Statewide LG EE Best Practices: Weekly Update

Here are your wEEkly updates:

1. Cap and trade news: On Tuesday, Governor Brown announced a plan led by the California Air Resources Board (ARB) to extend cap-and-trade beyond its current expiration in 2020, to 2050. Read the plan, or get overviews from Utility Dive and the Los Angeles Times.

2. AB 802/Benchmarking Developments: California Energy Commission (CEC) staff will conduct a public workshop to seek input on staff’s proposed draft regulations to implement the building energy use data access, benchmarking, and public disclosure provisions of Assembly Bill 802.

3. AB 802 Background: A prior CEC workshop on this was March 25th; a partial recap is available here. (Refresher on AB 802 available here.)

4. NBI’s October ZNE Forum: the New Buildings Institute’s “Getting to Zero” Zero Net Energy Forum this October 12th-14th. Click to learn more about topics and speakers, and register.

5. EE Coordinating Committee Updates: The CA EE Coordinating Committee (CAEECC) had their 7th meeting this week. The agenda, meeting documents, and how to participate in future meetings is available in this CAEECC Update summary.

6. $20M Available from Federal AgenciesLooking for funding? More than $20 million is available to state, local and tribal governments for climate change health impacts, coastal ecosystem resiliency, clean diesel, and climate and agriculture projects.

7. EE management motivators for business: Promoting energy management to your business community? This Environmental Leader article shares some leading reasons that the private sector is deepening their engagement in energy management - including market volatility, cost savings and public interest in sound climate and energy policies.

8. New technologies for ZNE: The California Energy Commission approved six grants July 13th focused on energy efficiency with $8 million awarded for technologies and measures designed to achieve zero net energy (ZNE) in new affordable housing and multifamily and commercial buildings.

9. More on zero net energy: At this year’s SEEC Forum, we asked California’s cities and counties to share with us how they are using innovative technologies to find deep energy savings in their buildings – and it turned out speakers wanted to speak to using technology and design to push toward a zero net energy goal. Learn more about their best practices shared in this CURRENTS article (and get a link to watch their Forum presentations online!).

10. Reaching the EJ Community: A number of cities are deepening their focus on environmental justice issues through the use of target “green zone” neighborhoods. Learn more about best practices in the use of green zones at this Statewide Green Zones Convening event July 28th in Los Angeles.

11. More on environmental justice and EE: For more on environmental justice best practices, see this recent CURRENTS article highlighting best practices shared by California EJ leaders (including why EE is a foundational EJ community engagement resource).

12. Sonoma and Woodlake Solar: Congratulations to Sonoma County and Tulare County’s Woodlake Unified School District for the approval of California Energy Commission (CEC) loans to install solar photovoltaics (PV) in their buildings.

13. Benefits from DERs: A new study overseen by the CEC in partnership with Southern California Edison finds over $300 million in benefits from distributed energy resources (DERs) in the San Joaquin Valley.

14. Job announcement: The San Luis Obispo County Department of Planning & Building is offering an exciting career opportunity for Senior Planner in the Energy unit. Learn more here.

15. Job announcements: The City of Chula Vista is inviting applications for the positions of Senior Conservation Specialist and Recycling Specialist I. Get descriptions, and links to apply here.

As always, you can keep track of relevant events by connecting to the EE Events Calendar, and find more resources being added daily on the EECoordinator website – including past WEEkly Updates.




That’s all for this week!