New Builders Challenge Calls for 220,000 Efficient New Homes by 2012
DOE launched the Builders Challenge last week, calling on the U.S. homebuilding industry to build 220,000 high-performance, energy efficient homes by 2012. 38 homebuilders have already pledged to build 6,000 high-performance homes under the new voluntary national program. DOE aims for 1.3 million of these high-performance homes to be built by 2030, allowing the owners of those homes to collectively save as much as $1.7 billion in energy costs while avoiding the greenhouse gas emissions equal to the emissions of 606,000 cars.
DOE ranks all homes participating in the Builders Challenge on the EnergySmart Home scale, or E-scale, which rates a home based on its overall energy performance. Today’s typical new homes score 100 on this scale, while zero-energy homes, which produce as much energy as they consume, score a zero. For the Builders Challenge, all homes must rank a 70 or better to qualify, making them essentially 30% more efficient than the average new home built to international energy efficiency codes. See the DOE press release and the Builders Challenge Web site.
To support builders participating in the challenge, DOE has made available "builder option packages," which provide guidance for building high-performance homes in different climate zones. These packages also outline the criteria for qualifying for a $2,000 federal tax credit per the Energy Policy Act of 2005. To earn the credit, homes must use only half as much energy for heating and cooling as an average home of comparable size. Currently, the credit applies to homes bought by the end of this year for which construction was substantially completed after August 8, 2005. See more information about the tax credits on the IRS Web site.
Home Builders Launch New National Green Building Program
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has launched the NAHB National Green Building Program, an education, verification, and certification program for building green homes. The new program, launched last week, allows green builders to accrue points in seven categories: water, energy, and resource efficiency; lot and site development; indoor environmental quality; global impact; and homeowner education. The program sets point requirements in each category for the bronze, silver and gold levels. Homes are inspected and verified by local green experts, who send their documentation to the NAHB Research Center for review. If the project qualifies, the home can receive national certification from the Research Center. See the NAHB press release and the NAHB National Green Building Program Web site, which features an online scoring tool.
NAHB launched the new program at the 2008 International Builders Show (IBS), which was held last week in Orlando, Florida, and a show home at IBS is the first to be certified in the new program. The New American Home, the official showcase house of the IBS, earned a gold-level certification through the use of three high-efficiency heat pumps for heating and cooling, a solar water heater, instantaneous water heaters, high-performance windows, and excellent insulation and air sealing. All of the home’s components work together to achieve a home that uses about 62% less energy for heating and cooling and 57% less energy for water heating than a similar home in the same climate.
Two building teams from DOE’s Building America Program worked closely with the sponsor to achieve a high level of energy efficiency for the home. NAHB also unveiled the 2008 Green Builder Orlando Vision House, which features structural insulated panels, spray foam insulation, and many other green features. NAHB will be building a series of these homes around the country to showcase its Model Green Building Guidelines. See the New American Home on the IBS Web site, a Building America fact sheet on the home (PDF 1.8 MB), and the Green Builder Vision House Web site.
NAHB is also developing a National Green Building Standard for homes that is meant to maintain flexibility in green building practices while providing a common national benchmark for builders, developers, and remodelers. According to NAHB, the new standard will be the first consensus-based standard for residential green building. In fact, the latest public comment period closed on February 4, and the committee for the new standard has until March 3 to register votes on the 600 comments received. The NAHB expects the American National Standards Institute to approve the standard this spring, after which it will be published by NAHB and the International Code Council. The standard is based on the three-year-old NAHB Model Green Home Building Guidelines, but enhanced to include residential remodeling, multifamily building, and lot and site development. It also reflects enhancements in the International Residential Code. See the NAHB press release.
