The US faces a bit of a math problem when it comes to making its buildings more energy efficient. If every energy auditor worked around the clock, it would take 22 years to analyze all buildings.

And of course the audit is only step one.

“At that point we wouldn’t have saved a single (more…)

If markets thrive on information, then New York City recently unlocked a gold mine for the energy efficiency industry.

The city became the first in the US to make public how well (or poorly) large, private buildings within its borders perform when it comes to energy and water use. A city website displays information about 2,065 (more…)

Why isn’t technology solving our energy problems? As venture capitalist Elton Sherwin discovered, you have to get people to buy the technology first.

Sherwin invested in energy efficiency devices that had huge potential, only to see them flounder in the market. That’s why he got involved with Washington, DC-based Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), (more…)

One of the key drivers for community and residential energy storage is distributed solar photovoltaics (PV). This is because distributed PV causes fluctuations on low-voltage networks (the end of the line of the grid, essentially). In order for the residential side of the market to take off, customers need an incentive to prioritize either onsite (more…)

The worldwide movement toward sustainability has made significant progress over the past half-dozen years as companies and cities have pursued strategies that balance future and current societal needs. Now, sustainable development is entering a new phase, characterized by greater alignment within and between the public and private sectors. (more…)

Describing a building as ‘green’ makes a lot of people cringe. The word is overused. And what does it mean exactly?

Serious efforts are underway to move away from the hype and offer a more specific analysis of a building’s energy performance. Think nutritional labels for food, except in kilowatt-hours instead of (more…)

Back in 2006, the European Union realized that they were facing some serious energy challenges. These challenges were due to an increase in import dependency, global fossil fuel supplies, a “…clearly discernable climate change”, and a substantial waste of 20% of its energy due to inefficiencies. (more…)

Yesterday we launched Energy.Data.Gov, the latest installment of our growing family of Data.gov communities to deepen our engagement with stakeholders interested in the analytics to measure our Nation’s energy performance. As with our previous open government communities, in health and law, this (more…)

We hear a lot about energy efficiency these days, but who is actually pursuing it?

In recent years most of the big players that install efficiency measures, the energy service companies (ESCos), have found work largely in the MUSH market: municipal and state governments, universities, schools and hospitals. In (more…)

Energy is a commercial property’s single largest operating expense. That’s a lot of power when you consider that, according to the most recent Annual Energy Review of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 19 percent of all energy in the entire country was consumed by commercial buildings. (more…)