energy efficiency

Join a conversation about transition in Appalachia through a conference and mass mobilization day in Washington D.C. The events aim to advance the dialogue about current energy extraction practices, with a specific focus on ending mountaintop removal coal mining, and advocate for a renewable energy future for Appalachia on a national stage

"We envision a vibrant weekend during which thousands will learn about the challenges Appalachia faces and ways to build a movement to end the destruction and plant the seeds of a sustainable and prosperous Appalachia," said the organizers of the events.

The conference, entitled Voices from the Mountains, will be held on September 25-26, 2010. Organizers of the Voices from the Mountain conference are planning a space for regional participants to grow and connect through strategy sessions, workshops, learning, and cultural events. Topics will include both exploration of the issues facing the region and ways to move forward.

The day following the conference, September 27th, many people from the Appalachian region will gather with conference attendees for a day of mobilization and rallying on Capitol Hill. 2000 people, including movement leaders from the region, celebrities such as Ashley Judd and Silas House, and many Appalachian residents are expected to gather.

Visit www.appalachiarising.org to register for these events or to learn more.

People's Self Help Housing in Vanceburg, KY, is paving a green path for affordable housing in Kentucky. A highly energy efficient home that PSHH recently built and sold has been LEED certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. It is only the third house in all of Kentucky to receive the certification.

Melissa Evans paid $90,000 for the home and, given that low utility and maintenance costs in the future are a guarantee, it will remain affordable for years to come. The LEED-certified home cost about $115,000 to build and the purchase cost was lower due to grant support for the efforts from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.The home will use about 1/3 less energy than a standard house of it size.

A couple of years ago, on People's 25th anniversary, the board of directors decided that new houses had to be more energy efficient to offset rapidly increasing utility rates. Further, the organization believes that providing local jobs, further benefiting the local community, is the best way to do this work. Moving into green housing is a way to accomplish both of these objectives.

As Dave Kreher, PSHH executive director says, “we can provide jobs that will help people have affordable utility bills – the two can come together. Why have someone from Indiana come in and do this for us? We have a 28 year history of doing the work with local crews and these guys are as good as it gets. Let’s maximize the benefit for everyone. We have barely scratched the surface here. There is a lot to do.”

PSHH has built several highly energy efficient homes, including a couple like the one shown to the left that contain a solar hot water heater. Kreher and PSHH will remain committed going forward to this win-win situation, in large part because the community has such great needs for both affordability and jobs. Lewis County — which is in northeastern Kentucky and has a population of about 14,000 — is one of 43 counties in the state where poverty is considered persistent. In 2008, Vanceburg's median income was less than $21,000, or about half the state average. Electricity rates just rose by 26% recently. And county unemployment rate was near 18% at the start of this year.

Learn more about PSHH here.

Learn more about LEED certification here.

Community Action Kentucky has released a Request for Qualification (“RFQ”) to allow businesses and contractors interested in receiving some of this work to see if they are qualified for the contracts.  This is an opportunity to help customers save money on their utility bills, reduce our energy consumption, and create energy jobs.
 
There will be an information session regarding this RFQ on Monday, June 21, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. in Room 171 of the Capitol Annex in Frankfort, KY.  All businesses and contractors with the ability to perform the services listed in the RFQ are encouraged to attend and bring their colleagues.  

Visit http://www.kaca.org/AboutCAK/BidOpportunities/tabid/611/Default.aspx for more information and to see qualification guidelines.

If you have any questions, please contact:
Roger McCann
 at CAK via telephone at 502-875-5863 or by email, RFQContractors@communityactionky.org.
 

By Carrie Traud

America can achieve a coal-free (and nearly nuclear-free) future by 2050, even without a price on carbon. With federal climate legislation stalling in Congress - and giving billions away to the fossil fuel industry - the Civil Society Institute and Synapse Energy Economics investigated the possibility of a clean energy future without climate legislation. The report, "Beyond Business as Usual: Investigating a Coal- and Nuclear-Free Future for America," reveals how, with smart investments and the right incentives, the United States can transition to an energy mix based on efficiency and renewables. while saving money and achieving significant greenhouse gas reductions at the same time.

The report compares "business as usual," which assumes a continued reliance on traditional energy sources, like coal and nuclear, with a transition scenario that phases out those energy sources while phasing in wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. By 2050, the transition scenario has retired all coal-fired power plants and a quarter of nuclear plants. At the same time, while costing more in the short term, America would save $5 billion per year by 2040 and $13 billion by 2050.

The energy and financial savings of the study are conservative, for two reasons. First, the Business as Usual scenario assumes the cost of coal remains relatively flat. Even without a price on carbon, this is unlikely to be the case, as coal becomes increasingly difficult to mine and the supply, particularly in central Appalachia, declines. Second, the study is based on existing renewable energy and energy efficient technologies. It does not account for any new breakthroughs or advances, which could lower the cost and increase the capacity of renewable energy significantly.

The study is useful for Kentucky mainly from a macro-perspective. It does not consider individual states and largely ignores the potential of distributed, small-scale generation potential. It has the southeast region generally relying on imported sources of electricity.

