For the second year in a row, the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) is a recipient of the ENERGY STAR partner of the Year award. Each year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) selects organizations, from its more than 17,000 program partners, to be recognized for their leadership, accomplishments and commitment to energy efficiency.

Energy Efficiency Pays

LIPA was recognized for its Home Performance Direct program, which targets high energy using customers who have central air conditioning systems or electric heating systems. Customers are eligible for a free Comprehensive Home Assessment to determine what improvements would be the most cost effective, and if they decide to implement recommendations they can receive up to $3,000 in rebates. Energy efficiency improvements that are included in the program are: insulation, air sealing, duct sealing, domestic water demand reduction measures, and installation or upgrades of ventilation systems.
Improving the energy efficiency of our homes and commercial buildings is the best and most cost-effective way to cut energy costs and reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, said Gordian Raacke, Executive Director of the not-for-profit organization Renewable Energy Long Island. We congratulate LIPA to its successful ENERGY STAR program and getting the award for the second year in a row.

Giving Back to the Community

In 2010, LIPA identified homeowners most in need of energy efficiency work and delivered comprehensive services at no cost to over 1,500 customers through its Home Performance Direct pilot program. Due to generous LIPA rebates, 930 Long Island homeowners also completed projects under the Home Performance with ENERGY STAR program. The combination of these completed projects resulted in 1.64 MWs of energy savings, enough energy to power over 300 homes for a year.
LIPA is a nonprofit public power utility delivering electricity to nearly 1.1 million customers in Nassau and Suffolk counties and the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, New York.

The Results are In!

Last fall, the American Public Power Association (APPA) distributed a survey to its members requesting information on their energy efficiency (EE) and demand-side management (DSM) programs. While APPA analysts found some changes to the responses they received from a similar survey completed in 2008, overall the trends stayed consistent - energy efficiency is an essential element in a utilities' portfolio and an important customer service.

In addition to demonstrating public powers'commitment to energy efficiency, the survey gives public power utilities a unique opportunity to see what programs their peers utilities find effective, and consequently helps program managers evaluate how best to allocate their EE and DSM resources.

So What Were the Most Popular Programs?

While the utilities surveyed rated lighting programs as the second most cost-effective in reducing peak demand, they ranked lighting first for providing customer satisfaction.

Conversely, load management programs were rated as the most cost-effective way to reduce peak demand; however, one of the least popular programs with customers. This suggests utilities could benefit from identifying ways to better educate customers about the benefits they enjoy from load management programs, such as more reliable electric service.

Over ninety percent of responding utilities that offer an EE incentive program also provide customer education through bill stuffers, newsletters, school programs, internet, community fairs, etc. Many cited that education programs were critical to the success of their EE/DSM programs. However, the survey also suggested education programs alone are insufficient at delivering significant energy savings; in fact, respondents ranked education as the least cost-effective way to reduce energy use and peak demand.

Improving Transmission and Distribution

Beyond offering customer EE/DSM programs, 77 percent of utilities surveyed report that they are also improving efficiency by upgrading their transmission and distribution systems. The potential savings from these efforts are substantial because industry-wide averages indicate as much as 10 percent of electricity can be lost in transmission.

Are these results similar to what you have found in your energy efficiency programs? Share your thoughts with the with your peers by commenting below.

For more inforamtion visit, www.publicpower.org

The Energy Providers Coalition for Education (EPCE) has collaborated with energy industry and education partners to launch a new online course to provide training for electric power industry workers in clean energy solutions and smart grid deployment.

The course, "Renewable Energy Sources and the Smart Grid," will explore the function, operation and vision of the smart grid, electricity production from renewable sources and communication, and automation and control through the use of technologies including smart meters, AMR/ANI and distribution automation.

These courses will provide critical workforce preparedness training for thousands of current and future employees of electric power utilities engaged in deploying smart grid technologies.

This course is the first in a series of three. The other two courses are "Operation Considerations for the Smart Grid" and "Impact of the Smart Grid" and will be developed and delivered over the next three years as part of a Department of Energy (DOE) grant. All the courses require approximately 10 to 12 hours to complete, and students can access the online courses at anytime.

Several hundred EPCE partner company employees have already enrolled in the course, which is now available to any interested students for a fee. For more information and to register for the course, visit here.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed two rules for regulating air pollutants that will affect public power utilities. The Transport Rule is slated to go into effect in 2012 and the Utility Maximum Available Control Technology Rule (MACT) is undergoing a 15 month discussion period.

