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ENERGY STAR
Teams With California Utilities on
First-of-Its-Kind Energy-Efficient Theater
Kitchen
Gov.
Schwarzenegger Signs Million Solar Roofs Bill
Heard Here:
Robert Wilder, CEO, WilderShares LLC
Report
Profiles 12 California Companies "Greening the
Bottom Line" With Energy Efficiency
Energy
Efficiency Leader Johnson Controls Launches
YourEnergyForum.com Blog
"Cool-Colored" Roofs Helping Two Sacramento-Area
Homeowners Save Energy and Money
Solar
Collector Brings Sunlight Indoors
Philips "EcoBoost"
Technology Trims Energy Use in Halogen Lamps 40%
to 60%
PG&E First
U.S. Utility to Offer Rebates for Efficient
Computer Servers
Gov.
Schwarzenegger Forms Heat Emergency Response
Task Force
ENERGY STAR Teams With California Utilities on
First-of-Its-Kind Energy-Efficient Theater
Kitchen
The
Western Foodservice & Hospitality Expo,
which runs from August 26 to 28 at the Los
Angeles Convention Center, will feature a
first-of-its-kind, full-scale theater kitchen
where some of California's best chefs will
prepare their signature dishes on
energy-efficient gas-fired and electric cooking
equipment. A collaboration between ENERGY STAR,
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Diego Gas
and Electric Company, Southern California Edison
and Southern California Gas Company, the
Energy-Efficient Theater Kitchen showcases
energy-saving opportunities available to
restaurant, hotel and school food service
professionals.
After seeing — and tasting — what's possible in
energy-efficient cooking at the Expo, replicate
the practices in your own kitchen with Flex Your
Power's latest best practices guide, Boosting
Restaurant Profits With Energy Efficiency: A
Guide for Restaurant Owners and Managers.
The guide is packed with tips both on how to
select energy-efficient cooking appliances and
on how to adjust and maintain equipment for
maximum energy savings. Printed versions of
Boosting Restaurant Profits With Energy
Efficiency will be available at the Expo; an
electronic version is available for
download (PDF, 634 KB) on Flex Your Power's
website.
Read background
Read all the Flex Your Power Best Practice
Guides
Find rebates, incentives and services for your
business
Gov. Schwarzenegger Signs Million Solar Roofs
Bill
On August 21, Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB1, legislation
authored by state Senator Kevin Murray (D-Culver
City) that aims to generate 3,000 megawatts of
solar energy and place photovoltaic (PV) panels
on one million California homes and businesses
over the next decade. The bill broadens the $3.2
billion Million Solar Roofs plan proposed by
Gov. Schwarzenegger last year and currently
being promulgated by the California Public
Utilities Commission (CPUC) as the California
Solar Initiative (CSI). SB1 expands the CSI —
and directs $800 million of the plan's $3.2
billion — to customers of municipal utilities
such as the Sacramento Municipal Utility
District and Los Angeles Department of Water
Power; increases the number of customers who can
sell excess solar energy back to power companies
for credit on monthly bills by raising the net
metering cap from 0.5% to 2.5% of a utility's
total load; and, beginning January 1, 2011,
requires developers of more than 50 new
single-family homes to offer PV systems to all
homebuyers.
Read background
Robert Wilder, CEO, WilderShares LLC
"Energy efficiency is a
sleeping giant. It doesn't have the sexy allure
of solar power or huge wind. But we have Saudi
Arabia-sized oil reserves under our feet in
America through energy efficiency."
Read background
Report Profiles 12 California Companies
"Greening the Bottom Line" With Energy
Efficiency
A new report from the
Environment California Research & Policy Center
details how a dozen California companies and
institutions have reduced their greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions by 100 million pounds per year — and
trimmed their annual operating costs by $13
million — by becoming more energy efficient and
switching to renewable energy.
Greening the Bottom Line (PDF, 2.6 MB)
says that the featured companies, including
Adobe Systems Incorporated, which was one of
three Best Overall 4th Annual Flex Your Power
Award winners, have discovered that energy
efficiency not only cuts their electricity bills
but helps insulate them from volatile fossil
fuel and electricity prices and attracts
environmentally conscious consumers. To
encourage other California companies to
replicate the companies' best practices, the
report recommends that California should:
establish mandatory limits on GHG emissions,
defend the State's GHG emissions standards for
cars and light trucks from legal challenges,
increase funding for energy efficiency and
renewable energy, and work with other states and
the federal government to implement California's
standards nationwide.
Read background
Energy efficiency resources for the commercial
sector
Energy efficiency resources for the
institutional sector
Energy Efficiency Leader Johnson Controls
Launches YourEnergyForum.com Blog
Johnson Controls Inc.,
saves an estimated 2.5 million kilowatt-hours
annually — 11% of the company's 2003
consumption. Upgrades have included efficient
lighting, occupancy sensors and energy
management controls on process equipment. The
controls alone shaved four hours from the daily
operating schedules of 19 motors. Johnson
Controls is also developing a demand-reduction
system capable of automatically reducing power
levels when the plant exceeds specified
peak-electricity thresholds. In July, Johnson
Controls, the recipient of a 4th Annual Flex
Your Power Energy Efficiency Honorable Mention,
launched the blog
YourEnergyForum.com. "We hope to start an
international dialogue about conserving energy
and what companies are doing to respond to the
problem," Darryll Fortune, the company's public
relations director, told Greenwire.