Although the report assumes there is no cap-and-trade or other price on carbon enacted in Congress, we still need smart energy policies that invest in and deploy energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. To read an executive summary or the full report, please visit http://theclean.org.

Several funding opportunities in the fields of energy efficiency and renewable energy are currently available!  See below for details:

EE/RE JOB TRAINING FUNDS:

Kentucky Home Performance is offering incentives to contractors who participate in an upcoming training to become certified through the national Building Performance Institute. The training will be held May 24th-26th in Louisville. In order to be eligible to work as a contractor doing EE/RE on residential properties through the Ky Home Performance program, you must be BPI-certified.

Training incentives include:
    •    $1,000 available for up to 80% of the cost of training & certification to obtain BPI training for Building Analyst Certification for the first 100 contractors or home auditors trained under the program
    •    $2,000 available for equipment purchases up to 80% of the cost of qualified equipment for the first 50 contractors or companies participating in the KY Home Performance program. Terms and conditions apply.

Visit www.kyhomeperformance.org for more information.

EE/RE ENERGY PROJECT FUNDS:

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a regional economic development agency that represents a partnership of federal, state, and local government. ARC just announced the fourth round of a grant competition this week to assist Appalachian communities in leveraging renewable-energy and energy-efficiency resources to revitalize their economies. ARC expects to provide eight to ten awards of up to $75,000 each, for a total of $545,000 in awards, to successful applicants.

Aims of the grants may include -
    •    Preparation and adoption of a community energy plan by a local government jurisdiction.
    •    Implementation of a renewable-energy or energy-efficiency project such as:
    •    Production and/or use of renewable energy, including biofuels, biomass, solar, or wind energy, to include local siting of production facilities.
    •    Distribution of renewable energy, to include customer purchasing commitments.
    •    Expansion or start-up of "clean energy" businesses, including support for business incubation programs or targeted business financing programs.
    •    New construction or renovations that follow "green building" and LEED certification guidelines.
    •    Installation of energy-efficiency equipment in public or nonprofit facilities.
Nonprofit organizations, government entities, and public education institutions located within the Appalachian Region are eligible to apply. Private, for-profit organizations are not eligible to apply.

Visit www.arc.gov/energy for more information.

***
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has announced a call for proposals related to innovative, scalable strategies for energy efficiency retrofit programs or policies that address the existing building stock in the United States.

Funding priorities include but are not limited to sustainable and scalable business models for implementing energy efficiency retrofits; policies or programs that seek to advance aggregation of disparate or fragmented opportunities in energy efficiency retrofits to increase the energy savings potential; innovative financing models and other mechanisms to ease upfront costs of efficiency improvements or increase the attractiveness of investments in energy efficiency; policies or programs to secure greater energy efficient performance in buildings such as through benchmarking or improved operations and management; policies or programs to drive deep energy efficiency retrofits in existing buildings; policies or programs to address split incentives; and mechanisms to increase the effectiveness of and property owner participation in state, local, utility-sponsored, or privately-sponsored energy efficiency programs.

Proposals may be targeted to any particular barrier or segment of the buildings market (e.g., office, commercial, institutional, retail, residential, single-family, or multi-family). Research to help formulate programs or policies to address barriers is eligible as long as the path to implementation or adoption is clear.

The foundation will invite full proposals based on from pre-proposals, with grant l ranging from $100,000 to $350,000 each. Up to a total of $3 million in grants will be awarded.
Applicants must be U.S. nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations.

Visit
http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/rfp/rfp_item.jhtml?id=291600012 for more information.

An important step to achieving a clean and economically viable future for rural electric cooperatives, their member-customers, and their local economies will be the establishment of “on-bill financing” programs which will help overcome the up-front costs of implementing energy efficiency and weatherization measures.

The Rural Energy Savings Program Act

(S. 3102 / H.R. 4785)

On March 10, 2010, the Rural Energy Savings Program Act was introduced in Congress. The bill was introduced in both the House and the Senate with bipartisan support.

Under the new program proposed by the bill, the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) will create a $4.9 billion loan program available to cooperatives with a zero percent interest rate. Cooperatives in turn will make this money available to consumer members in the form of micro-loans with an interest rate of no more than 3 percent, which can be paid back primarily through savings on their electric bills. This type of loan program is called “on-bill financing” because the loan payments would be made right on the utility bill. Another key component is that the loan would stay with the real property (i.e. the electric meter) rather than with the utility customer.

Bipartisan co-sponsors of the Senate version of the bill (S. 3102) include Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tim Johnson (D-SD), and Michael Bennett (D-CO).

A companion bill in the House of Representatives (H.R. 4785), was introduced by Representatives James Clyburn (D-SC), Tom Perriello (D-VA), Ed Whitfield (R-KY), and John Spratt (D-SC).

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is supporting the two bills, and you can find more information on their website.

Why this bill is important and its implications for Appalachia

The East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) is a non-profit electric utility that provides power to 16 rural electric cooperatives across 87 Kentucky counties and is currently in the permitting process for the proposed construction of a new coal‐burning power plant in Clark County, KY, called the Smith plant. About half of the counties served by EKPC are in Appalachia, and about a quarter are coal-producing counties. Many of these are some of the most economically distressed counties in the nation.

