on oil while also being exempt from emission reports required in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. But thanks to the newest COP21 climate agreement things may be changing; for the better.

Facts state that U.S. forces continue to be THE leading institutional consumer of crude oil in the world. With that title comes some hefty numbers of consumption. On an annual basis our forces consume over 100 million barrels of oil. Those barrels equate to over 70 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. A side note; those staggering numbers omit hundreds of overseas bases as well as vehicles. To give you a clearer picture to hit the idea home lets talk about the number of carbon emissions from just the Iraq war alone. In the first four years of the war there were 141 million metric tons of carbon released. If you were to break that number out over four years each year carbon emissions would equate to be more than emissions from 139 countries.... I think that number brings the idea home.

It all goes back to the saying that we here at SJVCEO use, " you can't fix what you don't measure." How are we as a nation to crack down on carbon emissions when we are not measuring ALL of our output. With the new agreement our military is not required to report and or cut emissions, but are not automatically exempt anymore. With that ruling you would expect to have military leaders up in arms about the decision, but quite the contrary. Many top officials support lowering the military's dependence on fossil fuels. The support is mostly because of the high death toll associated with oil. If we can lower our dependence on oil then we can make our troops safer and save countless lives in our military.

Cutting down on the use of fossil fuels can be a hard item to tackle since much of our military depends on them to power much of the machinery on the ground. Having machinery that is more efficient will help to better protect our troops and lower our dependence. Don't think that I am suggesting that our troops roll up in a Toyota Prius to handle combat, but there can be a happy medium.

That happy medium comes from two of the biggest military contractors, Lockheed Martin and AM General. These two firms have taken on the challenge of making a safe and lighter vehicle for those troops on the ground. These two companies have come up with three different types of vehicles that are competing to replace the current staple, the Humvee. The Humvee has been around since the 1990's and has served its purpose, but with the military becoming liable for its emissions it may not continue to be so.

All three of the vehicles proposed can withstand blast impacts as well as bullets, but have a lighter body. With the lighter body style troops are able to get more MPG as well as more maneuverability on urban and off-road patrols. Some of the models are even being tweaked to become "greener" by going hybrid- diesel.

Sure we know that a lot of emissions come from wars overseas and machinery, but we still need to think of the military actions that take place on a day-to-day basis. On a daily basis there are over 10,000 people that report to a military base each day. On top of that the military has continuous training activities taking place all over the U.S. and overseas each week. Many of the top commanders are starting realize all of those activities are adding up against our environment. To combat environmental damage the military bases are beginning to deploy electric vehicles for on-base transportation as well as installing electric vehicle chargers.

Maybe this year, 2016, we have a light bulb moment on carbon emissions and the U.S. military. The world is realizing that military actions are just as responsible for climate change as the normal citizen living their day-to-day lives. With the reporting of carbon emissions maybe we can fix what we are measuring moving forward.

Greening the Holidays

Where did 2015 go? Your guess is as good as mine, but the holidays are, in fact, upon us and there are a few things we can do to be more eco-friendly over the next few weeks.

Decorating for the holidays is always a must and for those of you who love to put on a good light show, make sure you invest in LED lights. They’ll last much longer than traditional lights and they won’t cause your holiday electricity bills to be as sky high as usual. Because who doesn’t love to find savings this time of year? To maximize these savings, use a timer on the lights or simply put a reminder on your phone so you can unplug them before you go to bed each night.

When decorating inside the house, nix the streamers and balloons; items that can only be used once are highly wasteful. Opt for items like gourds, fruits, pinecones, soy or beeswax candles and glass or pottery votives and ornaments. They are lasting and, in my opinion, so much more beautiful and seasonal.

Now that your home looks holiday-ready, it’s time to find the perfect gifts for your loved ones. Many of you likely took advantage of those Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales and are done with the holiday shopping. Congratulations! You are not the terrible procrastinator that I am (sorry family and friends, I’ll get to it soon). If you are dilly-dallying like I am, follow these rules when you shop: bring your reusable bags and look for items that meet the criteria I laid out in my green shopping post back in July. Or, take a big family or friend trip instead of giving gifts – thank you to my sister-in-law-to-be for this great idea!