The Transport Rule aims to significantly improve air quality by requiring 31 Eastern states and the District of Columbia to reduce power plant emissions of pollutants that cross state lines and impact downwind states. EPA is in the process of writing the Utility MACT rule, a draft of the rule is due in March and the final rule should be published by November 2011. After the rule is finalized coal and oil-fired power plants will have three years to meet a compliance deadline of November 2014.

It is likely that under Utility MACT the EPA will expand the number of hazardous air pollutants for which power plants will have to install control technology. Pollutants to be regulated might include mercury, non-mercury trace metals, acid gases, dioxins and furans, and non D/F organic compounds. There has been further speculation of what will be covered by this rule, but utilities will have to wait until March to know what the regulations will entail.

Proposed Regulations Could Cost Up to $180 Billion and Shut Down 70,000 Megawatts of Capacity in Coal-Fired Power Plants

Two reports were released recently by The Brattle Group and FBR Capital Markets. The Brattle Group found that the proposed regulations could cost the power industry more than $180 billion and force up to 50,000 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired power plants to retire in the coming years. According to the authors, the number of power plants that will retire will depend largely on the price of natural gas and the severity of proposed emissions reduction rules.

FBR Capital Markets' analysis differed from the Brattle Group. The report projects that the regulations will cost the industry more than $80 billion and up to 70,000 MW would be retired. FBR predicts that utilities will install emissions control equipment in larger coal plants and replace smaller units with natural gas-fired combined cycle turbines.

The Brattle Group concluded that these regulations will not affect all utilities equally. This map shows the regions where the most retirements are predicted. Furthermore, regulated utilities could see revenues increase. According to the FBR report capital investments could increase net income by 2 to 3 percent. The companies will pass the costs of capital investments and a state-approved percentage increase onto customers.

The Brattle Group finds that roughly a third of the retirements will be from power plants that are less than 40 years old and larger than 500 MW, resulting in significant challenges for the coal industry as a whole if the EPA regulations pass as expected. They further note that other studies had projected that mostly old and small coal units are at risk for retirement.

Compliance Should Not Affect Reliability of Electric System and Could Cut CO2 emissions by 7%

An analysis by Charles River Associates (CRA) on the effect of these power plant retirements on system reliability found that the number of projected coal plant retirements is relatively small compared to historical net additions of generation capacity. Utilities have a strong record of expanding generation capacity at a rate well in excess of projected needs.

CRA's analysis found that natural gas generation is a cost effective alternative to coal plants and gas facilities have historically been planned, permitted, and constructed in short periods of time. The report concludes that the industry can comply with EPA regulations without comprising the reliability of the electric system.

The Brattle study projects that coal demand would be reduced by about 15% by 2020 and natural gas demand could increase by up to 10%. If all of the lost generation from coal plants were replaced by gas-fired combined-cycle generating plants, CO2 emissions could fall by 150 million tons per year, or approximately 7% of all CO2 emissions from the electric power sector.

Do You Know Someone Who Has Furthered the Cause of Energy Efficiency?

Nominate them now! The Alliance to Save Energy is accepting nominations for the 2011 Star of Energy Efficiency Awards in the following categories:

2011 Star of Energy Efficiency Awards

• Charles Percy Award for Public Service
  Recognizes an individual for an outstanding public service contribution and/or a lifetime commitment to EE.

• "Galaxy" Star of Energy Efficiency
  Recognizes outstanding achievements in EE for entities earning more than $150 million in annual revenue.

• "Super Nova" Star of Energy Efficiency
  Recognizes outstanding achievements in EE for entities earning less than $150 million in annual revenue.

• "Andromeda" Star of Energy Efficiency
  Recognizes outstanding achievements in EE for entities earning less than $10 million in annual revenue.

• "I-Star" Award for Energy Efficiency
  Recognizes the outstanding contributions to EE achieved through special projects or activities overseas that are led by nominees based outside of U.S. territories.

• "Innovative" Star of Energy Efficiency Award
  Recognizes an emerging technology or service that has the potential to transform a sector of the EE market but which, given the early stage of the innovation, has yet to generate proven savings.

Final deadline for all nominations is Wednesday, March 23, 2011.

It looks like energy-efficiency incentives for consumers will survive the final version of the tax bill that President Obama is expected to sign into law later today. The incentives will be a return to the pre-stimulus credit levels that were expanded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The energy efficiency incentives, which will be in effect during calendar year 2011, consist of a federal income tax credit of up to $500 for homeowners who make certain energy-efficiency home improvements. This is a return to the pre-stimulus incentive structure in effect in 2006 and 2007, which limits the tax credit for "building envelope" materials - including insulation, sealing products, certain types of roofs and energy-efficient windows - to 10 percent of their cost. Windows are subject, also, to a flat $200 limit.

