Department of Energy's Retrofit Ramp-Up Initiative Hits Home

There has never been a better time to make energy efficicency improvements to our communities or to add renewable energy generation technologies to our homes and businesses.

Commitment Starts at the Top

On April 21, Vice President Joe Biden announced total grants of up to $452 million dollars for the U.S. Department of Energy's Retrofit Ramp-Up initiative. Under this initiative, governments, private companies, non-profits and other groups will work together to research and implement energy efficiency improvements in entire communities.

These efforts are expected to save $100 million dollars in energy usage by businesses and homes and will create more than 30,000 jobs during the next three years in the process (Source: http://eere.energy.gov, April 21). The initiative, which is part of the $80 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars that are allocated via the DOE's Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program, is expected to spark an additional $2.8 billion in other funding over the same three-year span. (Image Credit: http://smallbiztrends.com/)

One of the larger awards went to Boulder County, Colorado, which will receive $25 million in funding. Boulder County, in partnership with the Governor’s Energy Office, Xcel Energy City and County of Denver, Garfield County and other participants, will use the funds to connect home owners with affordable energy efficiency upgrades.

Though all of the details have not been determined, this group is considering implementation of the following:

• creating an energy “concierge service” to distribute information to homeowners and businesses
• providing targeted rebates
• expanding the popular City of Boulder "Two Techs and a Truck" program to provide onsite assistance with business and residential efficiency retrofits
• expanding the successful Boulder County ClimateSmart Loan Program, and complement these efforts with innovative financing strategies.

This federal investment in Boulder County is expected to spark $180 million in efficiency upgrades and to eliminate some 200,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions (Source: www.bouldercounty.org, April 21). 

Successful Programs in Boulder -  A Unique Mix of Innovations

The ClimateSmart Loan Program "provides a voluntary mechanism for commercial and residential property owners to obtain financing for renewable energy and/or energy efficiency improvements to properties in Boulder County, including properties in all cities and towns. Each property owner who receives financing through the program will be responsible for repaying the loan via a special assessment on the improved property" (Source: www.bouldercounty.org).  The most unique part of this program is the fact that these loans are tied to the property itself, not the person taking out the loan.  This allows for features such as solar panels to be paid for over time as part of the home's purchase and promotes the idea that such features are a part of a home or land's value, regardless of who owns it.

The "Two Techs and a Truck" program involves door-to-door visits to residences in which one technician does an energy audit to suggest larger-scale energy efficiency improvements and provide the resident with resources to implement them while the other make whatever on-site improvements that are possible (installation of efficient light bulbs, weather stripping, etc.).  The program will begin in May of 2010 and is funded by a carbon tax that was approved by the Boulder City Council last fall.

In addition, the City of Boulder is the site of Xcel Energy's SmartGrid City program, which is Xcel's first full-scale roll out of a fully communicating electric grid.  For more on the SmartGrid city project, please click here.

(Image Credit: www.consumerenergyreport.com)

Recharge Colorado - Connecting You with Resources

In other local developments, the State of Colorado and the Governor's Energy Office (GEO) has hit the ground running with its “Recharge Colorado” website. The state's program, which I wrote about in this March entry, includes:

• Colorado’s Main Street Energy Initiative
• residential rebates for everything from Energy Star appliances and efficiency measures to residential renewable energy generation
• the Colorado Industrial Challenge Program

This new website is a great interactive tool for anyone who’s interested in purchasing energy efficient appliances or materials and for those interested in submitting a grant proposal. For a full list of these programs, please click here.

In addition, Recharge Colorado is a great place to learn more about state programs involving renewable energy generation and research. To read more, please visit the Governor’s Energy Office’s Renewable Energy Programs page.

(Image Credit: www.thisefficienthouse.com)

The New Building in Town – Workplaces of the Future

Make way, Colorado; a ground-breaking workspace will call our state home this June.

