Energy Solutions for a Greener America | from the National Electrical Contractors Association

By Joe Salimando                    www.eleblog.com

New York City’s Green Code Task Force has produced what will serve, for at least the time being, as the definition of a doozy! Yes, it weighs in at 341 pages – chock full of details on 111 notions about changing the city’s rules on buildings to make them (new and existing) a heck of a lot more pleasant, efficient, and sustainable.

OK: You’re NOT in NYC. But the effort made here to put together a list of ideas might pay off in your location. We’ve not read it all (much does not directly apply to electrical construction). You can access it (free) from this web page, from where you can also download the 341-page PDF.

You might prefer the executive summary, all 89 pages of it. There’s also an appendix offering 128 pages of “draft cost & savings data.” You literally can’t “cut to the chase” on this thing. If you head over to the newsroom, you’ll find 15 links to news that followed the document’s Feb. 1 release.

Electrical Sampler

To get a “taste” of what’s what on the electrical end of the 111 ideas, we browsed the document. Here’s a bit of it (there are more relevant items than what’s listed here!):

Pages 59-61 – “Convene Task Force on Recycling Fluorescent Light Bulbs.” The idea is for the NYC Dept. of Sanitation to think about what to do with linear fluorescent lamps and CFLs. It’s a good idea, unless you worship the god Mercury.

Pages 117-119 – “Reduce Artificial Lighting in Sunlit Spaces.” The city should, it says here, impose regulations that “require daylight-responsive controls.”

Pages 126 to 129 – two items on solar rooftop installations, one of them seeking clearer standards on attaching PV panels to roofs.

Pages 130-135 – all about altering the city’s zoning laws to allow solar collectors and PV panels on rooftops.

Pages 135-136 – the city has huge gobs of history, with many landmark buildings. Would alternative/distributed energy installations on the roof of one of these buildings be visible from the street – and thus not allowed (under current rules)? Change the rules!

Pages 141 -143 – “Re-Tune Large Buildings Every Seven Years.” This is a good idea for just about anywhere: “Every seven years, buildings larger than 50,000 square feet must be retro-commissioned, re- tuning the major building systems to ensure they all work together correctly.”

Pages 144-145 – “Measure Electricity Usage in Tenant Spaces.” Applies to new residences and new commercial buildings exceeding 10,000 sq. ft.

Pages 178 – 180 – “Increase Lighting Efficiency in Apartment Buildings.” The city’s Housing Maintenance Code (applies to apartment building hallways, stairs, common laundry areas) is waaaaay out-of-date.

Pages 195-196 – this idea for modification of the city’s Building Code prefers vacancy sensors to occupancy sensors . . . which is, at the very least, something to think about.

Pages 197-198 – “Limit After-Hours Retail Lighting.”

Pages 202 – 205 – concerns the efficiency of temporary lighting on construction sites.

Pages 216 – 218 – this one is fascinating: “An outmoded provision of the Electrical Code mandates that spaces have capacity to deliver three times the power for lighting as is allowed under the Energy Code. This increases cooling load requirements, necessitating oversized, expensive HVAC systems.”

Pages 230 – 232 – “Ensure Lighting Systems Function Properly.” Again, this is something one might like to see everywhere – and is probably long overdue. The summary: “Increasingly, lighting systems rely on sophisticated sensors and controls to reduce energy consumption. These systems must be tested and adjusted after installation to ensure that they function properly; unfortunately, this is not common practice.”

Perspective

There’s a lot more in the document, obviously. Provisions tackle the idea of having toilets and sinks – many hooked up to the power system these days – operate during blackouts (doesn’t’ that seem like a good idea). There’s a great deal about water systems and water use, HVAC operations, preserving 100-year-old trees, recycling construction waste, using recycled materials, and ideas on sidewalk design.

One favorite for this writer, who once worked on the 49^th floor of the McGraw-Hill building in Manhattan: Encouraging the use of stairways (while maintaining building security). No, it’s not about my need, 30 years ago, to walk up 49 floors. But the idea of having to use an elevator to go from one floor to the next doesn’t seem very “green” now – and it didn’t, even back then.

Don Fornes’s blog post on ENR, “The Coming Renaissance of Electrical Contracting” cited NECA’s Energy Solutions blog as a good source for information about the evolving role electrical contractors are playing in the green energy revolution and smart building system integration. From his post, originally published on Software Advice:

In the next ten to twenty years, “electrical contractor” will no longer be a suitable job title for electricians. They will transition into “energy contractors” to support the fast-growing green construction market.

We see this as a coming renaissance in electrical contracting. There has been a revival of interest in the electrical trade as home owners and corporations adopt alternative methods (e.g. solar, wind, etc) to power buildings. What’s driving this? Federal incentives, lower material costs and savings from reduced energy spending.

