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.
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.