wrong mindset. the current mindset is that it’s someone elses problem. that’s why people advocate for renewable energy, because that’s something someone else has to do, whether it be the government creating incentives, businesses developing new technologies, or utilities paying for their installation.
the main problem is with architects, engineers, developers, and owners. insteading of putting pressure on the government to create incentives and pour money into the renewable energy hole, we should be pushing the aforementioned people to come up with better designs. Or to use better designs that are already out there. Mostly though, people/businesses building new homes/facilities must take responsibility and push their design team to come up with something better. The new Oregon Health Sciences building started with a goal, stated by the developer, of 60% energy reduction at a 25% initial cost reduction. Check it out here: http://www.ohsu.edu/ohsuedu/about/transformation/commons/healthandhealing.cfm
the technology and resources are out there to solve the problem, we’re just focused on the wrong things. As usual.
There’s design, and there’s construction quality.
We’ve found that merely ensuring construction is done to the standards the manufacturer describes, we can get 20-30% savings over standard construction.
The key areas are:
ensuring that framing is done right (and designed appropriately) so that the insulation actually fits the building envelope
taking care of air sealing
HVAC sizing, installation and duct sealing
These are things you would think a builder would do all the time, but it actually requires a quality control loop to ensure they are done right. I can’t tell you how many homes we’ve gone into where the owner complains about comfort, the HVAC guy comes back and does something (we don’t know what) and then we go in and find out one or more of the ducts are not even attached and blowing air into the crawlspace or attic.
good point. we find numerous errors in construction documents alone, and in the hands of a subcontractor, the installation becomes one more step removed from design. one more reason to use an independant commissioning agent.
Agreed Peter…always easier to conserve than to build.
It was extremely easy for me to save 2k watts in my own house. Changing out most of the incandescents with flourescents…wrapping extra insulation around the hot water heater.
In addition I installed 18SEER heat pumps and got rid of my old gas boiler for heat.
Specified and had installed geothermal heating/cooling for my folks house…get this…it heats/cools the house (6500sq. ft) using the same energy as a 2 sq ft. home. Also built the house using double paned argon windows and insulation forms poured with concrete which pumps up the R value. The house is so tight that outside air needs to be brought in.
I don’t disagree with your points at all. I just don’t think the process has to be a step by step A then B then C thing; we don’t have time to exhaust one solution at a time. What I am saying is we can build new, reliable, renewable capacity WHILE we take stress off the old grid by conserving the power that the carbon spewing centralized system is producing. Conservation is great, it COULD be so great that it results in the shut down of the oldest, dirtiest dino-fueled plants. The problems of inefficiency, system reliability and vulnerability (although helped immensely by less demand) still remains in all the aging wires strung across the country, the pipelines needed to convey the gas to the plants, the rail cars needed to deliver the coal, and the parts to keep the turbines and boilers working. PV, despite it’s front loaded lifecycle cost, has no moving parts, can often be placed on or near the point of consumption, on rooftops uses wasted space AND can provide thermal insulation as well.
Renewable is fine and dandy, but if you haven’t utilized all available energy efficiency measures then you are just putting up solar to try to overcome those inefficiencies. Solar is many, many, many times more expensive than all over EEMs combined, so you can use solar, but doing so would be an ‘interesting’ choice.
Timberland has a DC in california with PV that powers 60% of the building, but they are using old technology lighting (metal halides). So they are using a very expensive resource (solar) to power their own inefficient lighting. Wasting energy and money. They could have integrated daylighting design into the building, using T5 fluorescent fixtures and solar tracking skylights, and dropped their lighting requirements to essentially zero. They also could have built a supershell and reduced their heating and cooling load to near zero, leaving the only energy consuming devices computers and conveyor motors. With that solar installation they could have had a net zero energy consuming building. Now we’re talking. But they are just powering their own inefficiencies instead.
We really, really, really need to push energy efficiency. I cannot emphasize this enough. Austin Energy, one of the foremost thinking utilities in the world, did scrap a planned power plant due to energy efficiency programs. Dropping energy consumption in this country by 25% is a much better solution than powering 25% of our electricity needs with renewable resources. We should focus on energy efficiency at least until second generation PV comes out (organic).
I could go on and on about this. 25% energy reduction is easily possible. We’re doing that right now in a DC in memphis. White membrane roofing plus T5 lighting will result in a 25% drop in energy consumption in the building. We’re going to replace the RTUs in the building starting two years from now which will reduce consumption by another 10 - 15%. All EEMs have met our IRR of 20% without much trouble. Oh, and we’re purchasing renewable energy credits equal to the remaining energy consumption of the building. All very easy.
OK, I’m convinced. Well done.
Nothing sticks in a person’s mind like a visible symbol of renewable power; a windmill, a solar array, a geothermal field. The efficient lighting and better insulation are all fine and good but they sure don’t capture folks’ imagination very well.
What if it is foggy all winter where you live? I had a solar water heater that didn’t work all winter for that reason. Now I have hydronic heating in my house that is fired from two gas water heaters.
Matt should install one to offset his wife’s SUV.
What are your thoughts on the distribution systems for electricity? Specifically, the increased resistance of smaller gauge (but cheaper) wire, resulting in losses due to inefficiency? With the price of copper being what it is, is this an area to even consider?
I believe that most transmission lines are aluminum, only the wiring in your house are copper.
if you really want to get into it, check out the electricity technology roadmap that the electric power research institute put out.
http://www.epri.com/corporate/discover_epri/roadmap/index.html
Very long, and quite boring. But well researched and well thought out.