The bill also incorporates these dollar limits for other types of energy efficiency upgrades, which are not subject to the 10 percent criterion:

• $50 for an advanced main air circulating fan (for an HVAC system);
• $150 for certain natural gas, oil and propane furnaces and hot water boilers; and
• $300 for energy efficient building property, a category that includes electric heat pumps; natural gas, propane or oil water heaters; central air conditioners; electric heat pump water heaters; and biomass stoves for heating or water heating.

H.R. 4853 also:

• Extends the new homes tax credit for home builders(in order to qualify, new homes must use 50 percent less energy than a typical home for heating and cooling); and
• Extends and modifies the tax credit for manufacturers of certain energy-efficient appliances.

Vice President Biden recently announced a three-pronged federal initiative designed to create green jobs in the home improvement sector while helping U.S. homeowners save money through energy efficiency.
The two-year pilot program is designed to overcome several barriers that have hindered the development of a strong home energy retrofit market:

• lack of information about a home's energy use and the benefits of energy efficiency upgrades;
• uncertainty about the qualifications of workers in the home energy field;
• lack of financing for sometimes costly energy efficiency measures.

These new programs can complement efficiency incentive programs that utilities already have in place. The USDA Rural Development is partnering with the Department of Energy and rural electric cooperatives in pilot programs to increase participation and improve home energy efficiency in rural America.

MPG for Your Home?

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has introduced a Home Energy Score, which it likens to a miles per gallon (mpg) rating for homes.
Trained and certified contractors will use a standardized assessment tool developed by DOE and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to score a home's energy use on a scale of 1-10, estimate how much money could be saved by making energy retrofits and generate a customized list of recommended improvements with the annual savings and estimated payback time for each one.
DOE said the Home Energy Score initially will be tested with local government, utility and nonprofit partners in 10 pilot communities across the country, located in both urban and rural areas and with a wide range of climates.

A New Financing Option for Home Improvement

Homeowners will have access to affordable federally insured loans of up to $25,000 from private lenders with the new Power Saver Loan program. Homeowners will be able to use the loans to finance the home improvements of their choice including insulation, duct sealing and efficient doors, windows, HVAC systems and water heaters - based on a list of proven, cost-effective measures developed by FHA and DOE. For more information, click here.

Training Workers for Green Jobs

The third component of the three-part initiative is development of a uniform set of national guidelines for training residential retrofit workers. DOE said the guidelines are intended to give consumers confidence that work is being completed correctly and generating the expected savings.
This program provides training for entrepreneurs who are looking to enter the home energy retrofit market, including free business counseling and assistance for those seeing to enter the energy efficiency market. More information can be found here.

CEEP wants to know how these new federal programs will affect you. Please leave a comment and let us know.

Amid increasing demand for energy, those working to transform the existing U.S. electric grid into a smart grid are taking a vested interest in Automated Demand Response (Auto-DR) technology. Auto-DR can improve electric grid reliability and reduce electricity costs by preventing costly outages and reducing average electricity prices. However, the Auto-DR technology is not effective in a vacuum or without a standardized information exchange for both price and reliability signals. That's where the proposed standard called Open Auto-DR (OpenADR) comes in.

Many of your utilities likely already incentivize building and facility owners to participate in Auto-DR programs. That is, during peak periods (typically hot summer days), you send signals to major energy users; including residential and commercial buildings, public and government facilities, and industrial plants. The signals, which link to pre-programmed control strategies, automatically shed end-use equipment loads to reduce the grid scale electric power, temporarily bringing down peak demand.

One of the persistent issues with Auto-DR programs however is that utilities, facilities and other entities use different communication signals for their demand response systems. For several years now, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been working on a standardized communication specification to address the many "languages" spoken by the systems along the electric grid.

Auto-DR and OpenADR

Released as the "OpenADR Communications Specifications" by Berkeley Lab in 2009, OpenADR can be used universally among different utility and grid operators, buildings and industrial facilities, and new and emerging DR markets. This "open" capability automates response signals between utility companies and consumers, using the Internet to interoperate with different energy devices for a speedy and reliable response.

The OpenADR specification uses open, non-proprietary, industry-approved data models any interested party can develop products around it, Mary Ann Piette, research director of Berkeley Lab's Demand Response Research Center, said in a press release.

