A recent article in Newsweek, “Obama’s Big Green Mess,” describes what can happen when contractors are “unfamiliar with the nuances of specialized weatherization work.” The fact is, installing furnaces that exhaust poisonous fumes, putting in water heaters that can explode and blowing toxic asbestos around a home, which the article points out, happens on a regular basis. These botched jobs are a result of using contractors who do not understand the complexity of retrofitting older homes. We can attest to that. My firm, Conservation Services Group, has been in the business for 27 years and we’ve seen our fair share of jobs that aren’t done to the highest standards.

But just because some contractors are doing shoddy work doesn’t mean the industry deserves a black eye. Adding insult to injury, calling out a few homes and a handful of programs that may be struggling or not meeting expectations is unfair. It is a disservice to trained, professional contractors and the money saving potential of these valuable and much needed programs.

Since 2009, hundreds of thousands of homes have been effectively weatherized with funds from President Obama’s stimulus program. Another effect of the program is that the bar has been raised for training and improving industry standards by the Department of Energy. This represents the first time criteria have upgraded since the federal weatherization program began 30 years ago. In fact, without the type of public standards, safety and quality assurance that most of the ARRA-funded weatherization programs have enacted, the failure rate would be much higher than Newsweek, Fox, The Daily Show and other media outlets have been reporting recently.

So instead of being critical, we should be applauding the dramatic increase in technical qualifications and education that has been put in place from stimulus funding. As a result, thousands of contractors and firms are carrying out programs skillfully and professionally from coast-to-coast.

In Maine, CSG has successfully implemented programs for 4,000 homes, saving consumers 400+ gallons of oil per household annually. We have replaced 500 inefficient oil heating systems in Massachusetts and saved households $1,000 annually in energy costs. In Oregon, CSG has retrofitted more than 1,000 homes, and we are doing similar work in Kentucky. In Massachusetts and Tennessee, CSG trained participating contractors to ensure they are educated in the latest industry techniques and meeting the highest standards. These projects were completed on time and under budget, with quantifiable results. (Consumers typically see 20-30 percent savings on their energy bills after a retrofit. In Maine, energy savings from the program reached 40 percent!) Many more projects like these have been carried out across the country.

Weatherization is a science because so many of our older homes have issues that are unknown to the homeowner or to the contractor. Therefore, educated contractors are critical components of a successful residential energy efficiency program. The wide range of problems they contend with every day include rooms that don’t heat or cool properly, air leaks that are hard to find, frozen pipes, inadequate ventilation, mold, carbon monoxide and condensation, to name just a few. It takes a trained professional to identify and diagnose these problems, educate the homeowner and evaluate next steps.

CSG works with utilities, government agencies, public housing authorities and other groups. They rely on us to choose the best technicians to help carry out their residential energy efficiency programs. CSG recruits, certifies and incentivizes contractors to perform at their highest levels and we evaluate their work for quality installation and to ensure measurable energy savings. Courses are offered through our firm on many topics such as Home Energy Rating certification, air and moisture control, energy codes, combustion appliance testing and energy modeling techniques. CSG encourages, and sometimes requires, accreditation in “whole house” performance by the Building Performance Institute (www.bpi.org). Some contractors even participate in their own trade association, Efficiency First, which they started to advocate for better standards and training. Ongoing education and technical support ensures contractors are up-to-date on the most current technologies that can provide the best return on a homeowner’s investment.

CSG estimates that the total energy savings for the customers served in the last 27 years is approximately $500 million per year. (CSG has overseen the installation of energy measures in more than two million homes nationwide.) For every person we employ for a retrofit program, 10 more are hired in the private sector – insulation contractors, air sealers, HVAC technicians– the whole range of firms it takes to have a residential retrofit industry. In the past three years CSG has added more than 400 employees nationwide. These jobs have facilitated more than 4,000 workers hired by local firms to help us implement these programs. Employment numbers will only grow as more energy efficiency programs are carried out by thousands of qualified contractors.

So take heart, America. Weatherization works. President Obama’s plan will deliver the jobs and the energy savings promised.

Article by Stephen L. Cowell, chairman and chief executive officer of Conservation Services Group, based in Westborough, Massachusetts.

Article appearing courtesy Energy Efficient Markets.

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The General Services Administration is one of the largest owners of real estate in the country, composed primarily of office buildings and courthouses, land ports of entry, and warehouses.  The GSA owns and leases more than 354 million square feet of space in 8,600 buildings across the nation.

The GSA is also the owner of one of the greenest real estate porfolios.  As of the summer of 2010, the GSA had 48 LEED-certified owned and leased buildings with approximately 150 more working towards accreditation. Eighteen of those projects exceeded the minimum with LEED Gold certifications, and one GSA lease, the FBI Regional Office in Chicago, achieved a Platinum LEED rating for Existing Buildings.  The GSA has required LEED Silver certification for its projects for some time, and now requires that new Federal buildings achieve LEED Gold certification.

While I was at GreenBuild in Chicago, I had the chance to sit down with Kevin Kampschroer, GSA’s Director of the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings and Eleni Reed, GSA’s Chief Greening Officer.

We talked about GSA’s experience greening the Federal government’s real estate portfolio, implementing the GSA’s LEED Gold requirement and the challenge–and benefits–of trying to do four times as many contracts as the GSA normally does because of the influx of $5 billion in Stimulus funding. 

Here is what they said:

GBLB: What has the GSA done with the Stimulus money? 

KK: The GSA has a bit of a different position than other agencies because the GSA actually enters into the contracts with builders and other receipients, as opposed to granting funds to states and other entities that ultimately contract with the recipients.  As of the end of September we had awarded $5 billion [for greening the Federal real estate and fleet].  After the award, it takes some time for the contractor to get the contract and hire the people and do the work, but we have made $1 billion in payments so far.