Once you’re ready to wrap the gifts, save your money and don’t buy wrapping paper. The wrapping paper will be used only once and it’ll immediately be thrown away. Yes, it’s pretty, but think about all the money- and waste-saving alternatives!

Look around your home for old newspapers, packing or kraft paper, and maps. Newspaper and maps make great already-decorated wrapping paper and you can always decorate plain kraft paper in whatever designs you like! Don’t be afraid to get creative! Fabric scraps is another great alternative; it may be a little more challenging to tack down (try fabric glue or a hot glue gun), but it’ll give your gifts an awesome texture and look!

You can always use junk mail as wrapping paper, too. More than likely, you currently have a lot of it because this is prime time junk mail season. We almost never look at it and, whether or not it’s used as wrapping paper, it ends up in the trash. If you’d rather use the previously mentioned items for wrapping your gifts, try to stop the junk mail deliveries immediately. As soon as you get mail from an unwanted store, find the 1-800 number on the back of the advertisement and request you be removed from the mailing list.

Last, but certainly not least, make sure your holiday eats are as sustainable as possible. We on the west coast are lucky and have access to farmers markets year round, but everyone can enjoy seasonal produce. This chart is a great resource for finding vegetables in season. Eating locally and seasonally is one of the best ways to cut down on emissions and be eco-friendly during the holidays. When it comes to storing your leftovers from the big feasts, use reusable storage containers like these or these; they’re great for freezing and are dishwasher safe! You can always have your guests bring their own reusable containers to take home any leftovers, too.

I hope you make this your greenest season yet. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Do you have any other holiday-greening ideas?

Analyzing Your Energy Consumption in Micro Increments, at a Macro Level

Energy consumption can be tricky to manage, even on a single building level. Most utility bills don’t go into much detail, showing only what’s being drawn from the grid, not how much power your refrigerator or air conditioner consumes. And even then, you find out how much in almost 30-day increments—how useful is that? By taking advantage of your smart meter data, you can find a lot of information about the operational characteristics of your building.

This is a chart of hourly energy consumption over the course of 13 months for a small office. It’s been averaged out over every hour of the day and separated out by day of the week, with the addition of holidays being its own day of the week. As we can imagine, when the business is closed, you should be consuming less energy—the lights are off, the thermostat is set to a higher temperature, and far fewer people are in the building, reducing the energy load. But what do you notice with the standard Monday through Friday? Consumption slowly rises throughout the day, as more people arrive at work, turn on their computers and go about their day. Around 7 at night, everything begins to slowly shut down. We could, for this example, call that our baseline active usage.

How about weekend usage? The light blue and orange lines represent the weekend days, and they’re pretty low—we could almost call that our baseline vacant usage. But look at the energy spike from 8pm to what looks like almost 10pm—it’s even greater than on the weekdays! Remember, the usage is averaged from every weekend day out of the year, so if this was an anomaly, we would see maybe a little blip than a spike.

Now let’s look at the holiday usage. Assuming that the office is closed, we’re seeing higher than expected usage from 9 to 8, compared to Saturday and Sunday usages. Maybe the thermostat wasn’t turned off on the Thursday or Friday before the holiday. Remembering to do so could bring in a lot of savings.

So after looking at this chart, we’ve noticed some more-than-likely quick and effective energy conservation measures—turning off the thermostat before holidays. With a baseline vacant consumption day of around 2,000 kWh, this building could potentially save around 19,000 kWh per year, or $3,600 per year just by turning down the thermostat. That’s some big savings just by reminding staff to turn down the thermostat before they leave!

If that weekend spike could be addressed too, that alone could potentially save 63,000 kWh per year, or about $12,000 per year.

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