The Road to an OpenADR-Enabled Smart Grid

Berkeley Lab started developing OpenADR in 2002. Funded by the California Energy Commission Public Interest Energy Research program, Piette and her team of researchers brought the OpenADR specification to the attention of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which last year selected OpenADR as one of the first smart grid standards for demand response and distributed energy resources and incorporated OpenADR into its smart grid interoperability standards roadmap.

Berkeley Lab recently received new government and state grants to advance OpenADR outside of California. And in May 2010, Honeywell joined Southern California Edison as partners in advancing Auto-DR using OpenADR as part of a DOE Smart Grid Investment Grant.

"Many major controls companies, utilities, and grid systems operators have deployed OpenADR-based programs that reduce peak electric demand by tens of megawatts," Piette said in a Berkeley Lab newsletter. She noted that manufacturers across the nation are bringing OpenADR to the marketplace through products that link to the power grid and provide ADR capabilities to homes, offices and industries.

Currently, California is OpenADR's largest consumer, and is followed by Seattle, New York, Florida and Nevada, as well as some parts of Canada. Internationally, countries such as India and South Korea have inquired about using OpenADR for their evolving power grids, said Girish Ghatikar, a program manager at Berkeley Lab who oversees OpenADR standards development, as well as other energy-related technologies.

Becoming a Standard

Berkeley Lab researchers believe that OpenADR will become widely adopted as building equipment and control manufacturers develop smart grid-friendly products that speak the same language. "Once power operators and building systems abide by a standard communication language, technologies, facility managers and commercial/industrial utility customers can more easily integrate with OpenADR electric grid programs and ultimately generate lower cost, faster and more reliable demand response that is scalable," Ghatikar said.

OpenADR's implementers face the challenge of educating facility managers about how to use demand response, as well as how to incorporate building tune-ups and power consumption and performance measurement to facilitate optimal energy management. However, developers are confident that OpenADR will become a standard language for smart grid technology products and systems.

"Controls and manufacturing companies are getting much more interested in how to improve energy efficiency and how to participate in demand response programs," according to Piette. "As we measure performance better and put in place more controls that can give us feedback on what our HVAC and lighting systems are doing, we will get better at DR and get better at energy efficiency," she added.

In October 2010, an industry-represented alliance called OpenADR Alliance was formed under leadership of Berkeley Lab, Honeywell, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and Southern California Edison to advance OpenADR standards and its conformance activities among various stakeholders.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory released an Oct. 12 report examining a question that we at the Alliance work to answer daily: How can we persuade the American public to invest in energy efficiency? From the Alliance's perspective, the answer should be a no-brainer: Energy efficiency tends to pay for itself, saving consumers money over time. Yet, most homeowners don't buy into the idea that the easiest place to save money is their monthly energy bills.

To find out what really motivates consumers to save energy, Berkeley Lab researchers examined more than a dozen residential energy efficiency programs and identified the best program design, implementation and evaluation approaches.

Information is not enough

The average U.S. household spends $180 per month almost $2,200 a year on energy bills. For cash-strapped American households, energy efficiency would be an easy way to save money. But giving out information is not enough to get people to act, according to the Berkeley Lab report. In fact, the report found that consumers who strongly support energy conservation are no more likely than the average person to actually save energy, even if given more information. So how, during these tough economic times, do we convince Americans that investing in energy efficiency home improvements is a better, worthwhile, financially smart decision for their household?

Find What Resonates

The report argues that programs must find what matters to the typical American and discuss energy efficiency in those terms. Even people who don't believe in climate change care about saving money, increasing comfort, improving their health and ensuring U.S. energy security. This finding reflects an October New York Times piece, In Kansas, Climate Skeptics Embrace Cleaner Energy, which shows that Americans continue to question the existence of human-caused climate change:

Only 48 percent of people in the Midwest agree with the statement that there is solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer, a poll conducted in the fall of 2009 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed far fewer than in other regions of the country.

The article describes a nonprofit organization in Kansas that got Kansans who don't necessarily believe or worry about climate change to cut their energy use by as much as 5 percent. They did it by speaking to the residents basic concerns:

Many lamented the nation's dependence on foreign oil. Some articulated an amorphous desire, often based in religious values, to protect the earth. Some even spoke of changes in the natural world - birds arriving weeks earlier in the spring than they had before...

The example speaks to another suggestion in the Berkeley Lab report of relying on a trusted messenger, such as alocal group, in discussing energy efficiency. The report also notes that consumers are motivated through programs that involve competition with their neighbors or that stress community engagement.

