Statewide LG EE Best Practices: Weekly Update

Here are your wEEkly updates:

1. SB 350 Barriers Study: A California Energy Commission workshop on low-income barriers to accessing the energy efficiency and renewable energy goals of SB 350 is going on this morning!

2. San Joaquin Valley Clean Transportation Summit 10/19: Save the Date! The San Joaquin Valley Clean Transportation Summit, featuring a full day of speakers and breakout sessions on electric vehicles, natural gas alternatives, and more, will be held October 19th.

3. Joint Agency Workshop 8/23 on 2030 Target Scoping Plan: California Energy Commission (CEC), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and California Air Resources Board (ARB) are jointly hosting a public workshop on the process to update the 2030 Target Scoping Plan.

4. Workshop 8/29, Electricity Reliability in SoCal: The California Energy Commission will conduct a workshop to review efforts to ensure electricity reliability in Southern California resulting from the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (San Onofre) and impending retirement of several fossil generating units using once-through cooling (OTC) technologies.
5. Vehicle Technology Program Review 8/22: CEC Commissioner Janea Scott, Lead Commissioner on Transportation of the California Energy Commission, will conduct a workshop to discuss the use of metrics within the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program (ARFVTP).

6. New EPA Portfolio Manager Feature Helps Buildings Save: The EPA has launched a waste and materials tracking feature in its Energy Star Portfolio Manager, which is a free benchmarking and tracking tool for commercial building owners and managers. (New to Portfolio Manager? Check out resources here.)

7. Sustainability, Prosperity, and Security: A new book from United States military leadership, “The New Grand Strategy: Restoring America’s Prosperity, Security and Sustainability in the 21st Century,” tells the story of a grand strategy, born within the Pentagon, to recapture America’s greatness at home and abroad by elevating sustainability as a strategic imperative.

8. USDOE Awards $ for Local Data-Driven Energy Planning: In support of cities’ efforts to reduce energy waste and greenhouse gas emissions and increase the use of energy efficiency technologies, the Energy Department selected three projects this week to help cities integrate energy analysis and data into their strategic decision making across all clean energy sectors. Learn more about the projects and the findings through its “Cities Leading through Energy Analysis and Planning (Cities-LEAP)” program.

9. New Green Leasing and Commercial Real Estate EE Resources: Looking to engage and support the commercial real estate sector in your jurisdiction as they explore the value of energy efficiency in real estate? The Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) are arming the commercial real estate industry with a new set of tools that enable tenants to more effectively seek out and secure high-performance spaces that are in line with the tenant’s organizational goals, objectives, and budgets. (Get more resources on green leasing uncovered through recent local government asks.)

10. New York Joins California’s 50% by ‘30 Goal: Last week saw an order by the New York Public Service Commission requiring that 50 percent of the state’s electricity must from clean, renewable sources like solar and wind power by 2030 – this makes nearly one-fifth of the country’s population in pursuit of a 50% renewable goal.

11. Cities Consider Increasing Renewables: While on renewables: the cities of Solana Beach and La Mesa were in the news this week as they weigh using a community choice aggregation (CCA) model to increase their jurisdictions’ use of renewable energy and lower their carbon footprints. (More on CCAs here.)

12. CEC Blueprint Newsletter: Did you know that the California Energy Commission documents the most common questions to their Energy Code Hotline, and answers them in their Blueprint newsletter? The Blueprint newsletter for July/August is out, and provides guidance on a number of key issues – including new lighting compliance options, pipe insulation, solar ready requirements for single family homes, air-to-water heat pump systems, and more. Share with your building departments and other building efficiency stakeholders in your community!

13. Energy Efficient Codes Make Financial Sense: “Average homeowners are the biggest beneficiaries of more energy efficient building codes, says Daniel Bressett of the Alliance to Save Energy. Homeowners consistently state their preference for energy efficiency features, a point made again in the housing survey conducted by the National Association of Home Builders.” Get more coverage and resources for explaining the financial value of energy efficiency in this newsletter piece from Zero Energy Project.

14. Cutting Poverty through EE and More: Addressing income inequality and affordability is a central and growing issue for many local governments. A new policy paper, the “Urban Opportunity Agenda,” from the Center for Neighborhood Technology proposes that poverty can be cut through simply cutting core household expenses – including energy.

15. Model Released to Pursue EE, ZNE: A tool to model the time dependent value (TDV) of energy for use in planning for the 2019 energy code’s steps toward zero net energy is now available on the CEC’s website.

16. Airport Achieves Carbon Neutrality: The Dalllas Fort Worth Airport is the first in the United States to achieve carbon neutrality! Learn how they did it and more here.

17. Microgrid Conference: The Microgrids Convergence Conference will be held October 25th-26th in San Mateo and will consist of two, unique, content-rich days. Learn about conference content, speakers, and more.

18. Microgrid Financing: Microgrids Conference event sponsors are offering a free recording of the webinar "Financing Microgrid Distributed Energy Efficiency Solutions."

19. CEC Workshop on Title 20 Appliance Efficiency: For sharing with your jurisdiction’s retailers and businesses; The California Energy Commission will host a webinar on August 17th, 2016 presenting focused on the needs of retailers, wholesalers, importers, and internet vendors.

20. Vehicle/Grid Demonstration Funding: The Pre–Application Workshop Presentation and WebEx Recording for GFO–16–303, Advanced Vehicle–Grid Integration Research and Demonstration, is now available on the California Energy Commission (CEC)’s website.

21. Job announcement: San Luis Obispo has extended the deadline to apply for its open Senior Energy Planner position! Learn more 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 is all for this week!