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Statewide LG EE Best Practices: Weekly Update
Here are you wEEkly updates:
News and Announcements
1. Updated Version of the Proposition 39 (K-12) Snapshot is Now Online
Updated version of the Prop 39 K-12 program snapshot is now online measuring expenditures, estimated annual energy savings, and GHG reductions. More information on Prop 39 (California Clean Energy Jobs Act) can found here.
2. Multi-family Solar Development Webinar
Informational webinar which will provide background about the goals of the Virtual Net Metering Market Development Project supported by the Center for Sustainable Energy. Learn more about Virtual Net Metering and solar for multifamily dwellings here.
3. RFP: Low-Income Weatherization Program (LIWP)
Notice of Intent to Award is Today! The Low-Income Weatherization Program is an energy efficiency program administered by California Department of Community Services and Development to install a variety of energy efficiency measures, solar photovoltaics and solar water heater systems on low-income households located in disadvantaged communities.
4. Getting to Zero Carbon in Menlo Park: A Northern California Suburb Revamps Its Approach to the Built Environment
“…small cities have an important leadership role to play on climate action, because they account for more emissions and represent a larger share of the population than big cities.”
5. San Diego’s Climate Action Plan Making Progress—And Creating Jobs
Highlighting the impact and progress of the city of San Diego’s Climate Action Plan, not only providing environmental benefits but also improving the economy.
Reports and Resources
6. Integrated Emissions Visualization Tool
ARB has developed an integrated emissions visualization tool (IEVT) that allows users to locate and view emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and criteria pollutants from large facilities in California. ARB is looking for feedback from the public and others users on this initial version of the IEVT.
7. Updated Cap-and-Trade Funding Guidelines
The Air Resources Board has published the Funding Guidelines Supplement for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016-17 Funds. The Supplement includes updated disadvantaged community investment targets for all FY 2016-17 budget appropriations and also provides criteria todetermine whether projects funded by the new FY 2016-17 appropriations will provide benefits to disadvantaged communities.
8. Draft 2015 SCE Home Energy Efficiency Survey Evaluation Report
The report is posted for public comment and review on the CPUC Public Document Area here. (Search: “Draft 2015 SCE HEES” ). Or you can click the title above to view the report directly.
Career Opportunities
9. Energy Specialist, San Francisco
The City and County of San Francisco Department of the Environment (SF Environment) is seeking an Energy Specialist who will assist in monitoring, evaluating, and implementing projects, programs and policies focused on Distributed Energy Resources including energy efficiency, renewable energy, energy storage and zero emission vehicles.
10. Energy Manager, San Francisco (Job ID: 6317)
San Francisco State University is seeking an Energy Manager to establish the campus as a national leader in sustainability and energy management. This position will provide a forward thinking energy professional with an opportunity to use the campus as a living laboratory to save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote renewable energy.
11. Chief Executive Officer, Yolo County
The County of Yolo is conducting a recruitment on behalf of The Valley Clean Energy Alliance for the Chief Executive Officer position.
News and Announcements
1. Updated Version of the Proposition 39 (K-12) Snapshot is Now Online
Updated version of the Prop 39 K-12 program snapshot is now online measuring expenditures, estimated annual energy savings, and GHG reductions. More information on Prop 39 (California Clean Energy Jobs Act) can found here.
2. Multi-family Solar Development Webinar
Informational webinar which will provide background about the goals of the Virtual Net Metering Market Development Project supported by the Center for Sustainable Energy. Learn more about Virtual Net Metering and solar for multifamily dwellings here.
3. RFP: Low-Income Weatherization Program (LIWP)
Notice of Intent to Award is Today! The Low-Income Weatherization Program is an energy efficiency program administered by California Department of Community Services and Development to install a variety of energy efficiency measures, solar photovoltaics and solar water heater systems on low-income households located in disadvantaged communities.
4. Getting to Zero Carbon in Menlo Park: A Northern California Suburb Revamps Its Approach to the Built Environment
“…small cities have an important leadership role to play on climate action, because they account for more emissions and represent a larger share of the population than big cities.”
5. San Diego’s Climate Action Plan Making Progress—And Creating Jobs
Highlighting the impact and progress of the city of San Diego’s Climate Action Plan, not only providing environmental benefits but also improving the economy.
