All posts published in 2017
U.S. Congress introduces bipartisan bill on HFCs and other short-lived pollutants Hydocardons 21, Jun 09, 2017 Yesterday, U.S. Representatives Scott Peters (a Democrat from California) and Carlos Curbelo (a Republican from Florida) introduced the bipartisan Super Pollutant Emissions Reduction, or SUPER Act, into the U.S. Congress to combat short-lived climate pollutants like hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The … Read more
David Harary, ERS, for Zondits As the clean energy revolution continues, state and local governments are busy leading the fight against climate change. The number one policy initiative advocated by environmentalists and economists alike is to put a price on carbon. In economic terms, achieving total market efficiency means we should account for the negative … Read more
AHRI publishes first flammable refrigerant report Hydrocarbons 21, June 15, 2017 In a bid to identify suitable replacements for high-GWP HFCs being phased down under the Montreal Protocol, industry association the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) on 13 June issued an A2L research report as part of its ongoing testing of flammable refrigerants. The … Read more
Gita Subramony, ERS, for Zondits Zondits spoke with the team at Sustainable CUNY, of the City University of New York on their role in streamlining solar and solar + storage installations in NYC. Sustainable CUNY has been working on reducing barriers to solar installations in NYC since 2006 and is also working to incorporate energy … Read more
Dan Pidgeon, ERS, for Zondits With a lot of focus on green buildings and energy efficiency upgrades such as lighting and HVAC, plug loads now account for a much greater percentage of building energy use. A typical office building can expect plug loads to make up 25% of the total electrical load. However, in an … Read more
Mark D’Antonio, ERS, for Zondits As the demands on the electric grid continually evolve and as there is greater consideration of temporal and locational capacity needs, distributed energy resources (DER) and energy storage (ES) systems are increasingly being considered for a multitude of applications on either side of the meter. Capacity deferral, generation mix, demand … Read more
Sensors, plants and waste heat: Adelaide hospital’s bid to be most energy-efficient When it comes to the power consumption of hospitals, the diagnosis isn’t pretty: they rate as the second most energy-intensive of all commercial buildings, behind only food service providers. As the places where our babies are delivered, our sick are treated and our … Read more
While You Weren’t Looking, Energy Efficiency Became One of Our Nation’s Top Energy Resources Union of Concerned Scientists, June 2, 2017 Here’s a fact I bet you didn’t know: in 2015, energy efficiency saved more electricity than was produced by every type of electricity resource in our country but for coal and natural gas. Hydro, … Read more
Here’s How to Convert a Building Into an Energy-Efficient Predictive Piece of Architecture Harvard University’s on-campus council for all things green building is creating the most energy-efficient retrofit attempted so far. The Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (CGBC) is collaborating with Snøhetta to convert its headquarters, a 1924 stick-built house in Cambridge, into … Read more
NYC-area utilities eye NatRef incentives R744, May 24, 2017 Two New York City-area utilities that have robust prescriptive energy-efficiency rebate programs for food retailers are starting to consider natural refrigerant systems for energy incentives through their custom programs. “We’re starting to see applications come in for natural refrigerant-based systems with energy savings and demand peak … Read more