A new study reports that most heat pumps in the UK are not performing as intended.
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Author Archives: Anna LaRue
The Next Million Acre Feet of Water
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Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
The Pacific Institute has released a report on how to find the next million acre feet of water in California. As with energy in California, which now has the “loading order”, the conclusion is that conservation and efficiency efforts can achieve water savings for less cost than building new or expanding existing supplies.
An overview of some of the water-efficient practices discussed in the report:
Water savings are available through a wide variety of water-efficient practices in the urban and agricultural sectors. In the urban sector this includes replacing old, inefficient devices with high-efficiency models, as well as lawn conversion, residential metering, and rate structures that better communicate the value of water. In the agricultural sector, best water management practices include weather-based irrigation scheduling, regulated deficit irrigation, and switching from gravity or flood irrigation to sprinkler or drip irrigation systems. Here, we focus on well documented, cost-effective approaches that are already being used in California. We emphasize efficiency improvements rather than behavioral changes because the latter are less easily quantified. Nonetheless, experience in Australia, Colorado, and California in recent years shows that changing water use behavior can also provide very fast and inexpensive savings in emergencies, with long-term benefits.
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A full copy of the report can be found here.
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Plug Load
This post is part of our definitions series on “eco-lingo” and technical terms.
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A plug load is basically any piece of equipment or electronics that plugs into an outlet in a building, including televisions, cell phone chargers, laptops, entertainment equipment, and blenders. Larger appliances are often considered to be a separate category, but are sometimes also categorized as plug loads.
When designing a building to meet code, or to estimate energy use, designers generally take major building systems, such as lighting and HVAC, and major appliances, such as refrigeration and wet cleaning equipment, into account. But it is much harder to estimate all the plug loads that buildings occupants will bring with them. And plug loads have been increasing over time as people accumulate gadgets and equipment. As the other loads in a building are driven down through increased equipment efficiency, optimized controls, and behavioral changes, plug loads are a sizeable percentage of the remaining load.
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There have been a number of efforts to regulate the efficiency of certain plug loads – California approved television efficiency standards in 2009.
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Martin Holladay, at GreenBuildingAdvisor.com, describes the importance of taking plug loads into account when calculating building energy use in a post here.
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A California Plug-Load Energy Efficiency Center is being planned and will be hosted by the University of California, Irvine. My understanding is that it will be modeled after the California Lighting Technology Center and the Western Cooling Efficiency Center, both located at UC Davis.
A pdf of the PowerPoint slides from the planning workshop can be read here.
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What exactly does “sustainability” mean? How about “green”, “eco” or “environmentally friendly”? The truth is that these terms are just vague enough to mean many different things to many different people. With the staggering array of “green” products, ‘lifestyles’ and concepts being promoted by marketers and environmentalists alike (as well as the necessary coining of new terms to match new ideas) our definition series aims to make sense of the rising tide of “eco-lingo” and technical terms.
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Upcoming Bay Area Events
A few (free!) events that I thought would be of interest to Zero Resource readers. If you know of other events you think folks might be interested in, let me know at anna AT zeroresource DOT com.
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September 22, 2010
CPUC Thought Leaders event – Dr. Peter Fox-Penner, The Brattle Group
10:30 am – 12:00 pm @ the CPUC Auditorium, 505 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco
The Brattle Group provides consulting and expert testimony in economics, finance, and regulation to corporations, law firms, and governments around the world. Mr. Fox-Penner is recognized as an international authority on energy and environmental policies and electric regulatory planning and competition issues. He will discuss his vision for electric utilities as described in his new book, Smart Power: Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities. This will include business models that reflect the new roles and abilities required of utilities adopting Smart Grid technology: balancing and dispatch of energy across a changing grid and management of advanced end-use technologies for energy consumption. According to Dr. Fox-Penner, adopting and adapting to these changes will be one of the primary challenges the industry will face for the next 20 years.
More information and links to register here.
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October 1-2, 2010
The Philomathia Foundation Symposium at Berkeley: Pathways to a Sustainable Energy Future
9:00 am – 5:00 pm both days @ Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Berkeley
Can we emulate the ability of green plants to harness solar energy? Can we create intelligent materials, buildings, and even entire communities that generate their own energy? Can we put a price on greenhouse gases in order to reduce emissions? Can the technology used to produce an inexpensive anti-malaria drug also extract fuel from agricultural waste?
Hear world-renowned experts in solar energy, synthetic biology, climate science, urban design, and other critical areas discuss the best courses of action to achieve a sustainable energy future.
More info and links to register here.
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October 11, 2010
Science at the Theater – Cool Cities, Cool Planet, featuring Art Rosenfeld
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm @ Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Berkeley
How can white roofs cool your building, your city…and our planet? What’s the role of the other carbon – black carbon – in global warming?
