The Center for American Progress will release a report today, entitled "Efficiency Works: Creating Good Jobs and New Markets Through Energy Efficiency."

The CAP report provides a report card on innovative state energy policies, intended to inform a national strategy for clean energy deployment. It was co-authored with Energy Resource Management (EnergyRM).

The report features a top 10 list of states the authors believe are leaders in creating energy efficiency markets:

1. Connecticut
   
2. California
   
3. Maryland
   
4. Massachusetts
   
5. Pennsylvania
   
6. New York
   
7. Texas
   
8. North Carolina
   
9. New Jersey
   
10. Ohio

"But make no mistake," the auhors admonish: "No state has fully developed the potential of their energy efficiency market to create clean energy jobs, let alone the federal government."

The report primarily promotes home energy retrofits as a pathway to broad-based job creation and economic prosperity, enhanced national energy security, and a sustainable environment.

In a press conference this morning, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) said Congress will try again to pass a modest energy bill that promotes Home Star and places new emphasis on home energy savings.

EnergyRM CEO and report co-author Bill Campbell gave a verbal pat on the back to Nevada, California, Utah, New York and New England states for their leadership in recognizing energy efficiency as a source of energy. Campbell's company is an independent power producer, providing efficiency energy as a utility-grade resource.

Bracken Hendricks, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, said the report shows how a number of states are already using smart energy policies to make their economies more competitive. "A relatively small federal investment can attract billions of dollars of private capital by incentivizing bank lending, and firms again hiring construction and manufacturing workers," he said.

The report identifies 10 key energy efficiency policies that states are adopting to achieve leadership status:

1. Energy efficiency measures in Renewable Portfolio Standards.
   
2. Energy efficiency measures in Renewable Energy Credits.
   
3. Energy Efficiency Resource Standards and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standards.
   
4. Unbundled utility structures encouraging meeting energy demand through conservation.
   
5. Decoupled utility rate structures, removing the structural disincentive to conserve energy.
   
6. Aligning efficiency with utility companies’ shareholder benefits.
   
7. Penalties for noncompliance with energy efficiency standards.
   
8. Regulatory cost-benefit tests that isolate the value offered by energy efficiency investments.
   
9. Property-assessed financing structures allowing repayment of financed investments to transfer automatically to new owners.
   
10. Service assessment delivery structures.

From the report:

"As a country, the United States substantially lags behind our closest economic competitors in the energy efficiency of our economy. We believe the examples presented in this paper can set the stage for a powerful new national energy efficiency strategy, which fixes market barriers to unleash entrepreneurs, investment, and innovation."

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By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

Forbes has gathered ten buildings it considers to be the most high-tech in the world. The photos are worth the trip.

Architects spearheaded the movement, decades ago, to make buildings less damaging to the environment. Today it is the architects' clients who are pulling the trend forward, wrote Jonathan Fahey, business-reporter-turned-environmental-correspondent at Forbes.

The cost of running and maintaining inefficient buildings makes owners not want to buy them, Scot Horst of the United States Green Building Council told Forbes. Horst notes a new competition among companies to look and be more green.

Technology abounds to make buildings more energy efficient. Buildings can change their shape to control incoming light or heat, and systems within their walls can communicate and coordinate with each other. Horst told Fahey what many of our readers already know:

A building can be designed perfectly, but it can still waste a lot of energy if the occupants leave the air conditioning running with the windows open or don't shut the lights off. Horst estimates the responsibility for the performance of a building is split three ways: one-third is determined by the design, one-third by how it is managed and one-third by how people inside behave.

Technology is a personal and professional passion. As fun and interesting as the Forbes round-up is, I must note that there are simple and cost-effective solutions to design energy efficiency into buildings.

Even these 10 eye-catching buildings employ hundreds of practical, yet elegant measures to reduce energy use. Features like dynamic facades are fascinating, but the architects would not have included them had they been purely functional and non-aesthetic.

Spreading wings are not the only way to shade a building, but they are, as the Forbes headline promises, high tech.

"The Most High-Tech Green Buildings" Forbes, 6 July 2010

Slide show (recommended)

Our 2009 story on the New York Times Building, one of the Forbes 10 Most High-Tech Buildings.

###

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

July and August are vacation time for Energy Priorities and the Building Priorities Briefing.

We're taking July and August off for some summer fun. We'll be back in September 2010 with the same great, useful information on how to be a more savvy energy user. The Building Priorities Briefing radio program will have a new name. Until then, have a safe and enjoyable summer.

###

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

The smart grid wants you! But what does it take to be a participant in the smart grid? What's in it for you? If the smart grid is so smart, why does it need buildings to integrate with it? And what about the people who are paying for the smart grid -- yeah, all of us -- what do we get out of it? Denis Du Bois interviews two pioneering experts at the building-to-grid frontier, at ConnectivityWeek 2010. (podcast)

Tweet this: http://bit.ly/cw10ep

Podcast

Program Notes & Transcript

Energy:Minute -- The Smart Grid

DENIS DU BOIS: The ConnectivityWeek 2010 conference took place in Santa Clara, California, at the end of May. This is no ordinary conference.

ConnectivityWeek is the event I attend to find out what people will be talking about at other energy conferences two or three years from now.

The focus this year was the smart grid, specifically the role of the consumer -- of energy users, whether commercial, industrial or residential -- in making the smart grid live up to its potential.

There were dozens of speakers and panelists on hand to examine that subject -- with an address by internet pioneer Vint Cerf, and panel discussions with leaders in government, utilities, industry, and nonprofits with a stake in the smart grid.

Here's a clip of the opening keynote by Vint Cerf, who is Widely known as a "Father of the Internet," and is now an Evangelist at Google.

(Insert: Vinton Cerf clip)

The speakers and attendees at ConnectivityWeek debated the role of energy users so seriously, it really points out the importance of gaining acceptance -- and it leads to our title for this month's program, "The smart grid wants you!"

ANTO BUDIARDJO: "The key takeaway from this week is more realization, pretty much on a consensus basis, that the inclusion of consumers--and by consumers, I mean both residential and commercial and industrial--is a key part of a successful smart grid.

DENIS: That's Anto Budiardjo, the man who's been organizing ConnectivityWeek since 2003.

ANTO: And that is quite subtle, but it means that people in the smart-grid community, I think, are better-equipped now to understand that it is important to appreciate the subtleties and the issues that happen on the consumer side--again, in commercial buildings as much as anything else."

