Thursday, March 09, 2006
Navigating Federal Energy Programs
I recently read a post on another blog (I apologize, but I don't remember where) which said that the US government should be promoting energy efficiency by "leading by example" by reducing energy use in federal buildings. I completely agree. The thing is though that the government already has done this to some extent. What is not happening is that the information is hard to find and there is no public awareness of this.From the top, the first agency would be the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Here is a list of the government agencies touching on environmental topics, as well as a list of major White House initiatives. Energy efficiency is listed under Reducing Greenhouse Gas Intensity and describes two voluntary programs, Climate VISION Partnership (under DoE) and Climate Leaders (under the EPA). Many major US companies are involved in these programs, have commited to reducing GHG emissions and can find resources on techniques at these sites.
Also under Climate VISION is the Partnerships for Home Energy Efficiency. PHEE works with homebuilders and designers towards the goal of having at least half of new homes constructed built to Energy Star (under the EPA) levels or better by 2015. PHEE also targets improved energy performance in existing homes to help households cost-effectively save 10 percent or more on home energy bills over the next decade.
The Office of the Federal Environmental Executive promotes green federal buildings and recently hosted the White House Summit on Sustainable Buildings.
DoE's Energy Information Administration tracks and forecasts energy trend data, including emissions.
The DoE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy covers efficiency and alternative energy for all sectors. Their Federal Energy Management Program describes all steps of building green, from design to purchasing components to operations and maintenance.
EERE also has information for the industrial sector. They provide free[!] energy assessments and have recently completed major assessments for four major industrial plants. The results show a combined potential energy savings of $10million per year and an average reduction in natural gas consumption of 6.7%. EERE's Energy Saving Teams have completed visits to 28 large federal facilities and are in the process of visiting 200 of the most energy-intensive manufacturing facilities, which represent 15% of the industrial natural gas consumption in the US.
The basic structure seems to be that there is one agency that coordinates, promotes and assesses building efforts then another to describe how to build. PHEE coordinates housing efforts, while Energy Star describes how to actually build the homes. For the industrial sector, Climate Leaders promotes; Climate VISION and EREE describes. For federal buildings, OFEE promotes; EREE describes. The system seems overly complicated, but it seems to be working to some degree. According to OFEE, the energy density (1000 Btu/SF) of federal buildings has decreased from 139.5 in 1985 to 104.9 in 2002.
The government is taking some steps to "lead by example" in energy efficiency but it's hard to follow them if you don't know about it or if the information is hard to find!