Monthly Archives: February 2020

Small Buildings Reluctant To Do Energy Upgrades

Energy efficiency upgrades are often at the bottom of building owner or manager’s list of priorities, particularly for smaller buildings, defined as under 25,000 square feet, which comprises nearly 90% of US commercial building stock. According a 2015 report published by National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), entitled “Financing Small Commercial Building Energy Performance Upgrades: Challenges and Opportunities”, owners face several challenges in terms of financing such projects. NIBS recommends that government and other organizations make it easier to obtain credible financing.

Barriers to Energy Efficiency for Small Commercial Building Owners

According to the document, the main barriers are skepticism that energy retrofit projects will actually deliver the financial benefits calculated, financing, and technologies favoring larger buildings. Delivering benefits leads to three discussions.

Building owners, like most business people, crave certainty. While the engineer can explain the likelihood of the success of the retrofit, the owner – not knowledgeable about technology – is naturally skeptical about things they don’t personally know. Also, management usually does not have experienced staff who can review and oversee specific design and building performance vis-à-vis energy efficiency.

Second, management tends to focus first on urgent repairs and delay long-term upgrades. There are not many periods when there is not something crucial pending. Management culture, therefore, is more day-to-day rather than long-term. What then often happens is that management is forced to implement an upgrade because of failing equipment, putting the team under pressure, costing more money, and limiting options.

Third, building management tend to look at investments in the short-term if, for no other reason, their salaries/bonuses/promotions are based on short-term profit.

Another issue is financing which is potentially troublesome for many building owners who often borrow for other types of projects and may have checkered histories.

Finally, most strategies to improve commercial energy efficiency are more financially beneficial for larger buildings than small ones. Since there is a base price for a technology, building it larger or being more comprehensive does not add a lot to the cost, but could be more effective in reducing energy use. Smaller buildings do not get the potential benefit a larger building with more tenants and activities do.

Overcoming These Obstacles

One way to overcome the skepticism is to have the energy specialist come in with turnkey solutions. The company will develop the opportunity, bring in the proper vendors to design, build, and install the technology, and test it to ensure that minimum standards are met. One company that the building owner trusts oversees all aspects gives that owner more confidence that the implementation will be proper and goals obtained.

The NIBS report recommends that government, and, particularly, the federal government, link existing loan and other programs to assist small businesses. Existing Small Business Administration loan programs do not address energy or environmental upgrades. Working with the Dept of Energy, such programs focused on realistic energy savings and upgrades can be successful.

Property-assessed clean energy (PACE) and on-bill financing are options the report recommends. PACE loans are repaid through property tax assessments bills and are administered by government and considered higher-priority than mortgages. On-bill financing programs fund retrofits via utility bill savings over time.

Loans specific to upgraded equipment loans, managed energy service agreements, and real estate investment trusts (REITs) may also encourage more energy upgrade projects. In managed energy service agreements, customers pay an energy firm a set straight energy fee. The firm pays the utility what is actually used and makes money from the difference, which occurs by making the building more energy efficient. The firm takes the risk and the owner pays a set fee.

Understanding the building owner/manager’s culture and pressures will make it easier for energy professionals to propose energy upgrade projects which don’t just make technical and financial sense, but also makes the owner comfortable about success and minimizes risk.

CCES has the experts to evaluate any type of building and develop and project manage energy saving projects with a robust payback and to improve productivity at the same time. We can see projects from initial design and calculation to final. Contact us today at karell@CCESworld.com or at 914-584-6720.

Challenges Remain In Investing in Energy Storage

Everyone now understands that clean energy, such as solar and wind, has so many positives. Renewable power is now cheaper to build and operate than a conventional fossil fuel-fired plant. It is clearly cleaner for a community’s health and emits no greenhouse gases. The problem, of course, is the intermittent nature of the power. Solar produces a lot of power when the sun is out, but little or none during cloud cover or at night. Wind does great, but only when there is wind. But people, businesses, etc. need power consistently. And utilities need a reliable supply to deliver at all times. Storage of excess electricity is the solution to this problem; but storage on a utility-sized level is not simple. Energy storage is a rapidly growing sector, and prices are dropping.

A growing number of entities (businesses, cities, states) are committing to a high percent of electricity used from renewable sources. This article accounts for the many areas in the US pointing toward 100% clean energy. https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/100-Clean-Energy-Progress-Report-UCLA-2.pdf. Globally, one article predicts a 13-fold increase in new renewable power plants just between 2018 and 2024 (https://www.woodmac.com/our-expertise/focus/Power–Renewables/global-storage-q3-2019/?utm_source=gtmarticle&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=wmpr_globalstorq319). Therefore, energy storage must play a role to meet these goals.

Global investments will be needed to upgrade the grid with enough flexibility to account for the variable power generation profiles of renewable technologies, including electricity storage. As a new industry without an affordable, reliable solution, electricity storage does not motivate investors. Questions investors ask is how will an storage project generate income? While charging or while deploying electricity or both? Each plant likely has its own interconnection issues which may affect reliability and profitability.