DENIS: Mr. Budiardjo organizes other energy conferences, including one held in Washington DC in October called GridWeek.

Much of the day-to-day media coverage of the smart grid is focused on homes and smart meters. But within the industry, designers of the smart grid have acknowledged the high priority of commercial buildings.

ANTO: "In the short term, smart buildings, or specifically large buildings, that are controlled, typically with some form of building automation systems, represent large electrical loads that can relatively easily be managed from the utility side of the meter."

DENIS: In other words, a lot of buildings are already smart. They represent huge potential for efficiency gains, in a relatively few sites. There are just under five million commercial buildings in the United Sates, compared to over a hundred million homes.

And whether the occupants are businesses, governments, or schools, they respond to economic opportunities more predictably than residential energy consumers.

How do you make a commercial or industrial facility into an integral part of the smart grid? I asked Jack McGowan, founding member and Chairman Emeritus of the GridWise Architecture Council. These days McGowan is on a team of leaders for the Galvin Electricity Initiative.

JACK MCGOWAN: Smart grid integration in this case means perhaps demand response, perhaps critical peak pricing, like the project we're doing in California, where we're implementing technology in a building that takes a price signal from the utility based upon that price signal actually executes a sequence of operations to reduce consumption, and reads the meter instantaneously and pushes that data back up to the Internet. Now, in that case, the consumer, the building owner, gets 10 percent discount on their cost of electricity for participating in the program.

But, 12 days a year, they're going to get a signal from the utility with day ahead notice that says that your cost per kilowatt hour tomorrow is going to be 10 times higher than it is today. So you need to have the technology in place to be proactive so that you can actually keep as much of that 10 percent discount as you possibly can.

DENIS: Demand response comes up frequently when we talk about the building-to-grid interface. But demand response isn't offered, or even needed, by every utility in the country. For grid integration to become the norm everywhere, it will have to be part of the larger process for making buildings less costly to operate.

JACK: And I like to use as an example a solicitation that Duke Energy did last fall. And in the context of electricity and smart grid, you might say or you might ask, why would Duke Energy do a solicitation related to buildings? It's because buildings make up a large energy consumption segment for them. But it's also because they are beginning to recognize that that's a segment that can be incentivized to participate in programs that will ultimately reduce their costs and allow them to hedge against building future infrastructure.

So this solicitation that they did was interesting in that it blended traditional energy efficiency and energy auditing with smart grid and with a lot of the other trends that we're seeing in buildings -- commissioning, et cetera.
So, what they created was something that looks very much like a continuous improvement cycle that you might see in a total quality management program. And that cycle begins with an energy audit, moves into a commissioning, a retro commissioning process. Where you say, what is it that's in this building and how do I make sure it performs it the way it was intended to perform?

It then moves from there to a controls upgrade, because in many cases, automation is an aspect of the building that has been ignored. Or has been circumvented or has in one way, shape or form been interrupted from its original intent. So, you upgrade and optimize the control system, then you move into smart grid integration.

DENIS: What's so hard about smart grid integration?

ANTO: Just understanding that it can be done. It is actually relatively easy to do because, especially in buildings that already have building-control systems, it is effectively another input to the building-control system that says energy is now 10 times more expensive, or some other figure, and for the building-control system then to use its typical and normal logic to determine what energy-load devices or equipment continues to run because of critical need and what can actually be switched off for a period of time. So, it's really just an understanding, particularly from the building-automation industry and the people involved in installation and commissioning building-automation systems, that this is doable and it has value.

JACK: Well, when I got involved in smart grid about six or seven years ago, the first barrier that everyone identified was legislation and regulations. And you might say, those are two barriers.

But, this is not a technology issue. Most of the technology by and large is available. There's a lot of work underway in Washington and across the country with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop standards and make sure that it's easier and cleaner for buildings to play. But, at the end of the day, the technology's by and large available.

The big issue is we have to look at regulatory and policy initiatives from the perspective of the building owner and say, under what conditions does it become cost effective and reasonable for a building owner to make investments? So, the kinds of things you're going to see are tax incentives that provide consumers with a way to offset some of the costs to implement systems.

Incentives that allow consumers to implement on site generation and get a return on investment. Some of which, some of that return on investment's going to come from tax incentives, some is going to come from renewable energy credits that a utility might buy from that consumer, some is going to come from the consumer's ability to sell power back to the grid, some is going to come from a wide variety of other benefits that might include less power outages or shorter periods of power outage during the course of a year. And so from a policy and regulatory point of view, we have to look at the environment and say, what's stopping a building owner who happens to own buildings on two sides a street from generating power in one building and consuming it in both buildings?

There're a lot of things that we wouldn't even think of as being issues as an individual building owner. But our issues when it comes to how do I get a return on the investment for that technology. And the other things I think that are going to come into play are going to be a wide variety of new and exciting opportunities like property assessed clean energy, where the municipalities across the country are actually in a position to allow a building owner or a residential consumer to pay for a solar panel through an increase in their property taxes. Anything that overcomes that first cost issue or helps that building owner to overcome that first cost issue.

DENIS: OK, so, we have the technology, it's doable, we just need to show everyone, particularly policymakers, that it has value.

Value for whom, exactly? As taxpayers and ratepayers, we know who'll be footing the sizeable bill for the smart grid -- estimates are in the trillions of dollars -- and we've heard about the advantages: reliability, security, sustainability, and so on.

Let's get more specific, though. Who exactly benefits from all that investment?

ANTO: Well, it benefits probably at least three different groups of people.

It benefits the building owners, because, effectively, a kilowatt curtailed by not using a kilowatt is valued the same as a kilowatt generated by a generator. So, a building that can curtail load is effectively a virtual power plant, and therefore, the financial rewards for not using energy can actually be translated to benefits to owners. For the utilities, the benefits are that they would not have to build the plants to generate that same kilowatt, or megawatt, or whatever.

The third area of benefit is society at large because, if the utility were to build power plants, the likelihood is that to create power plants that are controllable and put into the circuit at the on-demand basis is going to be something that will produce carbon or greenhouse gases.

So, basically, the inclusion of buildings as part of the electricity system, as a virtual power plant, is a very valuable thing for a lot of people.

JACK: So what's in it for the building owner is an excellent question. And to really answer that question, we have to step back and think in the context of what's in it for the building owner to engage in energy efficiency or engage in any activities that reduce their overall energy cost.