More information here.
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Links – Water and Energy
Alex Wilson, of BuildingGreen, has written two blogs posts recently that I think will be of interest to Zero Resource readers…I’ve posted snippets, but I recommend reading the entire original posts.
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Saving Energy by Conserving Water
Averaged statewide , roughly 5% of California’s electricity is used for moving and treating water and wastewater. (The oft-quoted figure of 19% includes water heating and other things we do with water in homes, businesses, and farms.) But these figures vary widely in different parts of the state. A 2005 report from the California Energy Commission found supply and conveyance of water to range in intensity from 0 to 16,000 kilowatt-hours per million gallons (kWh/MG), while filtration and treatment varied from 100 to 1,500 kWh/MG, distribution varied from 700 to 1,200 kWh/MG, and wastewater collection and treatment varied from 1,100 to 5,000 kWh/MG. Not surprisingly, average totals are far higher in southern California (12,700 kWh/MG) than in northern California (3,950 kWh/MG).
Saving Water by Conserving Energy
By weighting thermoelectric and hydroelectric power generation sources, the NREL report calculated an average water-intensity of electricity in the U.S. to be 2.0 gal/kWh. So if you use 500 kWh per month, that’s requiring, on average, 1,000 gallons of water.
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Peter Darbee, CEO of PG&E – Part 3
4On Tuesday, August 31, I was in the audience at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley as Peter Darbee, CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., responded to moderator questions about the energy industry and the company’s stance on climate change.
The post below consists of Part 3, the final part, of my record of the conversation – all portions are included in chronological order. Read the previous posts on the conversation – Part 1 and Part 2.
An ellipsis (…) indicates that I was not able to capture the words or thoughts skipped. Moderator questions are paraphrased. Responses are included as accurately as possible – punctuation choices are mine. The moderators were Bev Alexander (BA) and Joey, a student.
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Joey
SmartMeters – I saw your talk at the CPUC – there were protesters saying Dumb Meters. Talk about the backlash.
Peter Darbee
In California, there has been a tier system of rates… Tiers depend on how much power you use. Originally the tiers were not so steep…all of the rate changes have been amplified in tiers 3-5. In Bakersfield last year…had 17 days over 100 degrees. The previous year had 6… And I’m talking about in July. So folks get rocketed into the higher tiers. There were some folks who didn’t have SmartMeters… Some had SmartMeters for a year and hadn’t had issues until that July… Then they held hearings… And this whole outcome is an inadvertant result of government, freezing the first 2 tiers.
… … ….
… But PG&E could have done better at communications… We kind of assumed they were infrastructure… We assumed that people didn’t give a lot of thought about the meters on the side of the house… We were wrong.
Bev Alexander
In California, it’s a very activist state – you came out in support of AB 32, PG&E advocated decoupling, used to support shareholder incentives for energy efficiency, has a very aggressive RPS at 33% – combined with the federal level, there’s potential for overlapping and conflicting mandates – what works? Why these positions?
Peter Darbee
I’ve done a lot of thinking about climate change…and where is the public on climate change…and they have concerns it may happen…but they don’t want to pay a lot…have to be very attentive to the cost concerns of our customers. What this says is energy efficiency is a no brainer.
…AB 32 envisions a cap and trade system…time to transition to cleaner technologies…for utilities benefits pass through to customers.
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Climate change is a planetary issue, and if a state rigs the system to help themselves, it gets expensive… If we do it in a very expensive way, the people of Ca will revolt, and it will set us back tremendously.
Joey
How did you teach your kids about energy efficiency? What advice do you have for future leaders on climate change?
Peter Darbee
The kids would leave the lights on, the stereo on…in every single room… I instituted a policy that if you leave the lights on, and you’re not in the room, it’s 25 cents…went up as they got older… We now have kids that are tremendously concerned about the environment…
The challenge of climate change will fall more greatly on you and your children…
Write your obituary… The way you create transformational change is you put a stake in the ground for the future…an attractive future…then plan from future back to present. You have a choice.
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This exchange was followed by a question and answer session with the audience.
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A Quote
R.K. Stewart, 2007 AIA President, addressing an audience of mostly architecture students at UC Berkeley:
I like to remind myself and my clients that just meeting code means it’s the worst building I’m legally allowed to build.
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Peter Darbee, CEO of PG&E – Part 2
5On Tuesday, August 31, I was in the audience at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley as Peter Darbee, CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., responded to moderator questions about the energy industry and the company’s stance on climate change.
The post below consists of Part 2 of my record of the conversation – all portions are included in chronological order. Read Part 1 here.
