Santa Fe will start to see many rooftops with solar panels once the City and County determine how to implement the wonderful legislation that New Mexico passed this spring. http://senatorpeterwirth.com/?p=51

But will any be quite as glorious as this one in Milan, due to be completed next year:

This 2.9 million square foot, 18 megawatt array will be the largest (and most beautiful, I think) in the world.

The USGBC has just announced performance requirements for LEED V3 certified buildings. As they say in the press release:

Projects can comply with the performance requirement in one of three ways:
1. The building is recertified on a two-year cycle using LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations &
Maintenance.
2. The building provides energy and water usage data on an on-going basis annually.
3. The building owner signs a release that authorizes USGBC to access the building’s energy and
water usage data directly from the building’s utility provider.

This is a great step in ensuring the value of the LEED program as energy standards become more stringent across the country.

Here is a link to the USGBC website with the press release:    http://www.usgbc.org/

David MacKay has written a fascinating, immensly readable book about the opportunities and realities of sustainable energy. Although it is written with reference to England, it is still extremely relevant to us here in the US. This book is being touted as seminal by just about everyone who studies energy issues and has excellent reviews from most every major news organization in the US and England.

In the true spirit of free information dissemination, MacKay has made his book available for free to read or download from the internet. If you go here:

http://www.withouthotair.com/

you can read it too. I highly recommend it!

Here’s a great blog by Paul Krugman called “Betraying the Planet” :

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/opinion/29krugman.html?em

At least all of New Mexico’s congresspeople voted in favor of the Climate Act last Friday.

Here is a really good summary I came across of the legislation that is part of the Climate Act currently being voted on in the House. It is from the Energy Efficiency website (see blog list on the right)

Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance

(REEP)

Rationale

Buildings consume 39% of all energy used in the United States and generate about 10% of current global carbon emissions. While new buildings can be designed for greater efficiency, energy retrofits using existing technologies can maximize the efficiency of older structures and reduce their energy consumption by 25% or more. Retrofitting existing buildings is a cost-effective way to cut carbon emissions and create jobs, with every dollar invested in efficiency improvements saving consumers and businesses an average of $4.

Program Goals

The REEP program is a national initiative to provide direct cash incentives for retrofitting existing buildings, with the goal of cutting energy use by 20% or more and significantly reducing residential and commercial water use.

Financial Incentives

The program will support per-building direct incentives for efficiency improvements compared to the building’s previous energy use, capped at 50% of retrofit costs. Properties achieving at least 20% energy savings will be eligible to receive additional incentives for efficient water use.

For Homes:

• $1,000 for prescriptive measures designed to reduce energy consumption by at least 10%, or $2,000 for measures designed to reduce consumption by 20%
• $3,000 for demonstrated savings of 20%, plus an additional $1,000 for each additional 5% in additional energy savings achieved

For Commercial Buildings:

• $0.15 max. per square foot of retrofit area for energy use reductions from 20% to 30%
• $0.75 per square foot for energy use reductions from 30% to 40%
• $1.60 per square foot for energy use reductions from 40% to 50%
• $2.50 per square foot for energy use reductions exceeding 50%

The program also will allow states to use REEP funds to implement alternate financial incentive structures, such as credit enhancement, interest rate subsidies or other traditional credit support; public revolving-fund financing of retrofits with repayments by beneficiary building owners over time; or to support qualified utility-operated retrofit programs.

Standards

The REEP program requires RESNET certification (or the equivalent) for all energy and environment auditors, inspectors and raters, and state licensing or BPI certification (or the equivalent) for all energy and environmental retrofit contractors. State energy offices will be required to apply standards for training, contractor certification, building certification and post-retrofit inspection. Regular audits of the program are required.

If you have any spare time over the next few days, check out the Virtual Energy Forum:

http://www.virtualenergyforum.com/

Speakers such as Amory Lovins (Rocky Mountain Institute) , Fred Krupp (Environmental Defense Fund), Kathy Baczko (Clinton Clinate Initiative) and Mark Ginsburg (Senior Director, DOE) will be giving online presentations. It should be interesting - and it’s free!

We’ve just started this blog at AHA to keep you updated on news and ideas in energy efficiency and green building as we come across them. Please feel free to share your ideas and thoughts too.