Vice President Biden Unveils Energy Efficiency Home Retrofit Plan
Team Germany Wins 2009 Solar Decathlon
DOE: $24M in 3 Wind Research Facilities
AWEA: Recovery Act Spurs U.S. Wind Growth in Q3
California Expands Rules for Feed-In Tariffs, Net Metering
2010 Fuel Economy Guide Released
Report Examines Hidden Health, Environmental Costs of Energy Use
Vice President Biden Unveils Energy Efficiency Home Retrofit Plan
Vice President Biden released on October 19 the "Recovery Through Retrofit" report, which lays out a plan to help U.S. residents upgrade the energy efficiency of their homes. The program aims to increase green jobs and save energy through residential retrofits. At the same time, DOE issued a solicitation that offers $454 million in ARRA funds-including $390 million for a "Retrofit Ramp-Up" program-to support energy efficiency efforts across the country.
At a Middle Class Task Force meeting earlier this year, Biden asked the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to develop a proposal for federal action to lay the groundwork for a self-sustaining industry for home energy efficiency retrofits.
Their response is the October 19 report and includes these federal recommendations: provide U.S. homeowners with home energy retrofit information, including an energy performance label for existing homes; get past cost barriers by making financing more accessible, including long-term municipal loans repaid through the owners' property tax bills, known as Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE); and establish national workforce certifications and training standards, creating a uniform set of national standards to qualify workers for energy efficiency retrofits. See the Recovery Through Retrofit report (PDF 485 KB).
DOE's new solicitation will support the retrofit objectives with a series of "Retrofit Ramp-up" awards, ranging from $5 to $75 million, for states, local governments, and Indian tribes. DOE seeks innovative programs that are highly leveraged, are broadly replicable and scalable, can achieve cost savings when scaled up, and are likely to be self-sustaining beyond the funding period.
The programs should achieve high-quality retrofits for a large fraction of the buildings within entire neighborhoods and communities, and they can include PACE programs and programs that employ Home Performance with Energy Star, a national program from DOE and the U.S. EPA. DOE also offered $64 million in energy efficiency grants for local governments and state-recognized Indian tribes that are not eligible for direct funding under DOE's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program. Applications are due on December 14. See the DOE press release, download the full solicitation (PDF 395 KB), and see the solicitation postings on grants.gov and FedConnect.
Team Germany Wins the 2009 Solar Decathlon
Team Germany won the 2009 Solar Decathlon, followed by the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and then Team California. Team Germany-students from Darmstadt, Germany, whose team also won the 2007 Solar Decathlon-designed, built and operated the most efficient solar home among 20 university entries. Their "Cube House" produced a surplus of power despite three days of rain during the two-week contest.
The 2009 Solar Decathlon challenged 20 teams from across the US, Germany, Spain, and Canada to compete in 10 contests, most of which related to the design and energy performance of the teams' solar homes.