Now, in the big picture, the challenge for building owners has always been that as a function of the total operating cost for a commercial building, whether that's a K through 12 educational building or a college or a university or a commercial building, the percentage of their overall operating cost that energy makes up is really relatively small.

What most people don't understand, however, is that it's a controllable cost. And that's really what's in it for the building owner is that in addition to the fact that you can control that cost at all, it compliments climate change initiatives and many other things that building owners are concerned with. But, at the end of the day, it has to bring value to the building owner or it really is not going to get attention.

The only way we're going to get the zero net energy buildings is if the building is actually capable of both generating its own power and effecting how much power it consumes at any one point in time. So, from that smart grid implementation, which could include meters and could include battery storage, it could be like the building we did at the University of Mexico, which we can take off the grid for cooling because we have thermal storage on the roof -- actually, solar thermal on the roof that actually contributes hot water to thermal storage in the basement. We can store chilled water from the central plant loop and we can also run an absorption chiller from the hot water that's coming from the solar panels on the roof.

So on a hot summer day when there's a high demand for electricity, we have the ability to use thermal storage in that building to actually take it off the grid for cooling with the exception of pumps and fans. That gives the building owner the opportunity to save a whole lot of money and achieve a return on investment.

DENIS: That explains what's in it for building owners -- having more control over operating costs, particularly energy costs. Now, why does the power grid need intelligent buildings? What's in it for the folks on the other side of the meter?

JACK: In the very beginning, the impetus for the whole discussion of smart grid began with the blackout that occurred on August 14th of 2003. And that was a wakeup call in many respects for the utility industry, because that wakeup call told them that not only were they unable to respond quickly enough to an outage in Ohio that rippled through the entire east coast and up into Canada. It was part of the realization, perhaps not in the utility industry itself, but to the larger US that we have an industry that by and large is being operated the same way it was operated 100 years ago.

You know, there was a comment made not that long ago that if Alexander Graham Bell came back to life tomorrow and looked at telecommunications, he would be shocked and amazed and would not understand how most of the devices we use for telecommunications work. Where as if Thomas Edison came back to life tomorrow and looked at the infrastructure we have in place for electricity, he would by and large know what's happening throughout the entire system.

So, the point is that the utilities need to change the business model. Because let's face it. We all, by and large, have the lights come on when we flip the switch when we walk into a room. So, we all think life is good, there's no problem, there's many other forms of technology that we don't understand how they work. I mean, we flip the switch, the light comes on, we don't exactly know what's happened throughout the entire chain of delivery. But, what we do know is that we flipped the switch and it works.

What's in it for the utility is they can't continue to do business as they have. There's got to be changes. Now, there's a lot of resistance throughout the electric industry to those changes. But, in reality, it's not just about the electric industry itself. It's about the fact that this now is a stake that the entire country has in not only the fact that this is the most important form of energy that we have. It's the highest quality, most valuable form of energy that's available to any application you can think of.

But, more importantly than that, the only way we as a country are going to deal with environment and climate change and all the other issues we're facing is to recognize and deal with this. So, in some respects, the short answer to the question is, what's in it for the utilities is to keep the lights on. But, in the bigger picture, what's in it for the utilities is to be part of the solution of a much larger problem that many believe is facing our planet. And that's why they need to play.

DENIS: Blackouts are a rare occurrence for most Americans. The grid today is more than 99 percent dependable.

Unfortunately, that one percent translates to 80 billion dollars in lost productivity and revenue every year. The more heavily businesses depend on "cloud computing" and data centers, the higher that cost will climb.

The costs that are rising right before our eyes are on our electric bills and in our environment. If we invest in the smart grid, does the smart grid help us with those?

JACK: Well, that's a really good question. The number one answer that I can't give you is that it's going to make the cost of electricity go down. That in fact was one of the problems that we had with deregulation in the electricity business a while ago. So, what's in it for the consumer is that we're going to be able to reduce the rate at which the cost of electricity is going to go up. We're going to increase the reliability of the energy that we have come to rely on so much. And over the long haul, we're going to start addressing some of these issues like climate change and so forth that we're concerned about. And at the end of the day, the planet's a better place.

Wrap-up

DENIS: The goal of making a building a participant in the smart grid is part of the larger goal of reducing energy and operating costs for the building.

The process starts with an energy audit and retro-commissioning, then an upgrade to the building automation system, then smart grid integration. From there, the process starts over and becomes a continuous improvement cycle. This time around, there are more data, and more opportunities to reduce costs.

We have the technology to do all of this. What's still under development are the comprehensive policies and incentives that allow building owners to install those technologies, like control systems or on-site generation, and recover their investments.

If the smart grid is going to reach its full potential, it will need buildings to be smart, integrated, active nodes on the power network. And as utilities change their business model to adapt to the grid of the future, those buildings are in the best position to benefit from it.

As for the rest of society, there are long-term benefits from the up-front investment. Electric rates might not come down, but at least consumers will have more control over their energy costs.

Power becomes more dependable, which has a direct benefit for the economy. Renewable energy sources are more readily integrated into a smart grid. That helps us address serious issues of pollution, fossil fuel dependency, and climate change.

The title of our program is "the smart grid wants you." But as you come to understand this vision for the future, you may be surprised to find ways that you want the smart grid.

Many thanks to the people who shared their thoughts with me during ConnectivityWeek, including Anto Budiardjo, president and CEO of Clasma Events, and Jack McGowan, GridWise Architecture Council Chairman Emeritus, and CEO of Energy Control.

We're taking July and August off for some summer fun. We'll be back in September with a new program name and the same great, useful information on how to be a more savvy energy user. Until then, have a safe and enjoyable summer.

###

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

The West Coast Energy Management Congress came to our neck of the woods this year. EMC is among a very few energy conferences that began long before current craze for green, and is still going strong.

The West Coast Energy Management Congress is one of the largest -- maybe the largest -- energy conference and technology expo event for commercial and industrial energy managers. The organizer, the Association of Energy Engineers, joined forces with Puget Sound Energy to bring together local and national speakers on energy efficiency, facility optimization and sustainability.

The EMC agenda includes a two-day conference and expo, multiple tracks of education sessions, and several intensive seminars. PSE's Director of Customer Energy Management, Bob Stolarski, chaired the opening session.