Read background
Apply for the 5th Annual Flex Your Power Awards
View the 4th Annual Flex Your Power Award
winners
"Cool-Colored" Roofs Helping Two Sacramento-Area
Homeowners Save Energy and Money
Researchers from Oak
Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley national
laboratories are reporting promising results in
their test of "cool-colored" roofs on a pair of
homes in Fair Oaks, just outside Sacramento. All
the homes in the neighborhood were designed to
be more energy efficient than required by
California's energy code, but the two test homes
have additionally been topped with roofing
materials colored with heat-reflecting pigments.
Researchers have found that on hot summer
afternoons, the attic of the home with
cool-brown concrete tiles is 5.4 to 9 degrees
cooler than an identical home on the same street
with conventional tiles; the other home, with
cool-brown metal shingles, records attic
temperatures 9 to 12.6 degrees cooler than its
conventionally roofed twin. John Zaichkin, owner
of the home with the cool concrete tile roof,
tells the Sacramento Bee that he's
noticed the difference in his electricity bill.
Even though his current home is 550 square feet
larger than his old townhouse, with the help of
the cool roof, his electric bill has been cut
nearly in half. The California Energy
Commission, which is funding the Fair Oaks
study, already requires cool roofs for some
commercial buildings and may extend the
requirement to new roofs on all commercial and
residential buildings.
Read background
Cool roofs product guide
Solar Collector Brings Sunlight Indoors
Researchers with Oak
Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL)
Solar Technologies Program are field-testing
a hybrid solar lighting system that can save
$800 annually in lighting and cooling costs. The
system uses a rooftop-mounted, 4-ft diameter
dish and secondary mirror to track, capture and
channel sunlight into 127 optical fibers that
are connected to indoor light fixtures. Each
rooftop collector powers 8 to 12 light fixtures,
which use diffusion rods to spread natural light
over 1,000 square feet. Over the next few
months, 20 units (in addition to the five
already in the field) will be installed at sites
nationwide, including Sacramento Municipal
Utility District customer service headquarters
and San Diego State University.
Sunlight Direct, a startup company that
licensed the hybrid solar lighting technology
from ORNL, estimates that buildings of 100,000
to 200,000 square feet can save $1 million to $2
million in energy costs, and another $300,000 in
avoided maintenance, over 10 years with the
technology. Sunlight Direct says that a model
for commercial buildings will be available in
early 2007, and a residential model will be
ready for field-testing in 2008.
Read background
Guides for energy-efficient products and
equipment
Find rebates, services and incentives
Philips "EcoBoost" Technology Trims Energy Use
in Halogen Lamps 40% to 60%
A new technology
developed by Royal Philips Electronics, EcoBoost,
reduces energy use in halogen lamps by 40% to
60% compared to standard halogen or incandescent
lamps, the company says. EcoBoost uses a special
compound to divert heat from the burner, keeping
the lamp cooler and converting more electricity
into light. Philips says it will use EcoBoost in
a first-of-its-kind product: the compact halogen
lamp (CHL). Though CHLs resemble incandescent
bulbs — they can be screwed into standard
sockets and bear the pear shape familiar to
consumers — they last three times as long and
use 50% less energy. Philips is marketing
EcoBoost halogen lamps to shops, hotels,
restaurants and the residential market for
general and accent lighting applications. The
company says it will integrate EcoBoost
technology into future lamps.
Read background
Guides for energy-efficient products and
equipment
Find rebates, services and incentives
PG&E First U.S. Utility to Offer Rebates for
Efficient Computer Servers
Partnering with Sun
Microsystems, Pacific Gas and Electric Company
(PG&E) recently became the first utility in the
United States to offer rebates for
energy-efficient computer servers. Customers who
purchase Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers, which
Sun and PG&E say are three to five times more
efficient than standard systems, can receive
rebates of up to $1,000 per server. On top of
the rebates, Sun and PG&E estimate that the
servers save about $800 per year in energy
costs, and hundreds more by reducing the load on
air conditioning systems. For more information
on replacing existing servers with Sun Fire
models visit the
Sun and the PG&E
Non Residential Rebate Retrofit Program
websites.
Read background
Find rebates, incentives and services
Guides for energy-efficient products and
equipment
Gov. Schwarzenegger Forms Heat Emergency
Response Task Force
In response to the
record-breaking heat wave that gripped
California in mid July, Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger recently formed a Heat Emergency
Response Task Force co-chaired by the Governor's
Office of Emergency Services and California
Health and Human Services Agency. Composed of
representatives from dozens of state and local
health and safety agencies and associations, the
Task Force will assess how well existing
emergency response measures worked during the
heat wave and will ensure that successful
programs are adopted in the hottest, most
at-risk parts of the state. The Task Force is
charged with: improving emergency communications
during public health emergencies; using
technology to timely deliver critical,
life-saving information; defining the operating
hours and method for locating cooling centers;
and developing transportation plans that ensure
that vulnerable populations can reach cooling
centers. For up-to-date information on cooling
centers, contact the nearest
county office of emergency services, and for
tips to keep your family safe during extreme hot
weather, call the California Department of
Consumer Affairs at (800) 952-5210.
Read background
League of California Cities Heat Emergency
Response Task Force press release
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