03/25/2008 08:55 AM

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Weekly Clean Energy Roundup March 26, 2008

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Vermont Approves a Wide-Ranging Clean Energy Bill

Vermont Governor Jim Douglas approved a bill last week that will promote energy efficiency and renewable energy throughout the state. Called the Energy Efficiency and Affordability Act of 2008, the new legislation creates a new $4 million fuel efficiency fund that will be financed from existing revenues and from the sale of emission credits under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

The fund will provide energy efficiency services to the state's consumers of heating and process fuels. The state will use a competitive process to award the funds to service providers under performance-based contracts. The new legislation also assures that the state's residential and commercial building energy standards are upgraded to keep pace with changes to the international energy conservation code, and it doubles the spending cap for weatherization projects in homes of low-income families.

Regarding renewable and distributed energy use, the bill expands net metering to include renewable energy systems up to 250 kilowatts in capacity, up from only 15 kilowatts, and allows for combined heat and power systems up to 20 kilowatts in capacity. Net-metered systems earn credit for power fed back into the utility grid. The bill also doubles the cap on net-metered systems to 2% of the peak demand as of 1996.

It allows farms to have all their electric meters consolidated on paper into one net-metered system, and it also takes the innovative step of allowing groups of buildings, such as all the municipal buildings in one town, or all the schools in a district, to be consolidated on paper into one net-metered system. Individuals, such as residents of an apartment building or a subdivision, can apply to be treated as a group, with all their electric meters consolidated on paper into one net-metered system, and even a geographically distributed group can apply, if such a group serves the common good. Such group net metering could encourage people to band together to install a large renewable energy system that will serve them all.

For customers that don't want to own their own renewable energy systems, the bill requires all utilities to offer a voluntary green power program. It also establishes an alternate education property tax of 0.3 cents per kilowatt-hour for wind energy facilities that are at least 5 megawatts in capacity, and allows businesses to earn solar energy tax credits. And it encourages the state to use more biodiesel in its vehicles and buildings. See the governor's press release and the full text of the bill, S 209.

New Guidelines Launched for Green Home Remodeling

The American Society of Interior Designers Foundation and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) launched new guidelines for green remodeling of residential properties in mid-March. The new "REGREEN" guidelines are organized by the 10 most common remodeling projects and can be applied to a wide variety of projects, from remodeling a kitchen to a full-scale home renovation.

The guidelines are accompanied by case studies and address the major elements of any green renovation project, including the home's location, green building materials, and the project's impacts on energy efficiency, water efficiency, and indoor environmental quality. According to the USGBC, additional electronic resources will be available online starting in early summer, with a comprehensive educational lineup for the interior design, contractor, and consumer to follow. See the USGBC press release (PDF 85 KB) and download the REGREEN guidelines and other materials from the USGBC's Green Home Guide Web site.

A new report from the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) concludes that promoting the green design, construction, renovation, and operation of buildings could cut North American greenhouse gas emissions more deeply, quickly, and cheaply than any other available measure. The CEC was established by Canada, the United States, and Mexico to build cooperation on environmental issues in North America.

The CEC report notes that North America's buildings cause the annual release of more than 2,200 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, or about 35% of the continent's total carbon emissions. The report concludes that the rapid deployment of currently available and emerging energy efficiency technologies could avoid 1,700 megatons of annual carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. See the CEC press release and the full report (PDF 2.1 MB).

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Kevin Eber is the Editor of EREE Network News, a weekly publication of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). 

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