Energy Exchange

EDF Is Going to Court to Secure Healthier Air for Millions of Texans

By Tomas Carbonell / Published: January 28, 2014

This commentary originally appeared on our Texas Clean Air Matters blog.

This post was co-authored by Tomás Carbonell, EDF Attorney, and Brian Korpics, EDF Legal Fellow.

Source: Texas Tribune
Haze over Dallas Area

Last week, EDF took one more step toward protecting Texans from harmful levels of ozone pollution that have afflicted the state for far too long.

Ozone pollution, better known as “smog,” is one of the most severe and persistent public health problems affecting Texans. Smog causes a range of health issues — including aggravation of asthma and other respiratory illnesses, decreased lung function, increased hospital and emergency room visits for respiratory conditions — and it is associated with premature mortality in urban areas.

According to the American Lung Association (ALA), Dallas-Fort Worth is the eighth most affected area in the country for smog. ALA estimates the city is home to millions of people who are sensitive to ozone-related health problems — including 1.6 million people suffering cardiovascular disease; nearly 1.9 million children; nearly 650,000 elderly residents; and over 520,000 people with asthma.

EDF and its dedicated staff in Texas have long worked to protect Texans from unhealthy levels of smog by reducing the pollution that leads to harmful ozone levels. Most recently, we have been litigating in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to secure important Clean Air Act protections in all areas that are contributing to the serious ozone problems in Dallas-Fort Worth. Read More »

Also posted in Air Quality, Climate, Natural Gas, Texas / Comments are closed

Scaling NYC Clean Heat’s Unique Public-Private Partnership for Energy Efficiency

By Abbey Brown / Published: January 27, 2014

Recently, New Yorkers bid farewell to our Mayor of twelve years, Mike Bloomberg. Under Bloomberg’s prevue, EDF helped catalyze the NYC Clean Heat program – which led to the cleanest air the City has seen in the last fifty years. Through NYC Clean Heat’s efforts over the past few years to phase out the use of highly-polluting No. 6 heating oil in more than 3,000 buildings across NYC, sulfur pollution fell by more than two-thirds while soot pollution dropped by a quarter.

NYC Clean Heat has made great strides in helping buildings become cleaner and more efficient, but there is still much work to be done. EDF is wasting no time in capitalizing on the effective public-private partnership we helped assemble of community and union leaders, policymakers and leaders in the utility, real estate and finance sectors to bring more environmental and public health gains to the City. Our next target: All that energy wasted by old and inefficient buildings.

Nearly 40% of U.S. energy is consumed by residential and commercial buildings, which are responsible for more than a third of our country’s greenhouse gases. The building sector presents one of the greatest untapped opportunities for major gains in energy savings and pollution reductions over the next several years. Read More »

Also posted in Energy Efficiency, New York / Tagged NYC Clean Heat | Comments are closed

PACE 2.0: California Leading the Next Evolution in Clean Energy Finance

By EDF Blogs / Published: January 23, 2014

Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) is an innovative financing technique for clean energy retrofits that was first developed in Berkeley in 2008, giving energy efficiency projects a huge boost throughout the U.S.

Here’s how it works: Property owners agree to a long-term tax assessment on their home or building in exchange for the upfront funding to pay for a retrofit. What’s great about the program is its ability to essentially eliminate one of the biggest barriers to energy efficiency retrofits: up-front costs.

And, just as with any other property tax assessment, the obligation transfers to the new owner upon a sale of the property. This transferability allows property owners to consider projects with longer payback periods as the obligation does not become immediately due upon sale. Read More »

Also posted in California, Clean Energy, Energy Financing / Tagged PACE, PACE 2.0 | Comments are closed

New York Public Service Commission Signals Big Changes to Prioritize Clean Energy

By Elizabeth B. Stein / Published: January 17, 2014

In the last week of December, the New York Public Service Commission issued an Order that signals big changes coming soon to New York’s electric utility landscape. The Commission made it clear that it wants clean energy resources, including on-site, distributed power generation (such as solar PV), energy efficiency and energy load management strategies, to play a central role in how the energy system brings value to customers. In contrast to the peripheral role clean energy resources have played in the past, the Commission is now ready to make them a priority, signaling a willingness to transform the regulatory landscape.