More energy supply than PSE knows what to do with

The job of keynote speaker Steve Reynolds, CEO of Puget Sound Energy, was to welcome attendees to EMC. His utility is the conference's host sponsor. PSE serves over a million electric customers and nearly that many gas customers.

Reynolds comfortably set the stage for the two days that would follow. He spoke of the challenges, real and imagined, that face utilities like PSE. As top executive of a vertically integrated utility -- with both generation and distribution resources -- Reynolds talked of his excitement about the dramatic changes coming to renewable energy and the smart grid.

Steve Reynolds, CEO of Puget Sound Energy, opened the West Coast Energy Management Congress in Seattle.

"What we're seeing across our state is the broader integration of renewable resources into our supply mix," Reynolds says. Hydroelectric power represents the majority of PSE's energy. Reynolds calls hydro a "wonderful, renewable resource, although it's not defined that way in state law."

PSE has also invested in two major wind farms, and has about 600 customers who are net-metering the output from their distributed solar energy systems.

Reynolds recounted the hour-to-hour challenges of serving loads with intermittent generation sources. But he dismisses the myth that intermittency limits the potential of renewable energy. Often, he explains, as one wind farm starts to slow down, another is ramping up toward its peak.

"What you see when you get to scale, even with an intermittent resource like wind, is that there is diversity," Reynolds says. "What we're beginning to see is that diversity happening, and we will have a much more stable resource than the naysayers have suggested."

As for a shortage of energy supply, Reynolds admits it is not presently the case in the Pacific Northwest -- at least, not today.

"With all the rain we've had in the past month, we've virtually cut back almost every other resource in the region," Reynolds says. "We have more power than we know what to do with."

With all the talk of smart grid, Reynolds could hardly ignore the topic in his keynote address. PSE deployed smart meters a decade ago, and was considered a pioneer in automated meter infrastructure and related policies in the United States.

"The definition of the smart grid is like pornography," Reynolds jokes, "it's in the eye of the beholder." He defines it as improving the intelligence provided to the ultimate users of energy with regard to the choices they make.

There is much more that can be done to display and communicate energy information, Reynolds says. He sees more long-term opportunities in the smart grid is to influence the behavior of consumers toward the prudent use of energy.

With more than 100 million households in the United States, those opportunities stand to make innovative companies rich -- but they face some challenges if they depend on utilities to adopt new technologies.

"One of the real problems is that any new technology has implementation issues," Reynolds says. "I'm not sure I'd want to buy unit one of any new technology. I'll be happy buying unit 10, especially as a regulated utility where there's a regulator waiting for the 'gotcha.'"

Making technologies work together is a high priority for the smart grid, Reynolds says. Understand the implementation timeframes at scale, and communicate about the transition, he advises.

Your home doesn't know you're away, but your Hohm might

Rob Bernard, Microsoft's Chief Environmental Specialist, says the Northwest has an opportunity to set examples for the rest of the world. His job at the podium was to outline Microsoft's grand view of our energy future.

Rob Bernard, Microsoft's Chief Environmental Specialist, spoke at EMC 2010.

"Why is Microsoft involved in this? We made the decision that we would take an approach to environmental sustainability much along the lines of what we've done with healthcare, education, and entertainment," Bernard says.

What those industries have in common is their long-term cycles of change, he explains. By investing in sustainability, Microsoft hopes to accelerate those cycles by overcoming technology challenges.

To illustrate the challenges, Bernard uses the example of data centers. Microsoft provides internet-based services, which require large data centers. As Microsoft makes its data centers more energy efficient, their proliferation is zeroing out the net benefit.

"As we double the efficiency of our data centers, we double the number of data centers," Bernard says. "So we've launched a series of guides to engineers about how to write more energy efficient and energy aware code."

Microsoft thinks, on an ongoing basis, about how technology will change the way people live, says Bernard. One area of thinking is in radical improvements in energy efficiency, both inside and outside the information technology industry.

No surprise, Microsoft's contribution in this area will be in information technology -- in this case, the management and transparency of information about energy use and carbon. Of all IT managers, Bernard claims, 85 percent do not know how much energy their department consumes. The same is true, he says, of homeowners.

"If Steve Reynolds were to call 500 of PSE's customers and ask how much they spend on energy, I don't think more than 15 or 20 percent would really know," Bernard speculated. "When I talk to consumers, that's their response."

Residential energy consumers and data centers are Microsoft's primary focus sectors, but the company is also thinking about how to apply cheap storage and processing power to solve larger problems. Models of climate change and the resulting species migrations and extinctions, Bernard says, are so complex that they can take a month to run.

Microsoft is trying to reduce its own waste and carbon footprint -- and that of its supply chain. Microsoft has over 400,000 partners worldwide, Bernard says, adding: "I would argue that any company that is not thinking about [energy efficiency in their business] will not be a Microsoft partner within the next decade unless they evolve and change their business model."

Aside from energy, waste in a software company is nominal compared to a company with physical product to manufacture and ship. Water use, for example, is difficult to reduce without changing the water delivery infrastructure.

"Why would I need the same quality of water to drink, shower with, and cool a data center with?" Bernard asks. "It's because that's the way the infrastructure is. So we're looking at how do you change the infrastructure."

Natural user interfaces, i.e., point and click, makes it easier to change behaviors. Bernard suggested a connection between Project Natal -- Microsoft's forthcoming interface for its Xbox gaming console -- and better home energy management. The proliferation of portable devices will also influence people's behavior, Bernard posits.

"Everyone has one of these," he points out, pulling a cell phone from his pocket. "Why is it that this knows I'm here, but my office and home do not? It has a lot of implications for power usage." Bernard is alluding to capabilities under development for several years by various standards organizations, with support from associations such as BOMA and CABA. Players like Google, Apple, Intel and Microsoft have been joining the fray lately.

Expo floor at the West Coast Energy Management Congress.

In fact, most major software vendors are tossing around ideas about how the smart grid and energy-efficient home could be more dependent on their (mostly proprietary) products. Microsoft is no exception, and its worldview is outlined in its "Smart Grid Reference Architecture" issued in the fall of 2009.

NPV-positive efficiency measures can save as much energy as Japan uses

Speakers thus far in the opening session have talked about the big opportunity for energy efficiency, without being very specific. If PSE said, "we'll need it," and Microsoft said, "we'll sell it," then it was up to Adrian Booth, Analyst with McKinsey & Company, to define "how much."

