Energy Efficiency Archives - Green Businesses

EPA’s 2013 Battle Of The Buildings Draws Over 3,000 Entries

Is your commercial building on an energy-efficient diet? If you've cut back the consumption, you may just be qualified for a one-of-a-kind contest sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency. Here's the scoop from Beth Buczynski for Earthtechling. In a world of reality show competitions, it’s no surprise that the EPA has chosen to turn energy efficiency into a survival of the fittest contest. The 2013 “Battle of the Buildings” will pit commercial buildings against each other to save energy and fight climate change. All buildings and tenants that submit complete energy use data for calendar year 2013 (January 1, 2013 – December 31, 2013) using EPA’s custom report are invited to compete. This year, around 3,200 buildings qualified by monitoring and reporting monthly energy consumption using EPA’s online energy tracking tool, Portfolio Manager. Image via EPA In order to do well in the competition, property owners must get creative. Technologies that cut energy waste…

Top 12: Every Energy Efficiency Expert Should Subscribe to These Blogs

by Vincent BRYANT at smartenergyefficiency.eu. Reasons why people spend their free time frenetically writing posts on Energy Efficiency are numerous: passion, willingness to share, desire to raise others’ awareness, just the pleasure to show off, expectation to become an expert, monetisation… Whatever their reasons, I feel very happy to have met these blogs on my road. They are all insightful and show a high level of expertise. Hope this post will help widen our community. So these are my 12 favorites. uk-energy-saving.blogspot.fr: UK Energy Saving is a consumer resource on energy saving and related topics including renewable energy, alternative fuels, recycling and water saving as well as sections on fair trade and organic products. www.elrst.com: The underlying mission of this blog is to answer the following questions : What are the environmental issues we are facing? What are the solutions? Are these solutions applied with the necessary scale and scope? smartener…

US Energy Efficiency is Improving

Katherine Tweed of GreenTechMedia It might seem as though energy efficiency is on a roll lately, especially after getting a shot in the arm from President Obama as part of his climate action plan. But energy efficiency covers a wide range of areas, and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) just launched its first annual white paper on fifteen key indicators that can help the government and stakeholders understand where progress is being made and where there is more work to be done. If you are an optimist, a glance at the chart below shows that we’re doing OK, with modest progress in many areas. Only one indicator, combined heat and power (CHP) in industry, saw a small backslide from 2011 to 2010. Aggressive increases in CHP, however, is also a goal of the Obama administration, and should see a boost in coming years. “The United States is becoming more energy-efficient, but the improvements we measured are generally small, indicating that we ar…

Renewables Continue to Outpace Conservative Global Projections

by Stephen Lacey, Greentechmedia The International Energy Agency is out with its latest medium-term outlook for global renewables. And once again, projections for installation and energy production have been revised upward. According to the IEA's analysis, renewable electricity will surpass output from natural gas and double generation from nuclear by 2016, becoming the second-most important source of electricity behind coal. Those projections for generation are 90 terawatt-hours higher than last year's medium-term renewable energy market report. The IEA now says that renewable electricity will make up one quarter of gross power generation in 2018, with non-hydro renewables accounting for 8 percent by that date. Although the IEA has always been outspoken about the need to deploy more low-carbon technologies and address climate change, the organization has been known for its conservative analysis about the future growth of renewables. For example, in 2003, it …

8 Surprising Energy Hogs in Your Home

Katherine Tweed, GreentechMedia By itself, the ceiling fan in your house isn’t much of an energy suck. But the number of ceiling fans in the U.S. is going up as more people move into homes in warmer climates. All of those spinning fans are add up to nearly as much energy use as personal computers. The ceiling fan is part of a large group of household devices and commercial equipment that make up miscellaneous energy loads in buildings. Most of the technology isn’t an energy hog by itself, but taken in aggregate it becomes a serious opportunity for energy efficiency standards. A new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), Miscellaneous Energy Loads in Buildings, found that all of these random devices add up to 7.8 quadrillion Btus every year, nearly as much as water heating, refrigeration and cleaning and cooking combined. Knowing which devices are the most inefficient is particularly important as President Obama committed to increas…

GE Buying ‘Tens of Thousands’ of EVs

By Chuck Squatriglia for Wired Autopia It makes sense that a company called General Electric would be bullish on cars with cords. But even by that standard the company is diving into the deep end, with what it says will be the biggest order ever placed for electric vehicles. Of course, almost any order would be the biggest order, but CEO Jeffrey Immelt isn’t screwing around. Speaking in London yesterday, he said GE will order “tens of thousands” of electric vehicles in about a week, a move that is sure to jump-start the nascent EV market as automakers like Nissan and General Motors bring the cars to showrooms later this year. The plan makes sense for several reasons. First and foremost, General Electric builds the equipment that provides one-third of the world’s electricity, so of course it will do everything possible to promote the technology. GE is moving quickly into the EV space, building charging stations and working with A123 Systems to develop batteries. Acco…