The Order was one of a trilogy arising from three intertwined proceedings, all of which were considered by the Commission on December 19, 2013. One of those three – perhaps the most concrete and immediate – was a proceeding concerning the initial capitalization of New York’s Green Bank, a new entity that aims to advance clean energy funding in New York State. That proceeding addresses a proposal to leverage ratepayer funds and private investment to systematically address market barriers to private financing of distributed generation, energy efficiency and demand management projects, with an ultimate goal of building a clean energy marketplace that can stand on its own. The other related proceedings concerned two New York State programs that draw on the same funding sources that are now being made available for the initial capitalization of the Green Bank: New York’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and the Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (EEPS).

This Order concerns various proposals to improve and streamline the EEPS programs. Some of these changes are effective immediately, such as the elimination of duplicative reporting requirements. Other, more substantive program modifications – such as the changes to the structure of EEPS and other clean energy programs, as well as the responsibilities of various entities (including the Commission’s Staff, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the utilities themselves) – are to be addressed through a new “E² working group,” which is to be formed by February 1, 2014. This new working group is tasked with “sharing and developing concepts for an optimized E² portfolio that supports a scale-up of energy efficiency and overall system efficiency,” for a program launch by the end of 2015. Read More »

Also posted in Energy Efficiency, Grid Modernization, New York, Renewable Energy / Tagged Green Bank | Read 1 Response

We Can’t Expect a Reliable Energy Future Without Talking Water

By Kate Zerrenner / Published: January 14, 2014

This commentary originally appeared on our EDF Voices blog.

It’s no secret that electricity generation requires substantial amounts of water, and different energy sources require varying amounts of water. Nor is it a surprise that Texas and other areas in the West and Southwest are in the midst of a persistent drought. Given these realities, it is surprising that water scarcity is largely absent from the debate over which energy sources are going to be the most reliable in our energy future.

Recent media coverage has been quick to pin the challenge of reliability as one that only applies to renewables. The logic goes something like this: if the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow, we won’t have electricity, making these energy sources unreliable. But if we don’t have reliable access to abundant water resources to produce, move and manage energy that comes from water-intensive energy resources like fossil fuels, this argument against the intermittency of renewables becomes moot.

Moving forward into an uncertain energy future, the water intensity of a particular electricity source should be taken into consideration as a matter of course. Read More »

Also posted in Climate, Energy-Water Nexus, Grid Modernization, Renewable Energy, Texas / Tagged Energy-Water Nexus | Comments are closed

Governor Cuomo Announces $40 Million in Post-Sandy Microgrid Competition

By Rory Christian / Published: January 14, 2014

Since Superstorm Sandy stranded thousands without power across the state of New York in 2012, it has become clear that infrastructure upgrades are a necessity for the state. The current, outdated energy system is not up to the challenges of the present day and a changing climate. A year after Sandy, New York has a plan. Last week during his State of the State Address, Governor Cuomo announced the allocation of $40 million to the new Community Grids NYPrize Competition, a program which promises to help New York achieve a more sustainable, resilient energy future.

The competition, aimed at jump-starting at least ten “independent, community-based electric distributions systems” across the state by the end of 2014, is a highlight of a larger $17 billion plan to prepare for future storms like Sandy. Upon full implementation, the NYPrize Competition Community Grids are expected to support approximately 40,000 New York residents.

A “community microgrid” is a new type of energy system that leverages decentralized, local, clean power sources such as solar and wind that are able to operate independently of the centralized electric system. Microgrids are small-scale distribution systems that link multiple distributed energy resources (DERs) into a network that can generate, store and control its own power. Microgrids can operate in tandem with the main power grid during normal conditions, but can disconnect and function as an independent “island” of stable power if the main grid fails. The use of microgrids greatly reduces the number of outages and allows more people to keep their lights on during (and in the wake of) extreme weather events. Read More »

Also posted in Demand Response, Grid Modernization, New York / Tagged Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency | Read 1 Response