An ellipsis (…) indicates that I was not able to capture the words or thoughts skipped. Moderator questions are paraphrased. Responses are included as accurately as possible – punctuation choices are mine. The moderators were Bev Alexander (BA) and Joey, a student.
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Joey
I want to go back to a shareholder value article in the Wall Street Journal – a professor from Michigan says we should focus exclusively on profit. Why worry about corporate responsibility?
Peter Darbee
I used to have that view – I lived and breathed Milton Friedman… It’s tragic that more people haven’t continued the journey of being realistic… What [the professor] is saying is that if you maximize profit each quarter…line up the quarters…then that will maximize profit forever… But you cut back on expenditures that are needed… There’s such a time between when policies are set and it comes home to roost…
I want to make sure PG&E is here 100 years from now and I’m setting up good people and good culture…
I couldn’t disagree with that teacher more…it’s rubbish.
Bev Alexander
The direction the industry is headed will call for a lot of innovation. How are you shifting the culture? How will the utilities integrate new technology?
Peter Darbee
Utilities have been very conservatively run and prone to not changing…but the environment is of new technology and changing regulation… You could say the risk is that utilities won’t change quickly enough… … Utilities react to their commissions…can be punished for change… … Our commission has been open to change and promoted change…
How do we create innovation? An organization is the shadow of its leader…and of the leaders that have come before… The people who have the best ideas are the people closest to the work…want to create an environment for trial and looking into things.
We had an opportunity to invest in solar in space…structure the risk…so that we only pay for the power if it’s delivered…ensure that they are abiding by the rules of government. The two principle objections went away.
Bev Alexander
Other technology you’re working with – robust energy efficiency, electric cars, renewables – what are the most important? What are choke points on the grid that need to be addressed?
Peter Darbee
… If we’re going to deal with the carbon problem, we’re going to need all the tools in the arsenal…nuclear, renewables, the first fuel should always be energy efficiency, demand management, carbon capture and sequestration… We’re going to need chips on all the squares… What’s scary is we need a lot from each…from energy efficiency to renewables.
… We’re going to need nuclear… I know a lot of people aren’t keen on nuclear… The storage issue is far less than the challenge of climate change.
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Part 1 was posted yesterday. Part 3 will be posted on Monday.
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Assorted Links
Peter Darbee, CEO of PG&E – Part 1
4On Tuesday, August 31, I was in the audience at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley as Peter Darbee, CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., responded to moderator questions about the energy industry and the company’s stance on climate change.
The post below consists of Part 1 of my record of the conversation – all portions are included in chronological order.
An ellipsis (…) indicates that I was not able to capture the words or thoughts skipped. Moderator questions are paraphrased. Responses are included as accurately as possible – punctuation choices are mine. The moderators were Bev Alexander (BA) and Joey, a student.
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Bev Alexander
Over the last decade, you’ve led the industry through major turmoil…
Peter Darbee
I go different places, around the world and country, and I hear that a utility gets a guaranteed return, so anyone can run that place. Then why were we in financial distress ten years ago?
What’s happening in the industry is very dynamic…deregulation, reregulation…customer choice provides opportunity for others to take over…When government dramatically changes rules, there’s a mad scramble. And there’s the introduction of new technology all the time…these are disruptive technologies. This demands the most of management…
Bev Alexander
You’ve distinguished yourself on the issue of climate change…but you’re a business leader. Why is this a top priority?
Peter Darbee
You have to talk to your conscience. On January 1, 2005, I thought about the awesome responsibility of running a huge company… The question of climate change came up…
How would you feel if you were running this huge company and it had a dramatically negative impact on the planet?… How could you live with yourself if…you did not do everything you could to mitigate your impact?
Also, I owe a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders…so need to reconcile the two. So if we emit as much carbon as we can, and someone sues…the questions could be a problem… I have to do everything I can within the context of my role to reduce carbon emissions… We learned as much as we could about the issue and tried to change the industry… So what we did is called together some of the greatest scientists…put together top people in the country…tried to get to the bottom of the issue…came up with the statement “The earth is warming, mankind is responsible, and the time for action is now.”
Joey
I read your paper on climate change, but other folks in the audience might be concerned – why aren’t other companies on board?
Peter Darbee
… … … Why other companies don’t feel the same way… They love to moan, and say it’ll be horrible if we have to make that change… Folks at PG&E complained 30 years ago about decoupling… Everyone overreacts and creates a boogeyman… But this issue has become so political that we can’t have a conversation about it…and this is true in my own family.
… … I’ve never known anything good to happen when people are screaming at each other…and have lost the ability to listen.
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Part 2 will be posted tomorrow. Part 3 will be posted on Monday.
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