Booth presented findings from his firm's 2009 report on energy efficiency. The report analyzed hundreds of commercially available energy efficiency measures and compared them to find economically advantageous opportunities -- those measures that are net-present-value positive.

"No news to anyone in this room," Booth says, "energy efficiency is a big opportunity and a significant resource." But, he adds, "there are significant and persistent barriers, many of which have been known for years."

Booth suggests that we have been missing a systematic way to look at the opportunities and overcome the barriers. Taken together, the opportunities can produce $1.2 trillion in benefits from 2008 to 2020.

The benefits are possible with an up-front capital investment $520 billion, Booth says. The financial gains are derived from a reduction in energy consumption of 9.1 quadrillion Btus.

"That's more than the energy consumed in Canada or Japan," Booth explains. "The 1.1 gigaton carbon reduction is more than all of the carbon we would abate from reducing deforestation."

The McKinsey base model assumed no cost of carbon, Booth notes, but a variation of the analysis with a $50 per ton price on carbon would increase the opportunities by 13 percent.

The industrial segment represents 51 percent of projected energy demand and 40 percent of the energy efficiency opportunities McKinsey studied. Much of that is in an energy-intensive sector with relatively few enterprises. The residential segment represents 35 percent of the energy efficiency opportunities, but is highly fragmented across 129 million homes and 2.5 billion devices.

The commercial segment represents 18 percent of energy demand, but 25 percent of energy efficiency opportunities, Booth says. About half of existing buildings are challenged with split incentives. Enacting energy efficiency measures in a new buildings costs about half as much as retrofitting. Data centers are becoming an increasingly important opportunity, he says.

As for addressing these opportunities, Booth outlines several key strategies. Among them is alignment among regulators, customers and utilities: "The utility is a very important player in this scenario. We need to do more than removing the disincentive around energy efficiency."

The West Coast Energy Management Congress was presented by the Association of Energy Engineers and hosted by Puget Sound Energy, at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center, June 15-16, 2010.

###

By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

Thanks to new laws, buyers and tenants of large buildings in some areas are entitled to know a building's energy score before they complete their purchase or lease. How long before the U.S. catches up to Europe, where buildings will be labeled according to their energy consumption? Is simply reporting a score meaningful, if there aren't also requirements to improve energy efficiency? Can cities achieve their carbon-related goals without imposing both kinds of rules on businesses? Denis Du Bois interviews Phil Bomrad, Director, Building Technologies, Siemens. (podcast)

Tweet this: http://bit.ly/ConMon

Podcast

Program Notes & Transcript

The laws go on to require disclosure of those energy scores whenever a building is sold, leased, or refinanced.

New York City and the District of Columbia go even farther, publishing the scores through a public database for anyone to see -- including insurance companies, employees, customers and investors.

That might sound harsh, but consider the European Energy Performance Directive on Buildings, which calls for labeling buildings according to their energy efficiency.

But the U.S. is always 10 years behind Europe, so labeling is a long way off, here, right? Don't relax too fast. Some major cities are moving in that direction now, and the American Clean Energy and Security Act contains language about labeling new homes and commercial buildings.

And let's not forget that Energy Star is effectively a label that designates buildings in the upper echelon of energy efficiency. Energy Star is voluntary in most cases, but owners still pursue it because it's been shown to improve the asset value of a building and fetch higher rents.

That raises the question of whether voluntary programs wouldn't be more effective than mandates in the first place. Benchmarking is a requirement of Energy Star for buildings. And Energy Star is a requirement to get a building certified under the US Green Building Council's standard for Leadership In Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED.

That means those buildings are among the most efficient in the country -- at the time they're certified. Or maybe earlier, if the building's efficiency rating is simulated using energy modeling software instead of actual consumption. Modeling has gotten fairly accurate, but it's not perfect.

Even if a building is simply built to code, with the minimum legal level of energy efficiency, and performs just like its model on the day it opens, it can drift below its intended performance levels.

Systems get out of tune or outright fail. Sometimes it's that the operators aren't completely up to speed on how to run a sophisticated building. But often it's blamed on occupant behavior -- a tough thing to predict, especially with software.

It's a complex set of issues, but it's critical if cities, states, and companies are going to meet their goals for cutting carbon emissions.

Part 1 - Energy:Minute -- Continuous Commissioning

For the next half hour, we'll be talking about various kinds of energy monitoring, so let's start by spending one minute on one of the relatively recent methods, continuous commissioning:

» Transcript

Part 2 - Interview with Phil Bomrad, Director, Siemens

Denis Du Bois:
Phil, thanks for taking time to join us.

Phil Bomrad, Siemens:
Glad to be here.

Denis:
Let's start with mandatory benchmarking and disclosures. Is it a good idea?

Phil:
I personally believe that it's going to depend on what the customer, the building owner and the tenants, want to accomplish. Ultimately, at the end of the day, we're going to mandate that somebody benchmark their facility. Is that going to drive the property value up, is that going to help the building become more efficient? Only if the building owner cares about what their score is, or if the potential buyer of that building or occupant of that building.

So, by mandating it, that doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be any improvements. As an example the energy policy act a couple of years ago, back in 2005, mandated that all federal buildings needed to meter gas, electric and water, and I believe steam as well. But they also went one step further and said, "They've got to have energy reductions and CO2 reductions, year over year, for many years to come."

If you just have the mandate to monitor and meter, without the mandate or incentive to actually reduce it, then it's really just kind of a moot point.

So just mandating the monitoring and the benchmarking probably isn't going to do a whole heck of a lot -- other than one small thing that it will do, is to provide transparency into how well the building is operating, and somebody that is an owner would potentially have some incentive financially, economic incentive, to do something about it.

Denis:
Are we getting better at building facilities that perform long-term like they were designed to?

Phil:
Well I think it depends on what they were designed to do. I think there is a lot of times when buildings are designed for worst case scenarios. You know the 100 year storm, the hottest weather of the year that you might only see once or twice per year, or not for multiple years.

So when the design is trying to meet conditions that rarely if ever happen, then no we're probably not operating the most efficient buildings we possibly can, even though we might be meeting the design intent.

And that's really where monitoring on an ongoing basis comes into play. It really goes beyond monitoring the whole building, once you can start taking a look at major energy consuming subsystems -- HVAC for cooling and heating, and lighting systems. Then that will help you determine where you're using the most energy, and also help you define what's optimal for performance versus design intent, which again isn't always geared towards delivering the most efficient building.