Reports and Resources
6. Integrated Emissions Visualization Tool
ARB has developed an integrated emissions visualization tool (IEVT) that allows users to locate and view emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and criteria pollutants from large facilities in California. ARB is looking for feedback from the public and others users on this initial version of the IEVT.
7. Updated Cap-and-Trade Funding Guidelines
The Air Resources Board has published the Funding Guidelines Supplement for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016-17 Funds. The Supplement includes updated disadvantaged community investment targets for all FY 2016-17 budget appropriations and also provides criteria todetermine whether projects funded by the new FY 2016-17 appropriations will provide benefits to disadvantaged communities.
8. Draft 2015 SCE Home Energy Efficiency Survey Evaluation Report
The report is posted for public comment and review on the CPUC Public Document Area here. (Search: “Draft 2015 SCE HEES” ). Or you can click the title above to view the report directly.
Career Opportunities
9. Energy Specialist, San Francisco
The City and County of San Francisco Department of the Environment (SF Environment) is seeking an Energy Specialist who will assist in monitoring, evaluating, and implementing projects, programs and policies focused on Distributed Energy Resources including energy efficiency, renewable energy, energy storage and zero emission vehicles.
10. Energy Manager, San Francisco (Job ID: 6317)
San Francisco State University is seeking an Energy Manager to establish the campus as a national leader in sustainability and energy management. This position will provide a forward thinking energy professional with an opportunity to use the campus as a living laboratory to save energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote renewable energy.
11. Chief Executive Officer, Yolo County
The County of Yolo is conducting a recruitment on behalf of The Valley Clean Energy Alliance for the Chief Executive Officer position.
That's all for today! Cheers and have a great weekend!
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 Agencies: Looking
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.
That’s all for this week!
Statewide LG EE Best Practices: Weekly Update
Here are your wEEkly Updates:
1. Call for climate adaptation proposals: The call for session proposals for
this year’s California Adaptation Forum has been extended! The Adaptation Forum
will take place in Long Beach, CA September 7th-8th.
Learn more here.
2. Valuing EE in buildings: I’ve been hearing from a number of
local governments about the importance of solid statistics on the financial
value of energy efficiency for buildings leads, contractors, realtors, and
residents to make efficiency decisions that can transform the market. A new
study published in the Journal of Structured Finance analyzes California homes
and shares some great statistics on resell values of homes with PACE projects:
read the results, and connect to more resources on valuing EE, here.
3. AB 802 Comment Period Extended: Related to energy disclosure and
valuing EE, the CEC has extended the comment period on their proposed
implementation of AB 802 benchmarking and energy disclosure requirements to
April 15th. A transcript of the March 25th meeting
covering their proposal and public comments has also been added to their
website for review. For more, click here.
4. EE technology best practices: the U.S. Department of Energy's 2015
Quadrennial Technology Review has been released, and contains a wealth of best
practices information in deploying technologies for energy efficiency (and
other benefits). Click here to
review in full, or here to connect to the chapter on Advanced Building
Technologies.
5. Funding for Healthy Cities: More than $1.5 million is available to
small/medium cities, counties and tribes: click here for more information. For more EE, energy and
sustainability-related funding opportunities, click here.
6. Valuing cap and trade implementation
for low-income Californians:
A new study from UCLA has analyzed the value of cap and trade programming and
compliance costs for low-income Californians, and found positive results.
Click here for more.
7. Upcoming webinars from USEPA, USDOE,
and more: click here to review more than 10 webinars coming up this
month offering support on EPA Portfolio Manager, serving
low-income communities, navigating DOE's new weatherization center, and
renewables integration in California.
8. Building code training opportunities added: Looking for more Title 24 training
opportunities? No-cost trainings for building inspectors, plan examiners,
consultants, and more are available from Energy Code Ace. Click here to
see their training schedule or to request a training. The CEC will also be
offering building code trainings through local ICC Chapters – click here for more information.
9. Energy storage financing: More and more local governments are
incorporating energy storage into their energy and resiliency
planning. An event covering the status of energy storage, and how to implement
using financing, will be held by the Clean Energy Advisory Financing Council
(CEFAC) in San Francisco and by webinar April 12th. For more
information, click here.
