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President Obama is proposing new efforts to improve energy efficiency in commercial buildings across the country. Last year, commercial buildings consumed roughly 20 percent of all energy in the U.S. economy. Improving energy efficiency in our buildings can create jobs, save money, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and make our air cleaner. The President’s Better Buildings Initiative will make commercial buildings 20 percent more energy efficient over the next decade by catalyzing private sector investment through a series of incentives to upgrade offices, stores, schools and other municipal buildings, universities, hospitals, and other commercial buildings. This initiative builds on our investments through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and our continued commitment to passing the President’s proposed “HOMESTAR” legislation to encourage American families to make energy saving upgrades in their homes.

• Achieve a 20 percent improvement in energy efficiency by 2020: Under the President’s plan, by 2020, we will make commercial building space in the United States 20 percent more energy efficient through cost-effective upgrades.
• Reduce companies’ and business owners’ energy bills by about $40 billion per year: By making buildings more energy efficient we will save business owners money by reducing their energy bills by about $40 billion at today’s prices. That money that can be put to better use hiring more workers, inventing new products, and creating shareholder value.
• Save energy by reforming outdated incentives and challenging the private sector to act: The President is calling for an aggressive reform of existing tax and other incentives for commercial building retrofits and proposing a new competitive grant program. In turn, he is asking corporate leaders to commit to making progress toward his energy goals.

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It’s February and Ameren Illinois’ Act On Energy ® program is offering a sweet deal!  For all new applications submitted from February 14th through March 31st of 2011 that include electric measures, an additional 15% cash bonus will be added on top of the incentive.  This could improve your project’s ROI and increase your incentives for high bay lighting replacements and other non-T12 retrofits.  Since the T12 lighting phase-out program already pays a 10% bonus, T12 measures are not eligible for this 15% bonus.  The current 10% bonus for T12 lighting upgrades offers the best incentives for T12 replacements that will be offered for the duration of this program.

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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced support for energy-saving commercial building projects as part of an ongoing effort by DOE to improve the energy efficiency of buildings in the United States. With money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, DOE’s national laboratories will select and fund technical experts to provide technical guidance to commercial building owners and operators. The goal of this Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP) initiative is to increase the energy efficiency of selected new and existing buildings.

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Efficiency Vermont, Vermont’s statewide provider of energy efficiency services, has announced a new program promoting the replacement of T12 and HID High-Bay lighting with more efficient technology.  The newLIGHT program is being made available from April 1st to December 31st, 2010, and is offering businesses significantly enhanced rebates for upgrading their old T12 fluorescent and HID high-bay lighting systems to more efficient equipment.  This comes as the Department of Energy has passed new regulations that will ban the manufacture of T12 fluorescent lamps for sale in the US after July 14, 2012.

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If you are in or around Washington DC on March 10th, 2010, you may want to register to attend the Great Energy Efficiency Day event being held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building.  The event is organized by the Alliance to Save Energy and promises an in-depth discussion on funding, technology and policy measures required to realize energy efficiency’s full potential.

Thie Great Energy Efficiency Day, which has been going on since 2004, has a very impressive roster of confirmed speakers that will focus on the following topics:

• Federal, State and Local Stimulus Dollars Promoting Energy Efficiency: Today and Tomorrow
• Stimulus and Smart Communities
• Building for the Future: EE Technologies Today and Tomorrow

Admission is free, but you must register in order to attend.  Read more about the Great Energy Efficiency Day’s agenda and catch up on past events at the official site.

There has been a flurry of media attention being given to Bloom Energy as they get ready to come out of stealth mode with their Bloom Box fuel cell technology.  Bloom Energy has been developing their fuel cell for almost a decade and has received approximately $400M in capital investment from some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names.

K.R. Sridhar, the company’s rocket scientist founder, believes that his fuel cells will be able to power your home in five years at a price tag of around $3,000.  In order to get there, they’re going to have to drive the cost of production way down.  The company has already signed up some very big names with deployments at Google, eBay and FedEx to name a few. The recent state and federal tax benefits that have been created to spur the industry have helped these companies cut the acquisition cost down from the estimated $700,000 price tag for these installs.

The following video, which aired on CBS’ 60 Minutes on February 21, 2010, gives a very good overview of the technology behind the Bloom Box as well as the background of the company.

What do you think? Is K.R.’s vision realistic or can the utility companies stop worrying that their business model is about to go through a major disruption? Let me know in the comments.

At this years TED talks, Bill Gates unveiled his vision for the world’s energy future, describing the need for “miracles” to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he’s backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.

You can watch his whole talk below or visit the TED site to view other interesting talks.

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. The conference has evolved and now drives the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Since most of us don’t get a chance to listen to these discussions live, it’s great that TED makes them available online.

TED via Gizmodo

On February 12th, the Obama Administration announced a multi-agency initiative to spur regional economic growth while making buildings more energy efficient.  Seven federal agencies, including the Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Labor and the Small Business Administration, issued a combined Funding Opportunity Announcement of nearly $130 million over five years to create a regional research center that will develop new building efficiency technologies and work with local partners to implement the technologies in area buildings.

Since buildings account for nearly 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption, energy efficiency improvements in buildings can provide significant benefits not only to the building owners through lower utility bills, but the entire country through decreased carbon emissions.

“Energy efficient buildings represent one of our best and most immediate opportunities to create jobs, save money and cut carbon pollution.” – U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.

The research center will be based at a university, DOE national laboratory, nonprofit organization, or private firm in what the release calls an Energy Regional Innovation Cluster (E-RIC) that is centered around an Energy Innovation Hub.  The center is expected to partner closely with local or state government officials and leverage the expertise of local architects, builders, and manufacturers.

For more details, view the full release on the DOE web site.

The National Energy Technology Lab has announced on behalf of the US Department of Energy that it is funding 17 solid state lighting projects with over $37M of American Recovery and Reinvestment funds.  The goal of the solid state lighting project is to develop advanced solid-state lighting technologies by the year 2025 that, compared to conventional lighting technologies, are much more energy efficient, longer lasting, and cost competitive by targeting a product system efficiency of 50 percent with lighting that accurately reproduces sunlight spectrum.

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The Environmental Protection Agency has just announced the ENERGY STAR National Building Competition, the first coast-to-coast contest for commercial buildings to save energy and fight global warming. ENERGY STAR partners are being asked to nominate one or more of the facilities they own or manage from across the country for consideration. Approximately a dozen contest participants will be selected by EPA and will “work off the waste” through improvements in energy efficiency with help from EPA’s ENERGY STAR program. The building that reduces its energy use the most on a percentage basis will be recognized by EPA as the winner.

Contest participants will take part in outreach activities, periodic “weigh-ins” to measure progress, and a final celebration to announce the winner. This is a great opportunity to receive national recognition from EPA and establish your organization as an environmental leader by entering your building in this exciting national competition!  For more information, or to apply for your building to compete, go to the program web site.  Applications must be submitted by Feb. 12, 2010.