Read the full post on ENR.

By Joe Salimando      www.eleblog.com

The Role of Electrical Contractors on LEED Projects is a 55-page report (PDF free to NECA members, downloadable to non-members for $30). This is not a sales pitch.

What’s in there?

There’s a 10-plus-page section of what you might call “baseball cards” – called “LEED Credit Impact Slides” in the document. These explain the intent of each LEED credit in which ECs might have a role to play, along with pre-construction details and points about what will/should happen during construction. It’s as if someone went through a typical green/sustainable project seeking certification and pulled out the stuff applicable to an electrical contractor.

That section ends with a checklist (page 17) that the Michigan State researchers (the authors) aimed at ECs. It’s not clear where else you might find something like that.

Section 3 is all about the commissioning process – and what ECs might do. Some contractors might be familiar with commissioning; others will use these pages to study up on what’s required (and what’s not). In addition to explaining what commissioning is, how it relates to LEED, and more, many contractors may spend quality time with Table 3.5 – “Items to Take Into Account When Estimating the Cost of Commissioning.”

[Figure 3.1 shows a UPS system, “explaining component and system testing.” Two pages later, Table 3.6 – which, like Fig. 3.1, fills a full page  – is a Typical Pre-Functional Checklist]

If you’re unfamiliar with ELECTRI International – The Foundation for Electrical Construction, Inc., it funds research. Electrical contractors are on the ELECTRI Council; if you check the acknowledgement page (most of us breeze right through that) you’ll find 10 electrical contractors who provided assistance and guidance to the researchers.

I’ve been to one ELECTRI research meeting in the past. The contractors who participate aren’t rubber-stamps. They challenge researchers to justify their conclusions; they provide input on central matters to the topic at hand – and side issues as well.

Find ordering information here.

A final thought: For its first few years, the LEED program had seemed to give a building’s electrical/mechanical systems – which are, after all, the big energy users – significantly less attention than some had thought they deserved. That was fixed in 2009, with LEED V3.

Electrical contractors, as one result, will now find themselves at the center of more green/sustainable construction discussions. It might be unseemly for NECA to talk up a product from the Foundation with which it’s associated – but in this case, it’s more than merited.

New Funding Mechanisms May Encourage Building Owners to Launch Energy-Efficiency Improvement Projects

Steve Gossett Jr., writing in Buildings Magazine, asks the question, “[In the face of energy savings from 25 to 35%], why aren’t more building owners fixing up their buildings?” It appears that commercial mortgages and leases often prevent efficiency-improvement savings from passing through to the owner at a rate that makes sense in terms of payback. But change is coming that could improve the dynamics of energy efficiency.

http://www.buildings.com/Magazine/ArticleDetails/tabid/3413/ArticleID/9211/Default.aspx

by Rob Colgan

I’m constantly reminded that one of the best ways to lower energy costs is by installing energy-efficient lighting and effective advanced lighting controls. The National Lighting Bureau reports that more than 2.2 million of the nation’s 2.7 million older (pre-1980) commercial buildings have been using the same lighting for the past three decades. The Bureau estimates that 3 million or more commercial and other nonresidential buildings are candidates for money- and energy-saving lighting-system upgrades. http://www.nlb.org/

 Electric TV recently featured a story on the New York Times Building in Times Square that highlights the advantages that the latest lighting technologies and light management systems can deliver. http://www.electrictv.net/?PlayID=56

 Lutron’s Total Light Management System, featured in the Electric TV story, is currently on display across the country through a series of educational workshops Lutron has dubbed “The Total Light Management Roadshow.” Lutron launched the project in mid-January. The Roadshow offers separate sessions for: contractors and trade professionals; facility, real estate and development professionals; and design and engineering professionals. Sessions are free but require advance registration.  http://www.lutronroadshow2010.com/

 NECA’s electrical contracting professionals are experts is recommending, designing and implementing today’s lighting and light management systems. NECA contractors can also certify lighting upgrades to qualify for federal tax incentives available under the Commercial Buildings Tax Deduction provision of EPAct 2005, and help customers take advantage of utility rebates and other state and local tax incentives. http://www.necaconnection.com/

By Joe Salimando – www.eleblog.com

Most electrical contractors are primarily interested in showing what they can do – “walking the walk,” so to speak. But in the sustainability arena, “talking the talk” might matter as well.

That leads to a question: How much do you know about green buildings? Did you know, for example:

“In a fairly recent study in Australia, a law firm tracked the before and after sick days after a move to a 5-green-star-rated building, a high rating in Australia, and found sick days reduced by 39% overall, to .28 days per month.

