What are energy savings certificates (ESCs)?

I found this great article at the World Resources Institute, that does a great job of explaining what energy saving certificates are.

From the article:

What are energy savings certificates (ESCs)?

Energy savings certificates (ESCs) are tradable certificates, similar to renewable energy certificates (RECs), that typically represent one megawatt-hour (MWh) of energy savings from efficiency projects. ESCs are also known by various other names, including:

Energy efficiency certificates or credits (EECs)

White certificates or tradable white certificates (TWCs)

White TagsTM

Differing terminology is also used to describe ESCs in individual markets, based on specific state policy language such as:

Connecticut – Class III Renewable Energy Credits

Nevada – Portfolio Energy Credits

Pennsylvania – Tier II Alternative Energy Credits...

If you always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask check it out…

Have any other questions about the energy efficiency industry or the M&V industry.  Let me know, post it here.  You ask the questions and I’ll do the research to find the answer (If I don’t already know it).  Sound like a good deal if you ask me!

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Nathan Shetterley (nathan.shetterley@gmail.com)
EVO New Media Director

del.icio.us Tags: energy savings certificates

Free Online Education

After looking into some online courses, I came across a number of free online education tools, it seems you can learn just about anything online these days.

According to Carbon Offsets Daily you can even join a live Webcast where, among other things, they teach M&V techniques courtesy of the University of Delaware.

Some other free online education tools that may be worth listing to on the plain before that conference you are speaking at include lecture from Stanford University, MIT, and Berkeley.

You can see the whole list of Ivy league schools any many more resources at this lifehacker article.

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Nathan Shetterley (nathan.shetterley@gmail.com)
EVO New Media Director

del.icio.us Tags: online education,M&V

$18.8 million marked for evaluation, measurement and verification in New York State

The North Country Gazette reports that the New York Public Service Commission has provided an additional $42.6 million for renewable energy. The article mentions specifically solar energy.

Of the $42.6 million 18.8 has been reserved for evaluation, measurement and verification and discretionary spending to respond to unforeseen market needs.

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Nathan Shetterley
EVO New Media Director

 

del.icio.us Tags: M&V,solar energy

Indian building automation market to reach $3 billion US by 2012

The earthtimes.org ran a press release from Frost and Sullivan detailing their expectations of a 3 billion dollar Indian building automation market by 2012. M&V systems are included in their suggestions for building management solutions.

Frost & Sullivan believes that end users need to be made aware about not
just the multi-level benefits of investing in building solutions but also
about selecting right building management solutions, technologies and
products. More importantly, they need to implement measurement and
verification systems, energy metering and monitoring systems and track ROI to
enable the maximization of benefits from capital investments in building
systems.
India has always been a place to watch since I've gotten in to the business,
I wonder if any of our members in India can attest to this growth? 

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Nathan Shetterley


EVO New Media Director

del.icio.us Tags: building automation,India

M&V news round up

Here are some of the interesting articles and blog posts where M&V has made the news recently.

Enjoy!

Environmental economics 101
By admin 
Government’s role is to set the cap and ensure that sufficient measurement and verification is in place between pollution buyers and sellers, but not to stipulate technologies nor price. These models ensure that markets are always ...
Eco Buying - http://ecobuying.com/

Three Formal Efforts Tie Lean and Green Together
By Jason(Mark Graban) 
Measurement and verification are at the core of Lean, so this is definitely something that ties right into IBM's Green Sigma program. As an example, the company is deploying data gathering buoys andunderwater robots along 300 miles of ...
Lean Blog - http://www.leanblog.org/

Comverge Inc. (COMV) is Meeting Demand
By jonnyk4429(qualitystocks1) 
Comverge’s services for implementing Demand Response programs include marketing, customer recruitment, measurement, and verification. These services are available as full turnkey and/or pay-for-performance offerings and are customizable ...