Denis:
LEED and Energy Star give owners a financial incentive to make their buildings efficient. Is that not working?

Phil:
No I think that certainly, with USGBC's green buildings, I think that it is working. At least their statistics, on their studies say that it is working. Higher rent rates, occupancy levels, and those types of things; higher productivity within the building.

I think the reason that has been successful is because that goes beyond just efficiency. The green building goal isn't necessarily 100% geared around energy efficiency, it's to have, also, a healthy, productive, safe, indoor environment as well.

That's actually why sometimes you don't see more savings in a LEED certified building, because they're not trying to shut everything off. Their end goal isn't just efficiency regardless of the building comfort and productivity. It is to blend productivity and indoor comfort, along with energy efficiency, and water efficiency, and those types of things.

So when you have a potential tenant coming into a building, and evaluating a LEED certified building versus a non-LEED certified building, they're both going to be able to look how efficient it is and what their costs will be, assuming energy and water costs will be passed through to them. But also, how productive the environment is, and how that might impact their bottom line.

So I think because LEED takes a more holistic approach to the building than does Energy Star, that's just looking at emissions from energy use, I think that's more likely to drive up rent rates and occupancy levels, than just purely saying, "Here's what our energy efficiency score is."

Denis:
Will voluntary systems then eventually achieve enough efficiency in buildings, or do you expect to see more regulation crystallizing around examples like California's AB 1103, or LEED?

Phil:
I think it's going to be market driven. I mean the federal government really only is going to get involved with their own federally owned and occupied buildings and so as an example, several federal agencies have adopted LEED mandates for new construction.

There's 20-something states also that have mandated LEED for new construction facilities. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it's going to be the private enterprise who determines what their sustainability goals are going to be. Some will say it's purely going to be energy efficiency. Others will say they want to take a holistic approach, and do LEED platinum buildings. So it just depends, at the end of the day what gets adopted, on what ultimately appeals to the private sector, I think. And that's all over the board I think.

Ultimately, I think there has been a lot of standardization around LEED, because LEED uses other industry standards.

It didn't recreate an energy benchmarking tool. It references Energy Star and uses Energy Star 69 points as a prerequisite to get LEED, and it references ASHRAE standards, and other types of things.

So LEED didn't actually create a new standard, and that's why, I think, they have a bit of an advantage, and they've also gained so much momentum, is because they are leveraging existing building standards, and referencing those within their requirements. And that's picked up a lot of momentum. Because they're not creating new standards, as much as compiling and leveraging existing standards, that everybody has been following for years.

Denis:
Other organizations are creating new standards, like ASTM's guide for energy disclosure, or they're tightening them, like the international codes for energy conservation and green building -- are we just going to see more proliferation of competing standards?

Phil:
That's difficult for anybody to predict. But everybody is repositioning themselves over the past couple of years, as an environmentally friendly organization, whether it's government or private sector.

Just look at commercials on TV and billboards, and it's all centered around, you see automobile commercials, and the number one message is typically their fuel efficiency before they talk about their horsepower and torque and zero to sixty in whatever seconds. And it's waste management companies, and so forth -- IBM and Cisco with their smart grid.

Everything's around energy efficiency and green and those types of things, and so that repositioning has caused business to all want to get into this. Everybody wants to.

And so, because of all this momentum, the groundswell of attention on the environment and being socially responsible, more and more companies are trying to get into it. More associations are sprouting up, and that's why I think, you see that, but I think at the end of the day, as always seems to happen, the strongest and most sensible ones are going to bubble to the top, and all the others are going to fall off.

So, I think it's one of those things where it's past being a fad. It's not just the early adopters anymore. Everybody's getting into it and trying to find their place, but at the end of the day, it's going to be back to the reputable and logical associations, and standards, and companies that are still standing.

Denis:
Is building information modeling playing more of a role in those standards?

Phil:
Yes, there's more and more that you're hearing about BIM modeling and taking energy efficiency to the next level into that. And again, that goes back to what I said earlier, which is, a lot of times buildings are being designed for that worst case scenario, that 100 year storm and excessive temperatures that rarely come to fruition.

So a lot of the BIM modeling, now, is taking into consideration more likely use scenarios and weather conditions, but it's also taking into consideration things like more than they have in the past the positioning of the building to take advantage of day lighting, as an example.

That type of thing has been in the BIM modeling and other modeling, but there seems to be a lot more features and functionality. And now more and more manufacturers are writing their specifications so that when designers and architects are designing the buildings, they have equipment for every device that they can map in for the most energy efficiency.

So, there's definitely been some more momentum around incorporating more LEED standards, and, I should say, green building standards and energy efficiency standards, into the new building modeling.

Denis:
We'll take a quick break, then we'll talk more about the human factor with our guest, Phil Bomrad, director of energy services for the Siemens Building Technologies division. Stay with us.

This is the Building Priorities Briefing, I'm Denis Du Bois. Our topic is energy monitoring, and our guest is Phil Bomrad, Director of Energy Services for the Building Technologies Division of Siemens Industry.

Let's talk about continuous commissioning -- or whatever term -- what should we call it?

Phil:
There are a lot of terms out there that are really synonymous. Everybody has a different definition for some of these things -- retro-commissioning, re commissioning, ongoing commissioning -- but at the end of the day, ongoing commissioning is accomplished by doing some metering and monitoring on an ongoing basis.

So, there are multiple ways to do monitoring. You could install instrumentation in the building to actually measure the gas, electric, water, steam, whatever, and put that into a database and analyze that data on a regular basis, and that's the preferred method. That's what's going to have the most favorable outcomes.

But, you can also keep it much more simple than that and do the Energy Star benchmarking type of thing, where you're just taking a look at the billing information for the whole building. The billing cycle has ended, the bill has been generated and sent by the utility, and now you're just entering it into a database.

So, you don't have the transparency to see what's happening within the month. You don't have the transparency to be able to see what's happening equipment by equipment or subsystem by subsystem, but it's still a great way to identify your year over year trends and your overall efficiency as compared to a benchmark of a similar type building in close geographic proximity.

Denis:
And that's basically sufficient as far as LEED and Energy Star are concerned. They currently don't call for continuous commissioning, although LEED does offer credit for measurement and verification.