Energy Star Commercial Buildings and Plants on the Rise
While green and efficient homes are drawing considerable interest in the building industry, the number of energy-efficient commercial buildings and manufacturing plants is also growing, with a 25% increase last year in the number of such buildings earning the Energy Star. In 2007 alone, more than 1,400 commercial buildings and plants earned the Energy Star label, bringing the total to nearly 4,100, with Energy Star buildings located in every state, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Energy Star is a joint program of DOE and the EPA, and commercial buildings that have earned the Energy Star use nearly 40% less energy than average buildings, producing 35% lower carbon dioxide emissions. About 500 of the Energy Star buildings use 50% less energy than average buildings. Energy use in commercial buildings and manufacturing plants accounts for nearly 50% of energy consumption nationwide.
The Energy Star buildings include about 1,500 office buildings, 1,300 supermarkets, 820 K-12 schools, and 250 hotels. In addition, more than 185 banks, financial centers, hospitals, courthouses, warehouses, dormitories, and big-box retail buildings have also earned the Energy Star. More than 35 plants that are manufacturing automobiles, cement, and ethanol have also earned the Energy Star, including for the first time three petroleum refineries in Louisiana and one each in Minnesota, Montana, Ohio, and Texas. In total, these award-winning commercial buildings and manufacturing plants have saved nearly $1.5 billion annually in energy while avoiding 25 billion pounds in carbon dioxide emissions. See the EPA press release, the Energy Star for Buildings and Manufacturing Plants Web page, and the full list of Energy Star buildings (PDF 164 KB).
DOE to Invest Up to $20.6 Million in Solid-State Lighting
DOE announced last week that it will invest up to $20.6 million in 13 projects to research and develop solid-state lighting (SSL), which includes light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). When combined with industry contributions, the funding will total nearly $28 million. SSL is an energy-efficient lighting technology that produces significantly less heat than incandescent and fluorescent lights. LEDs have been used in a variety of applications, including brake lights, flashlights, and traffic signals, while OLEDs are commonly used for displays in electronic devices such as cell phones, but both technologies have great potential for energy-efficient general lighting applications.
The selected projects were chosen from three of DOE’s funding opportunity announcements, with $10.8 million allotted for core technology research and $17.1 million allotted for product development projects. Four projects will focus on OLEDs, and the remainder will involve LEDs. The projects span a wide range of research and development efforts, from understanding the fundamental factors that affect the performance of SSL devices, to developing new substrates to build the devices upon and new phosphors for SSL lamps, to building SSL lamps and incorporating them into complete lighting devices. See the DOE press release and the SSL Web site.
DOE has also published the results of its fourth round of SSL product tests, which examined 15 SSL lamps and lighting devices, with five halogen and fluorescent lamps included for comparison. The results found that SSL manufacturers still have far to go, with about half of the products performing only at the efficiency of halogen lamps, even though the technology is now able to achieve much higher efficiencies. And of the 15 SSL products, four manufacturers provided no information on light output or efficiency, one provided accurate information, one understated the product performance, and nine overstated the product performance. Overall, about half of the products produced too little light or off-color light for the intended application. The report concludes that the SSL technology is now capable of delivering highly efficient, color-balanced light for a wide variety of applications, but its implementation is hampered by manufacturers’ inexperience with the technology and by the lack of industry standardization for LED device performance testing and reporting. See the results of all four rounds of testing on the DOE SSL Web site.
California Approves Feed-In Tariffs for Renewable Energy Systems
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has approved long-term prices for the state’s utilities to buy renewable energy from their customers. For seven of the state’s utilities, the so-called "feed-in tariff," approved on February 14, applies to renewable energy systems located at public water and wastewater facilities, but for Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE), a separate feed-in tariff applies to any customer-located renewable energy system up to 1.5 megawatts in capacity. The tariff requires signing a long-term contract for 5, 10, or 15 years, but the price is adjusted based on the time of day of the power generation.
For instance, for a system producing power throughout the day, a 15-year contract signed with SCE in 2008 would earn about 15 cents per kilowatt-hour on a summer weekday, while a system generating power from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (such as a solar power system), would earn about 22 cents per kilowatt-hour under the same circumstances. Overall, the tariffs range from 8 to 31 cents per kilowatt-hour. Facilities earning the tariff cannot participate in other state incentive programs.