Use Words Consumers Already Know

A lot of us in Washington throw around acronyms and jargon, forgetting how to speak to the public. We use terms like building envelope, peak load, procurement and recommissioning. The Berkeley Lab report reminds us that we must use ordinary language to sell consumers on energy efficiency.

For instance, words like "retrofit" and "audit" aren't everyday words for the American public. So, we should say home energy "improvements" or "upgrades" instead of retrofits, and energy "assessments" instead of audits.

Get in Bed with Contractors

The Berkeley Lab report makes an often overlooked point that contractors are the ultimate salespeople for energy efficiency. So, energy efficiency programs should cooperate closely with the actual "boots on the ground." Supporting this point, Karen Barnes from the Shelton Group tells a story about how her parents learned to replace an old furnace:

The contractor was their main source of information about what unit to purchase, what rebates and incentives were available and how best to use their new equipment.

They didn't go to a big box home improvement store. They didn't look on the web. They didn't ask their friends. They asked Tim.

Of course, undertrained, unreliable and incompetent contractors can ruin a worthwhile program's ability to attract new participants and save energy, as a story on a botched weatherization in Alabama demonstrates.

Building Trust for Efficiency

Ultimately, the Berkeley Lab report tells us what we already know: To help Americans save energy, they need to hear about efficiency from sources they trust, in words they understand, about topics they care about. In Washington, we trust our academic peers and are comfortable speaking in cold rationality.

Elsewhere in America, people are more likely to believe their neighbors and contractors than intangible savings estimates, and to speak in words deeply rooted in personal experience.

Building trust in energy efficiency may take as many different approaches as there are cultures in our country. What works in one place may not in others, so we need to tailor support for each place.

What gets you to turn off the lights when you leave your bedroom? Or buy those spiral, energy-saving CFLs for your lamps? It's probably a belief that you should do it, and a feeling that you want to. How you got to that point of action - that moment when you decided to save energy - charged the fourth annual Behavior, Energy and Climate Change (BECC) Conference Nov. 14-17.

The BECC Conference was convened by the University of CaliforniaInstitute for Energy and Environment, Stanford University'sPrecourt Energy Efficiency Center, and theAmerican Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Despite the energy-insider hosts, the conference's 250+ speakers shared best practices from outside the environmental nonprofit world on what motivates people to change their energy-saving behavior. Several Alliance staff members attended. Their top takeaway: The energy community can only spread energy-saving habits by keeping the message simple.

Speak Your Audience's Language

The sold-out conference, which brought more than 700 participants to Sacramento, explored how individuals and organizations make decisions, and what leaders in the energy movement can do to accelerate our transition to an energy-efficient and low carbon economy, as said in a BECC release.

To really change behavior, you've got to tailor your message to your audience, said U.S. Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Office Director Col. Robert "Brutus" Charette, Jr. in a presentation. The Marine Corps created the Energy Office last year because Col. Charette demonstrated that combat effectiveness depends on energy efficiency.

To the armed forces, messages about saving the environment or money pale in comparison to messages about saving lives, Col. Charette said. In fact, one soldier gets wounded for every 50 water and fuel convoys across Afghanistan. The Energy Office now tells soldiers they are more likely to come home alive with tactics that save water and fuel. Results? The Marine Corps is set to halve the amount of fuel needed per marine by 2025.

Feature Your Desired Behavior

Take it from a psychology professor: Images of a behavior make observers more likely to do the behavior themselves, whether they see the behavior in their family members or on TV. So, a commercial that shows people littering only makes littering more popular - even if the commercial shows someone crying about it, according to a presentation by Robert Cialdini, a psychology and marketing professor at Arizona State University.

Cialdini recommends that organizations seeking to make energy-saving behaviors an everyday habit for the masses should broadcast images of people actively saving energy - and enjoying it.

Calls for Collaboration

In addition to discussing the hundreds of studies and programs that get consumers to save energy, the BECC presenters called for greater collaboration between themselves and the organizations they represent. Energy efficiency program leaders and researchers could collaborate through an online clearinghouse for best practices, said D&R International Market Researcher Steve Bickel in a Q&A after a presentation on incentives for energy-efficient appliances. A central hub for the energy industry's spokes could keep organizations on the same page as the industry seeks to make energy conservation more tangible and enticing to consumers, he added.

Although such a broad clearinghouse has yet to be created, you can view the presentations from the BECC conference now.