US Energy Efficiency projects - popular in Voluntary Carbon markets
By ghgblog 
Dr Hamrin’s, report elaborated this issue as follows, “Some of the major barriers to utilizing energy savings was the instituting of a rigorous system of energy savings evaluation, measurement andverification (EM&V) as it introduces ...
GHGBlog.com - The Greenhouse Gas Blog - http://ghgblog.com  (This blog is not active anymore)

Public Comment: CEP on KCC Energy Efficiency Docket 08-GIMX-441 ...
By climateandenergy 
With KCC oversight and clearly structured expectations – plus rigorous measurement andverification by KCC and CURB staff – we can create a win/win/win in Kansas. Utilities, shareholders,and customers can and should benefit, ...
Climate and energy - http://blog.climateandenergy.org  (This blog is not active anymore)

California adopts long-term energy efficiency plan
The plan also did not address evaluation, measurement and verification of energy savings but said that future planning cycles would address those issues. More on this story for New Energy Finance subscribers »

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Nathan Shetterley
EVO New Media Director

del.icio.us Tags: M&V

Stepping up our online presence

Hello reader, of whom I hope there will be many more soon.

We are making some important changes behind the scenes here at EVO-world.org and I wanted to let you in on some of what we plan to do.

First of all I'd like to start by introducing myself. My name is Nathan Shetterley, I've been working on the website committee for almost 2 years. Until very recently I was leading a small consultancy based in Quebec City that specialized in M&V, monitoring and targeting, and smart metering solutions.

Among other things, starting today I will be acting as a kind of new media director here at EVO. What does that mean you ask? New Media? Basically I'll be managing and writing a lot for the blog. We are going to try and cover all things M&V, but also more general energy efficiency topics, and will touch on the green movement in business and in day to day life.

In addition to the blog we are going to be hosting a podcast, interviewing some of the smartest people in the energy sector, and hopefully some entertaining ones too.

Lastly we'll keep you updated on our going-ons here at EVO-world.org.

With weekly posts, you may want to sign up to our RSS feed (you can click on the RSS icon on the right at any time to do so), or post comments about what type of topics you'd like to see covered.

Our goal is to be the online center of M&V knowledge. We hope you'll help up and that in the process we become a great resource for everyone.

This weekend I’ll be writing about the importance of transparency in general, but specifically in energy efficiency projects. If you have any requests, feel free to write to me at nathan.shetterley@gmail.com or add a comment here. I’ll be working with the technical IPMVP committee closely so if you have questions that come up often let us know. Really! Anything from retrofits to policy reforms, if it touches measurement and verification let us know and we’ll do our best to find an answer!

I’ll be looking forward to getting to know all of you in the coming months!

Nathan Shetterley

A new IPMVP Option: E?

Steve Heinz of EnergyCap puts forward the following ideas for a possible new option in IPMVP.  What are your thoughts?  Would you use this type of a protocol in your business?  We''ll look forward to your input online and off.

We find a huge number of building owners/operators who are interested in assessing the results of energy initiatives (most frequently mechanical upgrades) but wouldn’t get past the table of contents in IPMVP.  Neither would their local HVAC contractor.  These are not performance contracts per se and no third party financing is involved.

The  idea is an IPMVP “Option E – ENERGY STAR Rating.”  (I realize that currently that is not applicable to international markets.)

In this M&V option, the building would be submitted to ENERGY STAR pre-retrofit and again one year (or more) post-retrofit.   The increase in ENERGY STAR rating (say from 60 to 85) would be used as the M&V of the project.   Assuming that an ENERGY STAR rating is a fair approximation of building performance, this  approach provides an extremely simple and virtually no-cost way to obtain a sense of energy initiative impact.

Obviously we’d have to address some details, such as provision for other variables, valuation of the savings, and how to determine what an ENERGY STAR ‘delta’ in before/after ratings means quantitatively.  I think it would be interesting to run some cases studies of this approach vs. other IPMVP options, particularly Whole Facility, to see how they compare for simple test cases.

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Nathan Shetterley (nathan.shetterley@gmail.com)
EVO New Media Director

del.icio.us Tags: IPMVP,energy star