Phil:
So, there's different ends of the spectrum, so to speak. And the continuous ongoing building commissioning, typically, is going to require the metering and sub-metering installation of instrumentation at the building to collect that data in 5-minute or 15-minute intervals, typically, and send that back on a regular basis so that some algorithms and energy analysts can take a look at that data and identify what's actually occurring day-by-day, piece of equipment by piece of equipment.

That's much more effective and more in line with what a continuous energy optimization and commissioning program would be versus just your whole building Energy Star monitoring.

Denis:
Critics of LEED sometimes cite reports showing that certified buildings aren't much more efficient than code. Is that a matter of selective statistics?

Phil:
Typically, if buildings aren't operating as efficiently as was expected, then you have a problem there, and you have to go and see what's happening.

But I think a lot of times, people have expectations around energy efficiency and water efficiency and so forth in a LEED certified building because they just make the assumption that it's LEED certified, it will be energy efficient. But also keep in mind what I stated earlier about the goal of a green building and a LEED certified building; therefore, it's not just to be energy efficient, it's also to provide a safe and healthy and productive work environment, and you've got to balance the two. And sometimes, those two things are in direct contrast from one another.

You want a healthy environment so you bring in more outside air. The more outside air you bring in, the more you have to condition it, either heat it or cool it depending on the season, which is going to take more energy.

So, when you're trying to provide a healthy and productive and safe environment inside the building, the better you want to get, the more inefficiency you're going to realize on the energy efficiency side. So you have to balance the two.

And if there are building developers out there that are not experiencing energy savings with their LEED certified building, they probably should go back to the points that they were going after and that they achieved. And more than likely a lot of them were more on the materials and resources and indoor environmental quality categories than were on the energy and atmosphere categories. That's just a guess.

That's typically what happens when you hear statistics or results that green buildings aren't as efficient, or they're not more efficient than those built to traditional building standards.

Denis:
If you could influence regulations about monitoring, what would you want to change?

Phil:
The one thing that pops into my mind, we talked a little bit about it early on, but it's actually doing something with that data.

I had mentioned that just to mandate Energy Star benchmarking, that's fine, and maybe some people will actually take a look at that. But it's not just a matter of getting the data and providing that transparency. It's also a matter of somebody looking at the data and analyzing the opportunities to make improvements.

A lot of, I think, building owners, developers, and tenants don't really have those tools and skill sets within their organizations. But that's the key, really, to a successful and efficient building is not just getting the data, but doing something with the data, and calculating savings opportunities by looking at the data if you were to install new equipment or implement new processes and sequence of operations and those types of things.

So, that's a critical piece. And I'm glad that when the federal government did the Energy Policy Act a handful of years ago, that they didn't just put the mandate for metering in, they also put the mandate in for certain energy reductions, year by year. And that can't be forgotten because ultimately at the end of the day we're not metering and monitoring just for the sake of meeting legislation. We should be doing so to actually make improvements to our operations.

Denis:
Occupant behavior is the big wildcard in building energy use. Do we have the tools to predict the effect of occupant behavior on energy?

Phil:
There are some, but you never do know ultimately, at the end of the day, what the building occupants; how they're going to run it. Occupants, and also the operations of the building, is going to play a key role. And that's why the continuous and ongoing monitoring and commissioning is such an important thing to implement is because, especially if somebody spent the time and money, if they made the investment in getting a LEED certified building in the new construction and the construction of the building, then it behooves them to try.

You would think that they would also want to operate that building to efficient standards and therefore the way that you operate it well, to continually understand what's going on and where things are not performing.

And that's where the metering and sub-metering, looking at mechanical systems on a regular basis, by way of monitoring, is going to help you realize the savings that you would expect to see on an ongoing basis.

So even if the building operators are starting up the building too early or they don't have the shutdown at the end of the day scheduled properly, if the sequence of operations isn't optimal, that's OK if we have somebody doing the ongoing commissioning of the building. Same thing as tenants override systems. The lights shut off at 6:30 in the evening but then they immediately go back on and they stay on overnight.

When you're looking at the data and you've got algorithms to flag those anomalies, you can immediately make corrections. And so that's why it's important to do the ongoing commissioning, is so that operators and tenants can't interfere with the investments that have been made, on the front end, to have an efficient building.

Denis:
Is occupant education part of that?

Phil:
I think it is. If you think about it, you don't just need to provide the transparency but you have to make people aware of how their behavior can impact the energy efficiency.

So it's really two parts to the puzzle there. Number one is the awareness program that helps occupants and operators understand how their behavior impacts efficiency, and costs for that matter. But then you also need to provide them the transparency to be able to see what the impact of their behavior is having on the building.

And that's again, for the building operator, certainly, where a continuous and ongoing commissioning program would help them identify, "Oh boy, I can see what's happening to the efficiency of the building by me starting up at 4:30 in the morning, even though the building doesn't need that long to recover."

And it's the same thing for the occupants. If you can put displays in lobbies, and poster boards, and report cards, and things like that, that helps them be aware of their behavior and the impact that their behavior is having on efficiency, then they're more likely to change their behavior. But they won't change their behavior if they don't understand how to change their behavior, and that's where the awareness and the educational piece comes in.

So it's really a two-pronged approach. You have to make them aware, and educate them, and also give them the transparency, just like looking at the scale in the morning. You get on the scale, you see what you weigh, you know that the pizza you ate the night before probably wasn't the best thing to do, because you have that transparency.

Denis:
I'll remember that tomorrow morning. [laughter]

Phil Bomrad, director of energy services for Siemens Industry Building Technologies Division, thanks very much for spending the time with us today.

Phil:
My pleasure.

Part 4 - What can you do today?

If you're buying a building or leasing space, a benchmark score is very helpful in comparison shopping. Just dividing the annual energy bill by the square feet doesn't factor in differences like tenant activity, location, and weather. The EPA Portfolio Manager score at least gives you an apples-to-apples comparison.

Once you're moved into a building, it's helpful to know that it won't suddenly start wasting energy at your expense. Continuous commissioning keeps an eye on energy consumption and exposes problems early on.

As the owner, you can use energy metrics to prioritize improvements that make your building more energy efficient. They benefit you whether you're the occupant -- with lower energy expenses -- or you're the landlord -- with higher building valuations.

Either the market or the legislature will soon require owners everywhere to disclose the energy scores of their buildings, and organizations like the EPA and ASTM are standardizing the process.

