In Aspen and Pitkin County, Colorado, a new home over 5000 square feet (465 m) either has to include a renewable energy system, or its builder/ owner has to pay a $5000 mitigation fee. This component of a new Renewable Energy Mitigation Program (REMP) is, perhaps, the most unique and innovative addition to an energy code in the last 10 years.
It started with big energy hogs – spas, heated pools, and snowmelt systems – that fell outside the residential energy code. When the local building code was tightened to include these energy uses, there was no way to improve the structure’s performance enough to offset the massive amounts of energy that pools, driveway heaters or very large homes use.
According to Stephen Kanipe, the county and city building inspector, about $1.2 million has been collected in the last year, with mitigation fees as high as $80,000 from a single residence! How is the fee calculated? A system’s energy use over a 20 year period is multiplied by twice the marginal cost of locally available windpower.
The Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE), a local nonprofit, administers the funds. CORE has used the funds for projects such as PV panels for a local school and a micro-hydro electric power plant. The investments save 6-7 pounds of CO2 for every pound generated from the spas, pools or melt systems.
“As builders and owners realize how much less it costs to install renewable energy systems on site, instead of paying a mitigation fee, more are taking this approach,” says Joani Matranga of CORE. She stresses that one of the most important outcomes of REMP is the solid development of local business infrastructure and professional expertise in renewable energy.
CORE: [sorry this link is no longer available]
Excerpted from Environmental Building News, July/August 2001. Copyright (c) BuildingGreen, Inc. All rights reserved; reprinted by permission. Environmental Building News is a SustainableBusiness.com Content Partner.
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