Statewide LG EE Best Practices: Weekly Update
Here
are your wEEkly updates:
1.
AB 802 Workshop This Morning!: The California Energy Commission’s workshop
to seek input on draft regulations for implementation of building energy use
data access and public disclosure components of AB 802 is this morning! Get
information to attend in person or by phone/online. The CEC
presentation is now available through the same link.
2.
FHA PACE Guidance Released: This week, the Federal Housing Administration
(FHA) announced
clear guidance that will expand access to renewable energy, energy efficiency,
and other home resiliency projects for American homeowners. The guidance,
signaled last August by President Obama and the FHA, allows residential
Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) assessments to interact with single
family home mortgages secured by the FHA in the event of purchases, refinances,
and loan modifications.
3.
PACE Nation Webinar 7/26: Join PACENation on Tuesday, July 26th for the
webinar "FHA's
PACE Guidance Explained," to discuss HUD/FHA's recent residential PACE
guidance and the White House's new initiative to broaden the scope of
residential PACE. Panelists include Renew Financial CEO Cisco Devries,
PACENation Executive Director David Gabrielson, and more.
4.
PACE Draft Best Practices for Review from DOE: the U.S. Department of
Energy has
released a draft best practices document for residential PACE that
focuses on best practices for program design, including protections to both
consumers who voluntarily opt into PACE programs, and to lenders who hold
mortgages on properties with PACE assessments; compatibility of PACE with other
energy efficiency programs and services; and evaluation of program outcomes,
including cost effectiveness, energy savings, and non-energy benefits such as
improved health and comfort. The comment period for this document is open
through August 19th.
6.
CPUC Evaluation of RENs and LGPs: The California Public Utilities
Commission (CPUC)’s consultants shared their draft research plans for assessing
the impact of California’s two Regional Energy Networks (RENs) and its Local
Government Partnerships (LGPs) in two
webinars this week. The presentations
shared in each are available and the public comment period has been
extended to August 1st.
7.
New options for lighting EE compliance: The California Energy Commission
approved the use of an optional compliance pathway for use in non-residential
lighting alterations that trigger Title 24, Part 6. This is in addition to the
pre-existing two compliance pathways. Learn
more (and share with your buildings stakeholders!).
8.
Updates to GreenPoint Rated Program: Hear from Build It Green on the new
updates to the GreenPoint Rated Program in this
recorded webinar. Public comments are welcome until 7/31.
9.
Local Policies to Support Microgrids: Learn what local
policies can support microgrids from former CPUC Analyst turned
Minnesota PUC Director Chris Villareal – and get some great California (and
national) examples.
10.
California Cities Shine in $5 Million Energy Prize Competition: As shared
by SEEC’s Institute for Local Government (ILG), learn how Berkeley, Chula
Vista, Claremont, Davis, Fremont, Palo Alto, San Mateo and Sunnyvale are
rallying their communities to complete their last year of competition for the
Georgetown University Energy Prize.
11.
Free ZNE Conference 8/19 in Downey: Verdical Group is hosting its 3rd
Annual Net Zero Conference in Downey, CA at SoCal Gas’s Energy
Resource Center on August 19th.
12.
Presentation Proposing RCx, OBF, and HVAC Programming: Southern California
Edison’s presentation from
their 7/14
webinar on their proposed High Opportunity Programs or Projects
(HOPPs) – including public buildings retro-commissioning (RCx), on-bill
financing, and comprehensive commercial HVAC – is now available.
13.
New Study on Data Center EE: Data centers are incredibly energy intensive –
but a new
study shows that some data centers are learning to slim their energy
footprint.
14.
Google Data Center Uses AI to Save: In recent months, the Alphabet Inc.
unit put a DeepMind AI system in control of parts of its data centers to reduce
power consumption by manipulating computer servers and related equipment like
cooling systems – and is seeing some
interesting results.
15.
Seeking Water EE ordinance experience/interest: The Statewide Codes
& Standards team has had a request from a city for resources to implement
efficiency standards for greywater systems and drip irrigation microspray for
trees & shrubs. Reach code options for water-energy issues is new
territory, and the C&S team would appreciate hearing from any other local
governments that are interested in this, or that have experience developing
such standards. Please contact Jordan (jdecker@lgc.org)
and Javier Mariscal (javier.mariscal@sce.com)
if you are a local government and have feedback you can share.
16.
Green Real Estate Interest Survey for Realtors: A number of local
governments engage their builder, developer and realtor communities to connect
on the value of EE. If you are connected to realtors in your jurisdiction,
please help Build It Green distribute
a survey to licensed realtors in California. The survey seeks their feedback on
various green home topics, including a proposal to make green and energy
efficiency features transparent on real estate listing services. You can
forward the survey link to any realtor contacts: https://www.getfeedback.com/r/ys58KCHP.
17.
Testing residential solar+storage: SolarCity and PG&E have announced
a collaborative
demonstration in the San Jose area to see how the coordinated use of
solar smart inverters and behind the meter energy storage could provide
enhanced benefits to the grid.
18.
New report on solar+storage for critical infrastructure: A new
report completed as part of the New York Solar Smart DG Hub-Resilient Solar
Project shows a higher return on investment for solar+storage
combinations for resiliency benefits in critical infrastructure.
19.
Pollution Control Authority New Rules: the California Pollution Control
Financing Authority (CPCFA), chaired by Treasurer John Chiang, has
taken formal action to help large and small businesses in California
keep costs low when financing waste management and recycling projects.
20.
Job announcement: the City and County of San Francisco is hiring for a
Distributed Energy Projects Manager! Learn more here.