GBLB: What was impact of the Stimulus money on the GSA?

KK:  As a result of the Stimulus, we awarded four times as many contracts as the GSA usually does in the same period of time.  This forced us to find ways to be more efficient in what we were doing.  For example, we started "speed dating."  Where decisions had to be made, we put all the decision makers in a room togther to come to a decision quickly.  Executives and managers had to delegate some of the decision-making to ensure efficiency. 

Because the projects had to be "shovel ready," many of the designs were already done.  The designs met our specifications, but were not necessarily the best possible designs–the most you can do with the budget that you have.  Going forward, we are retooling our performance criteria and specifications to spur teams to be more innovative and creative with the budget they have.

For example, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is a net-zero building.  We gave the team specifications, and we incentivized the team by paying them more the closer they got to the goals.

For other projects, we had a relatively brief minimum performance criteria which was a goal statement for the project.  It has resulted in more rapid and more innovative designs. However, this requires accepting a shift in risk to the Government side.  But the less risk you take, the less you get [in terms of innovation and design.]

This also has implications for allocating capital.  The GSA has to allow for approximation up front and not require everything to be fixed from the beginning of the project.  

GBLB:  Now that you have all these green buildings, what are you going to do next?  

ER: We are looking to get good metrics about whether we are doing what we set out to do [in terms of building performance].  We have 250 buildings with baseline metrics across a wide variety of project types so we should be able to get some good data. 

GBLB: How will the experience with the Stimulus funds impact the agency going forward? 

KK: We will be more efficient and more effective.  We will have achieved significant improvement in our portfolio [of buildings].  The budget will be extremely lean in the future.  It will be important to apply the lessons we have learned [about how to do projects more efficiently] to operating and maintaining the buildings to prevent deterioration.  We have an opportunity in tracking the performance of the inventory over time and across the portfolio.

GBLB: What about your requirement that GSA projects achieve LEED Gold certification?

KK: We select contractors who know that this is the expectation.  We have been doing LEED Silver for a decade, this is raising the bar to LEED Gold, but the architect and engineering firms know how to do it. 

When we budget the project, we have adjusted the process to allow for LEED Gold certification.  We have done studies on standard versus green construction, you can do LEED Silver for less than conventional construction because of integrated design. 

GBLB: Have you ever had a project fail to get the mandated certification? 

KK: The way we started out was that our goal was LEED Silver.  We have had building that did not reach that level of certification, but never had one that failed to acheive minimum LEED certification.

For more on the GSA’s efforts, Architecture Week had an article by Kevin, and Kevin’s testimony before the House Subcommittee on the GSA’s Stimulus efforts is available here.

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The Smart Grid is coming, but most people around the country are not aware of what it is or what it means to them. If a key goal of the Smart Grid is ultimately energy conservation, the Grid’s very success will be dependent upon consumer awareness and support.

The Smart Grid will bring exciting improvements to our utility infrastructure such as more reliable power delivery and options for renewable power. The new Grid will provide other benefits including peak load management for utilities and energy storage capabilities. For consumers, this will also mean the installation of a Smart Meter, an improvement on traditional electric meters designed to communicate power usage between the consumer and their utility and enable consumers to reduce their bills by managing consumption, at least in the long run. Stimulus funding will help pay for some of the development, but consumers will still need to cover more than a fair share.

Public utility commissions and regulators may be on board with Smart Grid deployment, but American consumers may not. Not all consumers will be willing to learn about Smart Meters, analyze utility bills, pay for the upgrades or even care. The story will be a particularly hard sell during such a tough economic time. Chances are consumers would be more accepting and possibly even demand updated power systems if they actually knew about the Smart Grid and how it will benefit them. Studies have shown that when consumers are aware of their power usage and spending, they will lower usage somewhere between 10 and 25% — providing savings and reducing their carbon footprint. These are encouraging figures.

Some consumer awareness exists, but it is not widespread. People may have read that Obama recently allocated $3.9 Billion of stimulus funding to “Invest in Smart Grid Technologies and Electric Transmission Infrastructure.” The DOE also published “The Smart Grid: An Introduction” a consumer-friendly publication demystifying the Smart Grid for those who come across it.

Others may have seen ads from GE’s ‘NOW’ campaign that ran during this year’s Super Bowl or seen their flashy microsite PlugIntoTheSmartGrid.com, offering an educational, but somewhat simplified overview of the Grid.

Pilot Projects such as the Smart Grid City in Boulder, CO or Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL) GridWise Olympic Peninsula Project are also raising awareness. One challenge for PNNL was convincing consumers to participate. As an incentive, PNNL offered the participants a 10 % discount on their utility bills.

What consumers will need to know?
Most importantly, consumers will need to understand and buy into the cost/benefit case for these upgrades. Once installed, they will need to understand how and why to use Smart Meter data to make better decisions about power usage. Education and coaxing for some will be required to change consumer behavior. Consumers will need to realize that Smart Meters can also help utilities identify and respond to outages, deliver power more efficiently and eliminate the need for someone to come to the house and read the old electric meters.

There are multiple stakeholders in this undertaking (utilities, policy makers, regulators, environmental groups, vendors), however, consistent messaging to the consumer is critical. Similar to need for the uniformity of protocols with grid technology, so too is the importance that consumers are on the same page with what is going on.

It is still unclear what percentage of the public is aware of the Smart Grid. It is clear that consumer awareness will be needed for adoption of the program and supporting the ultimate goal of energy conservation.

[photo credit: Tom Raftery]

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