“That change alone cut the average monthly cost of sick leave significantly. Other productivity gains were said to have ‘gone through the roof’.”

That’s from a draft copy of Green Buildings an Productivity, a paper prepared for the Journal of Sustainable Real Estate by a team led by a U. of San Diego professor and the national director of sustainability for the real estate company CB Richard Ellis. You can read the 31-page document, free.

What’s the point? The return-on-investment numbers you (and others) can cite for any business converting to a green building are dwarfed, in the real world, by the productivity pay-off. It’s not a “hard” ROI number . . . but it’s there, and forgetting to think about it (and perhaps talk about it) might be a mistake.

How about this:

“Separate metering means almost as much as a significantly improved Energy Star score for saving energy. A separately metered building, where tenants pay for what they consume, will have lower energy costs by 21% on average – even if the Energy Star score is the same.

“That is, when you pay for what you consume, you become much more frugal.”

That’s just one of seven “findings” from the 63-page Do Green Buildings Make Dollars and Sense, another collaboration between the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate at the U. of San Diego and CB Richard Ellis. An 11/6/09 draft is available, free, online.

Obviously, what they’re talking about there is submetering, something electrical contractors can readily provide. Much of what’s above is common sense; but does it have more credibility if you make the claim, or if you back it up by handing someone such a document?

AND: Is there more in this document that can outline opportunity, provide backing for claims you can make to potential customers, and generally upgrade your familiarity with what’s current in the world of sustainability and energy-smart customers? The answer, no doubt, is Yes.

Certainly, the world of “green expertise” is not limited to USD and CBRE (even if CB Richard Ellis is a global leader in real estate). There are plenty of other studies online, some of which have been (and will be) highlighted here on the Energy Solutions blog.

The question is: While you’re ready to walk the walk, can you “talk” the green language in this new environment for customers, architects, engineers, and sustainability consultants?

By Joe Salimando – www.eleblog.com

John Colson, chairman & CEO of Quanta Services – on utility work:

“Because they [electric utilities] haven’t been doing maintenance for a few years, we will see longer outages and we will see more frequent outages as storm season approaches. It’s a frequent, very frequent occurrence that cities are affected by storms that shouldn’t really affect their distribution systems, and they are devastated and they are out of electricity for days and days.”

See more in Bloomberg posting 1/21.

Note: Quanta Services is a member of NECA. Colson has served on NECA’s executive committee.

Roy Lamb, training director, Lincoln, Neb. JATC – on wind power:

“The amount of work that this potentially could create – millions of manhours, billions of dollars of work. And so it’s exciting times.”

See the recently posted ElectricTV video segment on the Nebraska wind training facility.

From Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy – on solid-state lighting:

“The United States must lead in energy efficiency. These solid-state lighting projects will help us significantly cut our energy use, reduce our carbon footprint, and save money. This funding will also support the United States as a global leader in this rapidly evolving industry, creating high-tech, value-added jobs.”

See release announcing $37 million for Next Generation Lighting.

Edwin D. Hill, International President of the IBEW – on fostering job creation in Florida:

“The Florida Power and Light Company (FPL) has placed a $1.2 billion rate increase request before the Public Service Commission. . . .  make no mistake — rejecting this increase would mean losing a golden opportunity to create jobs, promote consumer savings and strengthen Florida’s economic future.

“The rate increase would provide FPL the immediate funds needed to make renovations and modernizations throughout its system to provide Floridians with the power they need. More important, this amount would give the utility access to the capital market so that it could prudently fund as much as $16 billion in improvements and upgrades over five years.”

See Hill’s op-ed in the Jan. 6 Tallassee Democrat

Note: The Florida PSC’s decision disappointed FPL – which, on 1/13, suspended $10 billion of investment over the next five years. See FPL release.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California – on the state’s new Green code:

“Today’s action lays the foundation for the move to greener buildings constructed with environmentally advanced building practices that decrease waste, reduce energy use and conserve resources. The code will help us meet our goals of curbing global warming and achieving 33% renewable energy by 2020 and promotes the development of more sustainable communities by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving energy efficiency in every new home, office building or public structure.”

– remarks on the mandatory California Green Building Standards Code (goes into effect 1/1/11). See Eco-Structure magazine’s report.

By:  Joe Salimando – www.eleblog.com

The Department of Labor released nearly $100 million in Energy Training Partnership grants in the first week of 2010, in the form of 25 awards – ranging in size, the DOL said, from $1.4M to $5M each.

NECA-IBEW organizations were among the recipients. The funding for this came from the Obama stimulus package.

See this DOL release, which has a small amount of verbiage and a large table (on the webpage) delineating a limited amount of details about who got the $, and what each group plans to do with it.