10. EE, sustainability and economic
growth: click here for 5 signs that sustainability is the new engine
for global economic growth. For more on EE supporting economic growth, check
out these short videos from the Construction Climate Talks and testimonials from businesses using EPA ENERGY STAR.
11. Several job announcements today: the City of San Diego is hiring for an
Energy Program Coordinator! Learn more here.
12. Job announcement: Marin Clean Energy is hiring for a
Customer Programs Specialist and a Law Clerk (Intern). Learn more here.
13. Job announcement: the Port of San Diego is hiring for a
Senior Environmental Specialist. Click here for more information.
14. Leverage CivicSpark this coming year: And, a reminder that for local
governments looking for capacity for energy efficiency and sustainability, now
is the time to propose a project for a CivicSpark AmeriCorps fellow for the
coming year! 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.
That’s all for this week!
Statewide LG EE Best Practices : Weekly Update
Here are your WEEkly Updates:
- EM&V Roadmap Draft Now Available for Comment
The CPUC released the 2013-2016 Energy Division & Program Administrator Energy Efficiency Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Plan, which is open for comments now through December 17th. This version includes the EE portfolio - HVAC, lighting, commercial, industrial, agriculture, and more for you to review and comment on. - San Diego City Council Readies 100% Renewables Mandate for Approval
The San Diego City Council's environmental committee unanimously approved a proposed Climate Action Plan that would move the city to 100% renewables by 2035. To get to 100%, the San Diego Climate Action Plan puts Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) in place. - Report: Recognizing the Value of Energy Efficiency's Multiple Benefits
The benefits of energy efficiency extend beyond energy savings. Focusing on the residential, business, and utility sectors, this report examines each of these multiple benefits, their role in program marketing, and current best practices for including them in cost-effectiveness testing. - Job Opportunity: Statewide Energy Efficiency Best Practices Coordinator
The Local Government Commission (LGC) in partnership with the Institute for Local Government and ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability through the Statewide Energy Efficiency Collaborative is recruiting to fill the Coordinator position. The LGC is open to other arrangements that are not full-time to fill this position. - Job Opportunity: Sustainability Coordinator, Contra Costa County (attached)
The Sustainability Coordinator is a management position assigned to the merit-system classification of Principal Planner-Level A in the Department of Conservation and Development. Under general direction, the Sustainability Coordinator plans, organizes and coordinates the implementation of the County's Sustainability Activities. Application deadline is December 18, 2015. - 12/8 California Gold: Partnerships for Cap-and-Trade Success
The Southern California Association of Governments is holding its second regional forum on competitive grant funding from cap-and-trade revenues. This event will assist applicants seeking funding in the near term for transformative projects implementing Southern California's regional and local plans. The workshop will take place at SCAG's main office with video conference options available. - 12/15 Best Practices in SEEC ClearPath: A Year in Review
Participants will learn emerging practices and updates on how to best utilize SEEC ClearPath to monitor and track government operations and community-scale emissions data. This will be a great opportunity to gain a better understanding of how to best leverage SEEC ClearPath to its fullest.
And that is all for this week!
Emission Benchmarks for Industrial Processes
California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been working hard to
achieve California’s goal of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990
levels by 2020. This is equivalent to a 30% reduction in projected emissions--a lofty goal to accomplish within the next 7 years.
Ultimately, the intent is to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050. If you factor in situations such as population growth and thus increased demand, it becomes a very ambitious goal. Can we make it?
It has become apparent to me that when the cost of compliance becomes more cost effective than the cost of pollution, pollution be able to be controlled.
The University of California, Berkeley and Northwestern University are working with the CARB to establish
output-based benchmarks for industrial processes. Such benchmarks will be used for
the distribution of free emission allowances facilities covered by the
California Cap-and-Trade Program, which is one of the newest policy instruments the
state has adopted to reduce emissions cost-effectively.
One of the main results of the project will be output-based
benchmarks for selected sectors, for which benchmarks do not currently exist
(mainly food processing, important for the Central Valley). Another major part
of the project focuses on the benchmarking approach for refineries in the
period after 2015.
US Climate Action: Calling individuals to put on the uniform and step up to the plate.