Another consideration for investors is that electricity storage projects, for now, have a shorter lifespan (10 to 15 years) than that of renewable power itself. How do these technologies age during the lifespan? This can be worrisome to investors.

One more concern for electricity storage investment is reaction time and reliability. If a solar or wind farm suddenly fails to generate power for any reason, can the battery project deploy power into the grid immediately (in microseconds)? And to seamlessly shift back to store excess power again?

On the other hand, there is great motivation among utilities and governments to have reliable storage solutions in place to ensure uninterrupted power to consumers in case of a natural disaster (hurricane or other damage to the grid) and may ensure or guarantee the other risks to have such systems in place.

Therefore, energy storage as an investment opportunity for those with their eyes open.

Investment in electricity storage projects continues to grow, especially when paired with renewable technologies. This summer, a major large hybrid renewable project was announced, a 700 MW facility in Oklahoma, including 250 MWs of wind, 250 MWs of solar and 800 MWh of battery storage. More such hybrid plants or storage technologies added to existing solar/wind farms are being planned.

CCES can help you determine your electricity needs and whether renewable is in your interest and how so. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

Community Solar: A New Win-Win Approach

More state and local governments and utilities are encouraging new solar plants to enhance flexibility of sources of electricity and to meet “green” goals. Building and maintaining a solar farm is now cheaper than that of a new fossil fuel-fired power plant, encouraging this even more. A problem that solar developers face – like any entrepreneur – is ensuring demand for the new plant. One approach is the many people who want to have solar panels but cannot have them on their homes because of shading or because they live in apartments without the space. Such people can invest in solar projects to get credit for creating solar power while the electricity generated from these plants go either to their community or certain spots, such as poor neighborhoods or nursing homes to help defray their costs. Such projects are called community solar.

For example, a community solar farm just began commercial operation in in Greene County, NY. The 3-MW solar project is under the category of “community” and, therefore, received funding and administrative support from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

In this project, residential and small business electricity users near the proposed project were given the choice to invest in this project simply by switching their electricity to solar energy generated by the project. Such a switch even allowed them to receive State credits reducing their electricity bill. The commitment of a minimum number of utility customers to solar was what was needed to know that the output of the proposed plant would be accepted into the grid. In this case, having the community choosing solar even if each could not house their own solar panels was sufficient for allowing the electricity into the grid and to allow the investment and construction to start.

But this project did not end there. The project also called for the development of 2.5 acres of pollinator-friendly habitat to be planted around the site. In addition, the project included nearly $10,000 in funding to a local land trust to restore floodplain forest and enhance public access to a nearby nature preserve.

Solar projects used to be individual homes or buildings installing solar panels on their roofs or nearby yards. That’s fine. However, solar is and will go farther with this new emphasis on the community contributing together to support the construction of a new solar plant in or near the community and contributing to its electricity mix. And with solar farms now being cheaper than conventional power plants, this can even lead to a decrease in electricity rates for the community.

CCES has the experts to help you decide whether solar or any other potential renewable project is right for your building or company. We can bring in the experts to design the source for you and project manage it to ensure you get the maximum benefits and utility and government incentives. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@ccesworld.com.

Lighting and Improved Productivity

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) have been around for nearly 100 years. The primary advantage of using LED lights is energy savings. It has become popular in the last couple of decades because its cost of manufacturing has come down, the unit cost of energy has risen, and the technology itself has improved. LED output can now be controlled automatically to suit the users’ needs.

Now that a cost-savings baseline has been established, more recent research has focused on improving light quality to improve the health and productivity of workers.

Recent research has helped us understand how light influences human behavior. Human circadian rhythm can be affected by different visible wavelengths, particularly in the blue-green region. Light coming into one’s eyes and stimulating the nervous system is a major influencer of the circadian system, which starts in the brain and regulates physiological rhythms throughout the body, affecting hormone levels and the sleep-wake cycle.
Certain neural receptors in the retina when they capture light of wavelength of about 490 nm which best causes the brain to stimulate other parts of the body (alertness). Furthermore, light with lower amounts of this wavelength range signals the body to settle down and prepare to rest.

Light can influence other activities, too, such as being energized during the day and falling asleep at night. Several university research laboratories and lamp manufacturers are trying to incorporate this into LED light technology. While LEDs can emit a very natural white color, part of its spectrum could contain a larger amount of rays in the blue-green region (470 nm to 520 nm wavelength), which can influence human circadian rhythm and behavior.

Finally, research is showing that the ideal wavelengths to show effects on human behavior also depends on the age of the subject, due to changes in the eye’s shape and cornea with aging. In general, as one ages, the wavelength needed to influence human behavior goes up. However, even as one may adjust the wavelength, the influence on behavior declines as one ages; again, the effects of aging on the physiological and hormonal properties.

Therefore, imagine an office where the lights are programmed to emit white light at all wavelengths, but especially around the 490 nm mark, the high point for alertness for young people, but also higher wavelengths for older workers. And then changing the mix of wavelengths to higher ones to get people to settle down at the end of the work day. That time may come sooner than we expect.

CCES has the experts to help you evaluate your lighting to optimize the energy savings, be more green, and improve your workers’ productivity. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.