Once that happens, owners will be under pressure to improve the score, either voluntarily, or by law.

What can you do now?

Take control of energy before a difficult target is dictated to you by regulations. Find ways to make early compliance a competitive advantage.

When you benchmark your buildings, do it accurately. Any methods of gaming the score will disappear sooner or later and a low score is least damaging now.

Think long-term and expect more, not less, reporting requirements. Put systems in place that allow you to track and document important information. Invest in education for staff involved in this process.

While you're measuring energy, you might as well measure carbon, water, indoor air quality, and landfill waste, especially if you own the buildings you're in. Employees and customers care about these things.

Related:

"Revealing Ratings to Validate Value of Energy Efficient Space" - Building Priorities Briefing

"Energy Monitoring" - Energy:Minute

"Codes of Conduct" Sustainable Industries Journal

"Green Building Criteria and Benchmarking Evolving Rapidly in Marketplace" (on ASTM) Bureau of National Affairs newsletter

NBI LEED Study

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By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

Continuous commissioning goes by many names. It's a way of making sure building systems are running at peak efficiency. Learn about it, in a minute. (podcast)

Tweet this: http://bit.ly/Concom

Energy:Minute Podcast

 Listen to the Podcast

Transcript

Continuous commissioning is a way of making sure building systems are running at peak efficiency. The primary goal is to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, but it also provides data that's useful in managing the business.

In the building is a system that gathers hundreds of data points hourly, or even more frequently, and transmits them to a central server. Data analysis software performs fault detection and diagnostics, sometimes alerting facility managers to hidden problems that waste energy and compromise occupant comfort.

For example, air handling units can get stuck in a mode where they're heating and cooling simultaneously. Correcting that would immediately reduce energy waste, sometimes dramatically. Longer term, it reduces wear and maintenance on expensive mechanical equipment.

Continuous commissioning goes by many names, like monitoring-based, or data-based commissioning, or just ongoing energy monitoring. By any name, it's a real energy saver.

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By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

The Telework Improvements Act would allow U.S. government employees to telecommute one day a week.

The Telework Improvements Act was debated in the U.S. House of Representatives last week. If passed, it would put statutory teeth behind a telecommuting policy already in place.

The bill, H.R. 1722, was first introduced more than a year ago. It would allow eligible employees to work from a remote location at least 20 percent of the time. The concept is often termed "telecommuting" or "teleworking."

To "allow" telework is not the same as to "require" it, and easy to circumvent if managers are uncomfortable with workers being out of direct oversight. The bill would mandate more training for managers on supervising teleworkers, and create employee grievance procedures.

Measures in the bill would ensure that teleworkers are not discriminated against in employee performance appraisals and other opportunities. Each agency would need to name a telework managing officer responsible for implementing the bill's requirements.

From an environmental perspective, telecommuting decreases dependence on foreign oil, reduces traffic congestion, leads to better air quality, improves recruitment and retention, and provides a strategy for getting mission-critical work done during emergencies.

Continuity of operations (what the private sector calls "business continuity") is an important benefit of having a strong telecommuting infrastructure. An amendment would require telework and flexible scheduling to be part of emergency plans.

Related reading:

"House debates telework legislation"Government Executive

Washington Watch bill summary

"Go Green with Home Agents" call center white paper (by P5 Group for Avaya)

"What is Green IT? Part 1" Energy Priorities

"View from Washington: Telework bill debated in House today" blog by Wilson Korol of Avaya*

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By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

Great minds like to think. Now over 2,500 energy professionals are connecting with like minds, in our Thought Leaders group.

Membership in our Thought Leaders group has exceeded 2,500. Thought Leaders was formed in late 2007, and has developed into a strong network of smart business leaders, entrepreneurs and investors who share common concerns: energy costs, reliability, climate change and the bottom line.

Group members can see who they know among Energy Priorities readers, and connect with like minds, on LinkedIn.

Members include executives from ABB, FERC, MMA Renewable Ventures, PG&E, US EPA, and Vestas, among many hundreds of other industry influencers from every continent. The ranks also include many startups, investors, journalists, recruiters and policymakers.

Read more about Thought Leaders, or request to join the group.

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By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities

Founding Editor Denis Du Bois looks forward on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.

As Earth Day makes merry on its 40th birthday, we can all celebrate this: Environmentalism is young again, and it means business.

I was a teenager when environmentalism became hip. We can thank my generation for giving meaning to terms like "ecology" and "tree-hugger."

That generation shouted, to CEOs and senators, that the planet mattered. And we sincerely meant it.

We still mean it, but now we're the CEOs and senators, landlords and tenants, judges and consumers. As ties replaced tie-dye, idealism yielded to pragmatism, but we still know our priorities.

We know sustainable energy, done right, is good for our business and our economy.

We are also parents, a daily reminder that we're no longer the inheritors of the planet.

I founded Energy Priorities Magazine on the 34th Earth Day, in 2004. I write and speak about sustainable business from the perspective of a CEO whose children are starting families.

As the magazine enters its seventh year, America is growing up, too. I'm pleased to say that the U.S. is closer to climate legislation than it has ever been.

Businesses must be able to internalize our externalities, without competitive disadvantage. We cannot do that without a price on pollutants, including carbon dioxide.

I watch with some trepidation as our president courts the conventional power industries with a bouquet of subsidies and a box of gourmet drilling permits. I would rather he'd go steady with someone bright and sensible -- the endless supply of clean power from the big nuclear reactor just eight minutes from here, our sun.

Year six saw progress for Energy Priorities. Our "Building Priorities Briefing" podcast series has evolved into a half-hour program distributed by NPR. If your local public radio station doesn't carry it, please e-mail a request to them, or to us. We would like to connect more people with the excellent information in that program.

Speaking of connecting, our "Thought Leaders" energy professionals networking group added its 2,500th member. Subscribers of Energy Priorities are entitled to join free and connect with peers worldwide.

There is a common principle within this magazine and my consulting work: People matter. Everything I create, from radio interviews to marketing white papers, highlights the human element.

The reason is simple. There is a "silver bullet" for our sustainable energy future. It's not an idea, a technology, a kilowatt, a dollar or euro -- it's the people who bring those things together to make a difference. That includes you.

Thanks for reading and listening. Don't keep us a secret. Take a moment now to share this link with a colleague or acquaintance:

http://energypriorities.com/subscribe

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By Denis Du Bois at Energy Priorities