By adopting an ambitious mandatory energy saving target for
2030 the State of California is well on its way to addressing the pressing
issue of Climate Change. Global climate change affects the American public with
growing visibility and ferocity. As severe weather events wreak havoc on the East coast or wildfires consume hundreds of thousands of acres here in the West, concern about the effects of climate change grows. In addition, the
American public bears a heavy financial burden as tax dollars fund increased
firefighting efforts; provide disaster relief to flooded cities and towns; and
subsidize the climate issues affecting the American bread basket. However,
despite the growing cost to cope with the effects of climate change, national
policy to address climate change is still a long way off.
Cap-and-Trade in the US
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is the first
mandatory CO2 reduction cap-and-trade program in the US. Under RGGI
Northeastern and Mid Atlantic states have capped the CO2 emissions
in the power sector with the goal of reducing power sector CO2 emissions
10 percent from the 2002-2004 average by 2018.
California began its own cap-and-trade program as well, with
several major industrial sectors joining power as capped entities. Many other
states – and hopefully the federal government- are watching intently to see how
the California program plays out, as California prides itself on its
trailblazing adoption of many environmental policies.
Federal cap-and-trade programs are not new in the U.S., with
many people being familiar with the 1990 Clean Air Act Acid Rain Program’s SO2 trading system. This cap-and-trade system is widely considered a major success,with an Office of Management and Budget study finding benefits exceeding costsby a 40:1 ratio
Policy on Climate Change
Americans, witnessing a relentless onslaught of wildfires,
droughts and recent flooding are fearful of losing their freedoms and way of
life. As severe weather is becoming the new normal across the U.S., the price
of inaction is becoming ever clearer. The specific cost and benefits of the
cap-and-trade programs are yet to be determined, and a public that traditionally
looks so favorably on market-based solutions and “quick wins” remains
unconvinced on the potential of a market-based cap and trade solution.
Climate change could fundamentally change how we as
Americans interact with each other, the rest of the world, and our environment.
As the U.S. struggles with national policy on climate change, we fall behind
other countries on this important global issue. In his victory speech on election night, President Obama gave brief but equal mention to ending the dependence
of the US on foreign oil and tackling climate change. Perhaps by addressing
climate change in terms of energy security federal action stands a chance.
Perhaps, under the emerging “new energy economy” America can reclaim its
position of leadership in the world.
Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sully_aka__wstera2/4388591845/
Mystery unveiled, California and how it trades its caps.
"Let the Hunger Compliance Games begin!"
What is California’s Cap and Trade
and what makes California believe it can achieve something the nation could
not? For starters, you may be asking,
what is all the hoopla about cap and trade? Well, the basics of cap and trade
are simple; it uses the power of the marketplace to reduce pollution, in theory
doing so at the lowest possible cost. In the Golden State system, government
regulators set an annual limit (cap) on the GHG emissions produced by the
state’s factories, power plants and oil refineries. The cap will decline about
a percentage point for the first two years and three percent each year after
that.
The basic premise of cap-and-trade is that government doesn't tell
polluters how to clean up their act. Instead, it simply imposes a cap on
emissions. Each company starts the year with a certain number of tons allowed—a
so-called right to pollute. The company decides how to use its allowance; it
might restrict output, or switch to a cleaner fuel, or buy a scrubber to cut
emissions. If it doesn't use up its allowance, it might then sell what it no
longer needs. Then again, it might have to buy extra allowances on the open
market. Each year, the cap ratchets down, and the shrinking pool of allowances
gets costlier. As in a game of musical chairs, polluters must scramble to match
allowances to emissions.
Companies will buy and sell allowances to emit carbon dioxide and other
heat-trapping gases (GHG). Now, each allowance represents one ton of Carbon
Dioxide (CO2). The minimum price starts at $10 per allowance (ton of
Co2) and will slowly increase over time. The number of allowances
that a company must hold is determined based on the standard emission from
their type of business or facility. Companies that cut their emissions quickly
will have spare allowances they can sell to other businesses that are having a
hard time making reductions. This is easy to see if we look at emissions
through an industry specific looking glass, as it would be difficult to conceive
of a cap and trade program working without allowances being industry specific.