As you may know, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is building a sustainable office space in Golden, Colorado that will support some 800 staff from both its National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the DOE’s Golden Field Office. The building, which will be located on NREL’s campus, will feature roughly 220,000 square feet of space that meets LEED Platinum certification requirements. The project, for which the Department of Energy awarded $64 million in contract funds, will be “a showcase for energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies” (Source: www.nrel.gov).  (Image Credit:  http://online.wsj.com)

A Net-Zero Footprint - Smart Spaces on a Budget

The primary goal of this office is net-zero energy use and the hope is that what they learn in the planning and building processes transfers toward the DOE’s previously stated goal of commercially viable net-zero energy buildings by 2025 (Source: www.eco-structure.com, September 19, 2009). In order to serve as a model project for the commercial construction industry, a key goal is to keep the building’s construction within reasonable cost levels – it comes out to about $280 per sq/ft unfurnished – and to widely publish the project’s results (Source: http://online.wsj.com).  (Photo Credit: www.nrel.gov)  

The building is slated to open in June of this year and is called the Research Support Facilities (RSF) center. Everything from the workspace layouts to the general structure was shaped and oriented to maximize natural light exposure.  The building itself resembles an "H" shape and is engineered so that no area inside is more than 30 feet from a window and natural light sources. High-level staff members, for example, will work in offices that have walls only six feet tall and cubicles will be in an open-air configuration with very little in the way of walls in between them. Click here to read more detail on the workspace engineering concepts included in the RSF. (Image Credit: www.nrel.gov)

Windows That Do More 

A system of smart windows plays a large role in the efficient use of the variety of lightning conditions that the building will experience, including:

• Heat-loss control
• Angled interior reflection to maximize interior lighting
• Sunshades to prevent work station glare

The windows will also open to vent excess heat in the warm months at night and will use the cooler night air to naturally bring down the temperature of the building. They were built with a special self-darkening film - which could cut down on energy waste via windows by up to 40% - that responds to the outside temperature.  To find out how the windows work, please click here and select the "Raven Window" option.   (Photo Credit: www.nrel.gov)

A Different Kind of Basement

Another unique feature of the building is an innovative basement-level series of concrete walls that will either capture and slowly transmit heat - from the computer center and a transpired air collector - or capture and transmit cooler air (from nighttime collections), depending on the seasons.

Pulling the outside air through this concrete labyrinth can warm it up by 5 - 10 degrees. The key to heating the building in the winter is the transpired air collector design, which minimizes loss and allows ventilated air to be heated as it enters the building. To read more about how these transpired air collectors work, please click here.

Turning on the Lights - On-Site Renewable Generation

Desk-based lighting is automatically controlled by the building to illuminate when a certain level of darkness is reached. In addition, there’s no “set temperature” for the building – it will be allowed to fluctuate between 68 and 80 degrees before energy-powered heating or cooling sources kick in. Even the cubicles themselves were built to use less energy than the current standard of 10.8 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month (instead using 2.8), and the workstations save additional energy by using laptop computers instead of desktops (Source and Image Credit: http://online.wsj.com/).

For the inevitable amount of energy that the building will require to operate, the DOE is building a Photovoltaic system that can generate up to 1.4 megawatts of energy specifically for the RSF.  Given that Colorado has the fifth greatest solar potential in the United States, these panels should be capable of covering most of the building's leftover energy needs (Source:  www.energyboom.com, April 6). To see how the construction and architecture group got around the hurdles associated with the recycled piping, please click here. 

Even the Building Blocks Are Green

When the DOE and NREL originally started the planning process on the Research Support Facility, they tried to keep the footprint of the building process itself as green as possible. The building structure consists of recycled steel pipe from old natural gas lines and the building uses beetle-kill wood panels and interior throughout. For information on how the construction team worked

Final Note

Don't be fooled by all of the functional design of the RSF - efficient does not mean bare.  This building achieves all of the above and still comes complete with such luxuries as a fitness center and a library for employees (Source: 
www.nrel.gov).  To learn more about this amazing, ground-breaking building, please click here.