A recent report commissioned by Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, Kentucky Environmental Foundation, and the Cumberland Chapter of the Sierra Club found that an investment in a combination of energy efficiency, weatherization, hydropower and wind power initiatives in the region would generate more than 8,750 new jobs for Kentucky residents, with a total impact of more than $1.7 billion on the region’s economy over the next three years. This alternative approach would meet the energy needs of EKPC customers at a lower cost than the proposed coal plant.

Federal and state policies that make possible on-bill financing for the energy efficiency and weatherization portion of the alternative are important steps toward a clean energy future for EKPC co-ops and their members. Passage of the Rural Energy Savings Program Act is integral to this future, and the jobs and positive economic impact it will bring.

-Article taken from Kentucky Housing Corporation

Kentucky Home Performance, the quickly developing home energy retrofit program at Kentucky Housing Corporation, uses a nationally certified training system for approved professionals from the Building Performance Institute (BPI). Here’s their online address: www.bpi.org. The current standard is the “BPI Building Analyst Certification”. Those who get the training first will be well placed to implement this program when it is operational (60-90 days).
 
Kentucky is a national leader in setting up a statewide system for training and standards in home energy audit and retrofit work. Aside from training there is also a ‘Quality Assurance’ component that will assist the training system to ensure that professions working in Kentucky homes will meet minimum ‘best practice’ standards. As the program is finalized you can follow our progress online: www.KYHomePerformance.org.
 
The required BPI “Building Analyst” Certification is a course with field work and a test. Various trainers use a 4-day “boot-camp” up to 10-days of training (KCTCS).
 
The first scheduled training will be hosted by the Home Builders Association of Lexington in April and May. There are rebates available for those who take the class and become certified. Up to $1000.
 
Class # 1 – Four Days – for Hers Raters only to become Building Analysts – April 27 – 30 – Class to be capped at 20 Students - $1,250 per student
 
Class # 2 – Six Days – From the ground up to become Building Analysts – May 10 – 15 – Class to be capped at 20 students - $1,450 per student

Sign-up is available at: www.hbalexington.com. Call Sandy Beck at 859-273-5117 for more information. KCTCS will be providing training in the near future. You can find KCTCS information at their website for training: www.kctcs.edu/Workforce_Solutions/.
 

By Kristin Tracz

A report entitled “Energy Efficiency in the South” was released yesterday by the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance; it reflects an in-depth modeling effort to demonstrate the potential impact of energy efficiency policies for residential and commercial buildings and industries throughout the Southern states. 

A sprofile of Kentucky, within the larger report, states that projected energy consumption in residential, commercial and industrial sectors would decrease by approximately 10% if additional energy efficiency measures were enacted. These measures would also create more than 10,000 jobs in Kentucky by 2020, according to the report.

The report stresses four major findings:
♣    Aggressive energy-efficiency initiatives in the region could stop energy consumption in the RCI sectors from growing over the next twenty years.
♣    A commitment to energy efficiency means fewer new power plants would be needed.
♣    Increased investments in cost-effective energy efficiency would generate jobs and cut utility bills.
♣    Energy efficiency would result in significant water savings. 

Specifically, the report states that “In 2020, energy bills in the South would be reduced by $41 billion, electricity rate increases would be moderated, 380,000 new jobs would be created, and the region’s economy would grow by $1.23 billion” if the investments in cost-effective energy efficiency modeled in the study were implemented in states throughout the region.

The importance of the South—defined by the U.S. Census Bureau to be the 16-state (and District of Columbia) region from Delaware down the Appalachians, including the Southern Atlantic seaboard, Gulf Coast and Texas—is stressed throughout the report, given that the South is the “largest and fastest growing region in the United States, with 36% of the nation’s population and a considerably larger share of the nation’s total energy consumption (44%) and supply (48%)”.

The vast majority of the region’s energy comes from fossil fuels.
Furthermore, the South consumes 51% of the nation’s total industrial energy use, 43% of the nation’s electric power, 40% of the energy consumed in residences and 38% of the energy used in commercial buildings.  This demonstrates the substantial opportunity for the region and the nation that comes from increasing energy efficiency efforts in the South.

Possible reasons for this highly-consumptive pattern of energy use, according to report authors, include the region’s historically low electricity rates, significant heating and cooling loads due to weather, low implementation of energy-efficient products and low expenditures on energy-efficiency programs.

In addition to a full report detailing results of modeling impacts for the region, SEEA and the report authors include a state-specific profile for each state in the region.

FRANKFORT, Ky 

Tom Joseph, Public News Service - KY

Report author Mark Cooper, who is the research director for the Consumer Federation, crunched the numbers on the costs of better appliances and insulation against the price of electricity, and found bottom-line savings. He says the most bucks are saved with a 30 percent increase in efficiency.

"Now, it's not free - you have to spend money to make money. On net, however, they'll end up at the end of the year with $300 more in their pocket."

Cooper explains that efficiency is simply a profitable investment.