In the beginning were the electric utilities. The utility companies
will be getting all the allowances they need for free (for a while anyhow). The
utilities will be required to sell allowances at state-organized auctions that
occur four times each year. The money the utilities make must be used to
benefit their ratepayers, possibly through a credit on customers’ bills or maintenance
on equipment and transmission lines that would offset rate hikes much like the
one the CPUC just approved. Most manufacturers will receive 90 percent of their
allowances for free in the first two years, dropping to 75 percent in 2015.
The first auction happened last November and had 23,126,110 tons of
2013 vintage Co2 allowances up for sale on an electronic trading
platform. Companies and traders who registered in advance submitted sealed bids
specifying how many allowances they wanted to buy, and at what price. The bids
were ranked from highest price to lowest until all the allowances have been
allocated. The lowest price at which allowances were allocated became the price
that all participants paid, regardless of their original bids. In November’s
auction, the allowances sold for $10.09 with the reserve price set at $10 and
the maximum price submitted was at $91.13 mean price was $15.60 and the Median
price was $12.95. Where is Effie Trinket when you
need her? Now, as far as the secondary market, companies and traders can
continue trading outside the auctions, but each allowance has a serial number,
and all transactions must be recorded in a central tracking system.
There was also an advance auction of 2015 vintage allowances that sold
5,576,000 of 39,450,000 available allowances for sale at the price of $10.00
with a maximum bid of $17.25 and the mean of $11.07 and Median price being
$10.59, the maximum price submitted was $17.25 and the minimum was $10.00 and
therefore all 2015 vintage allowances were sold at $10.00. The drawback of
buying vintage 2015 allowances is that your funding source is tied up two years
in advance; the benefit is that you pay a much cheaper price for allowances purchased
today that will be used in 2015, when the number of allowances will be dropping
to 75 percent. In layman’s terms, if you know your company will need allowances
in 2015 and it has the capital to purchase allowances today, the price will be
rock bottom today ( hence the $10 price tag) vs. purchasing them in 2015 when
every industry will need them and the price is much higher. How about this for
a business venture, buy up all the 2015 allowances you can and sell them when
2015 comes around for three to four times the price they were originally purchased
for. Sounds like a great way to make it
rich to me.
See the air resource board for a complete list of
qualified bidders and a more detailed account of the November 2012 auction. Below is a sampling of what you can expect to find:
Offsets
Companies can also buy offsets, credits generated by forestry
projects and other endeavors that either remove greenhouse gases from the
atmosphere or reduce emissions. But the offsets must be generated in the United
States and can account for no more than 8 percent of all the allowances that a
company needs. To me, offsets should be limited to the state of California
(for this specific situation) as other states and federal entities are not
participating and thus, should not be allowed to participate in an offset
program?
Market manipulation?
The Air Resources Board has set limits on the percentage of
available allowances that any individual company or trader can hold, to prevent
anyone from cornering the market. Consultants will also monitor the auctions,
looking for unusual trading behavior. We can all see this one happening or
at least someone trying to make this happen.
Where does the
money go?
Amazingly enough, this hasn't been decided; by law, money the
state raises by selling allowances must be used to help reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and cannot simply be dumped into California's general fund as if it
were tax revenue. But the Legislature has not yet hammered out
the details.
Important information
Hirschman-Herfindahl index (HHI): The HHI is a measure of the concentration of
allowances purchased by winning bidders relative to the total sale of current vintage
allowances in the auction. The percentage
of allowances purchased by each winning bidder is squared and then summed
across all winning bidders. The HHI can
range up to 10,000, representing 100% of the current vintage allowances purchased
by a single bidder (i.e., 100x100=10,000).
Read more:
Photo Credit: Jacobsen, Nina and Kilik, Jon (Producers) & Ross, Gary (Director). 2012. The Hunger Games [Motion picture]/ United Sates. Lionsgate, Color Force.
Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cecmtl/5594631871/
Report: Cap- And -Trade Could Create Jobs In California
A new report suggests a cap-and-trade program in California could be good for the state. Here's the story in The Sacramento Bee, along with a link to the study and related press release.
California voters signaled their support for green energy in the recent election, supporting AB 32, The Global Warming Solutions Act adopted in 2006, and sweeping Jerry Brown back into office. Brown, who faces a daunting deficit, has a strong green-jobs platform.
Graphic by mind.ofdan.ca