Feed-in tariffs have been used in other countries, such as Germany, to encourage a rapid growth in customer-located renewable energy systems, but the CPUC has set limits on the current tariffs. For systems at public water and wastewater facilities, the statewide capacity limit is set at 250 megawatts and is distributed among the seven utilities according to their size. For other customer-located facilities, the capacity limit is about 104.6 megawatts for PG&E and for SCE, about 123.8 megawatts. PG&E, SCE, and some of the other utilities offer their tariffs through two options: the customer can sell the utility only their excess power, or they can arrange to sell all the power from their facility to the utility. The new tariffs are effective immediately. See the CPUC press release and the accompanying order.
DOE and Partners Test Enhanced Geothermal Systems Technologies
DOE has embarked on a project with a number of partners to test Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technologies at a commercial geothermal power facility near Reno, Nevada. EGS technology enhances the permeability of underground strata, typically by injecting water into the strata at high pressure. The concept was initially developed to create geothermal reservoirs in hot underground strata where no water existed-a technology called "hot dry rock"-but has since been extended as a means of enhancing the performance of existing geothermal reservoirs. Under the DOE project, EGS technology will be tested in a well at the 11-megawatt Desert Peak facility, which is owned by Ormat Technologies, Inc. The well is currently not able to produce commercially useful quantities of hot geothermal fluid, but with the help of EGS, the site is thought to have the potential to produce 50 megawatts of power or more.
DOE, Ormat, and GeothermEx are leading the research and development project, with the participation of the University of Utah, TerraTek, Pinnacle Technologies, the U.S. Geological Survey, and three of DOE’s national laboratories: Idaho National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratory. DOE is providing $1.6 million to support the project. In addition to the current work on the sub-commercial well, the project participants are planning to use the EGS facilities at Desert Peak as a potential test site for future technology developments. See the Ormat press release.
Meanwhile, an application of EGS in a true hot dry rock application in Australia is continuing to make progress. Geodynamics, Limited announced on February 5th that the company has completed its production well, called Habanero 3. Any day now, the company should be starting a circulation test by injecting water into Habanero 1 and removing the heated geothermal water from Habanero 3. The test should give the company an indication of the potential power production of the artificially created geothermal reservoir. See the Geodynamics announcement (PDF 41 KB).
Key Industries Cut Emissions Intensity by 9.4% in Four Years
Energy-intensive industries that represent about 45% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions cut their greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 9.4% from 2002 to 2006, according to a new DOE report. Greenhouse gas intensity is defined as the quantity of greenhouse gas emitted per unit of production, and decreases in emissions intensity generally reflect more energy-efficient production, but can also be due to decreased emissions of powerful greenhouse gases such as perfluorocarbon, sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, and nitrogen trifluoride. The Climate VISION Progress Report 2007, released on February 11, examines the greenhouse gas emissions of the electric power industry and energy-intensive industries, including oil and gas; coal and mineral production and mining; forestry products; and the manufacturing of aluminum, automobiles, cement, chemicals, magnesium, semiconductors, and iron and steel.
Through their business associations and trade groups, all of these industries are participating in Climate VISION-Voluntary Innovative Sector Initiatives: Opportunities Now-a public-private partnership initiative launched five years ago to contribute to President Bush’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas intensity by 18% from 2002 to 2012. As one example, the energy intensity per ton of steel shipped improved by about 15% from 2002 to 2006. See the DOE press release and the full progress report (PDF 1.9 MB).
The emissions intensity reductions reported by the power and industrial sectors is also reflected in greenhouse gas intensity data for the U.S. economy as a whole. A recent report from DOE’s Energy Information Administration estimated that from 2002 to 2006, U.S. greenhouse gas intensity fell by an average of 2.5% per year, for a total of nearly 10%. The report concludes that the drop in emissions intensity is due mainly to using less energy per unit of production rather than using lower-carbon fuels. See the EIA report.
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Kevin Eber is the Editor of EREE Network News, a weekly publication of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
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