Fuller details are available in a 26-page PDF DOL released at the same time.

A report on the IBEW site claims that grant awards in which the electrical workers’ union is involved will obtain more than $20M.

By: Joe Salimando

NECA contractors make buildings smart. Now, the U.S. government, all sorts of utilities (from investor-owned to municipal operating companies), and platoons of electrical manufacturers and technology vendors are preparing to take an old, in-need-of-major-retrofits national transmission & distribution system and convert it into The Smart Grid (TSG).

There’s a lot to think about, plan for, and change in establishing TSG. Some estimate the project, which essentially just got started, will take 20 years. Powerline contractors can look forward to a great deal of work on this front . . . for decades!

And there’s more. How does TSG interface with smart buildings? Like most of the efforts in this area, we are now learning – just now – what’s possible, what’s probable, and what’s fantasy-like (but still, maybe, do-able).

For more info, here are three recently posted pieces to further your thinking:

Connecting Smart Buildings to TSG – by Jim Young of Realcomm, a company that has positioned itself “@ the intersection of commercial real estate, corporate real estate & technology.”  From his early-November piece:

“The benefits of the smart grid begin to get very interesting when you start talking about how a commercial building owner could gain financially from this concept. Just imagine you’re at 30,000 feet looking down on NYC and picture all the buildings being turned into individual solar power plants that could sell unused energy back to utilities via smart grid technologies.

“There are some who have speculated that this could be a significant income stream for owners and operators once the idea is adequately developed. This idea was introduced at Realcomm 2 years ago by ProLogis who had begun putting solar power plants on the top of the very large, flat, well-suited roofs of their industrial buildings.”

Retrofitting Existing Commercial Buildings for TSG – by Harry Sim of Cypress Envirosystems, a part of the December online issue of Automated Buildings. He has a proprietary technology, and provides this perspective:

“A majority of commercial buildings still use pneumatic thermostats which are not programmable and non-communicating. Retrofitting them to conventional DDC involves opening up walls and ceilings, running cabling and replacing actuators, and incurring expensive labor and tenant disruption.

“The costs run into several thousand dollars per thermostat; payback on retrofits is often seven years or longer, and is the reason that most existing pneumatic installations are not upgraded even today. Similarly, retrofitting lighting controls traditionally involve high cost and disruption due to the same reasons.”

After reading that, perhaps it’s more comprehensible why many (especially at the NJATC and JATC level) have talked about training electricians for work on direct digital control (DDC).

Lumenergi’s ‘Spiel’ On Lighting & TSG – an 11/10 blog from Joe Salimando (on TEDMAG.com) providing coverage of a 20-minute presentation by Michael D’Amour of Lumenergi at the World Energy Engineering Congress. Title of the presentation: “Why Lighting is the Best End Point on TSG.” It included this:

“Only 3% of lighting in U.S. buildings is controlled, D’Amour said. I’m not sure from where this data came, but if it’s true, it’s yet another indicator that we in the electrical industry have not been doing our jobs. D’Amour said the other 97% is controlled only via a switch (an on-off switch).

“Essentially, the idea here is to create a ‘smart building’ – one that can respond to load-shedding requests by reduce its lighting energy use. The reduction has to be automatic (i.e., it’s not going to happen via a utility e-mail to the facility manager — that’s too ‘iffy’). The building, D’Amour said, has to ‘drop kilowatts instantaneously.’

“I can’t tell you much about Lumenergi’s product. But I think the ideas put forward in this brief talk are solid. If you’ve been asking — what the heck is TSG? . . . answers are below [links for more info in the blog]. If you’ve been wondering “where does the electrical distribution biz, and the electrical contractors who work with us, fit in this TSG stuff?” . . . above is one damn big piece of the pie.”

The International Code Council (ICC) recently announced it will release the International Green Construction Code for public review in March 2010. The International Green Construction Code is designed to coordinate with existing building code and regulations.

ICC developed the IGCC in conjunction with the National Association of Home Builders, meaning it’s largely intended for residential building. It is part of a multi-year initiative called IGCC: Safe and Sustainable by the Book.

According to ICC, “The IGCC is designed specifically to integrate and coordinate with the other International Codes already being enforced by governmental code officials at all levels. All 50 states and more than 20,000 U.S. jurisdictions use the International Codes developed by the Code Council for safety and sustainability. The International Codes also serve as the basis for construction of federal properties around the world, and as a reference for many nations outside the United States.”

ICC follows consensus approach to code-making, so the IGCC will be open for public comment through August 2010 following initial publication. The IGCC will then go through another round of review, comments and public hearings in 2011 for the publication for the 2012 ICC Family of Codes.