Amid the hype about who’s saving this and who’s cutting that on this
the 45th Earth Day, is a move by Atlanta to benchmark the energy
performance of municipal and commercial buildings as part of a
“comprehensive energy policy”.
I was about to gloss over the
announcement until I caught how Atlanta, as one of 10 municipalities
chosen to participate in the “City Energy Project” funded in part by the
Bloomberg Philanthropies, said it will collect, assess and deploy data
to complete an energy audit once every 10 years. But here’s the best
part: building performance data not only will be collected but it will
be shared for all to learn from.
Now this might not be considered
news when one looks at what Michael Bloomberg achieved while Mayor of
New York City; nor what San Francisco or Boston might have already
accomplished with the help of their technology- and energy-savvy
workforces. This is Atlanta, smack dab in the middle of the Southeast
U.S. which as a region sorely lags behind the rest of the country in
clean energy and efficiency initiatives.
With a unanimous vote of
the 10-member Atlanta City Council Monday night, and with help from the
Natural Resources Defense Council and the Institute for Market
Transformation, Atlanta takes aim at reducing energy consumption in
municipal and commercial buildings 20 percent by 2030, slashing carbon
emissions in half from 2013 levels by 2020 all while creating more than
1,000 jobs in the “first few years.”
- Atlanta takes aim at reducing energy consumption in municipal and commercial buildings 20 percent by 2030, slashing carbon emissions in half from 2013 levels by 2040 all while creating more than 1,000 jobs in the “first few years.” CREDIT: City Energy Project
I’m
a bit skeptical about that last claim, but the real movers behind this
push – the city’s Sustainability Director Denise Quarles and Buildings
Energy Efficiency Project Manager Matt Cox – document how this is a real
deal. The main reason: Atlanta is the first city since the launch of
the City Energy Project -- which includes top-ten cities such as Chicago
and Philadelphia -- to formally move on all of four of its key
elements: 1) benchmarking; 2) transparency and reporting; 3) energy
audits; and 4) deployment of audit recommendations, according to
Quarles.
Boston, which is also is a City Energy Project participant, had mved on all four elements before the Project's formal launch. “We’re
pretty excited. What passed today is the result of intense stakeholder
engagement with national and local leaders,” Quarles said in an
interview. Among the stakeholders were lobbyists for the Atlanta’s
hotels and the Georgia Hotel and Lodging Association. In posing
numerous questions about the Project’s practicality and threatening the
consensus commitment that is needed, moving forward without them was not
an option if Quarles and Cox – backed by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed –
were to prevail.
Quarles acknowledged that achieving the ambitious
energy and emissions reductions while creating at least 1,000 new jobs
“comes with its challenges.” After a concept paper was introduced last
December, Quarles said, all the necessary parties “were not always at
the same ‘table’.”
Quarles and Cox recalled needing 165 separate
meetings and substantive phone calls among more than 50 individuals
representing various constituencies to pull this project across the
finish line by this year’s Earth Day.
Enter the key role for data and making it transparent to all parties.
“When
you get that information back (from the audits),” Quarles said, “it’s a
pretty easy decision to make” to invest in systems and new equipment
that ultimately will save building owners money.
Go here online
for an illustration of how building energy data -- in this case for
Philadelphia --will be mapped to help guide efficiency upgrades for
Atlanta and other cities participating in the City Energy Project.
Atlanta's
Commercial Buildings Energy Efficiency Ordinance applies to private and
City-owned buildings over 25,000 square feet in size. There are 2,350
of them and they represent 80 percent of the city's commercial sector.
Participating buildings will be phased in, led by municipal buildings
this year and expanding to private buildings in 2016. As the largest
owner, the City itself will need to lead by example or this initiative
could fall flat fast.
Contractors such as Johnson Controls,
Schneider Electric and Siemens will likely compete to perform the energy
audits, as will the resident monopoly electric utility, Georgia Power.
But the audits and related work will require full-time commitments from
qualified professionals. Most of those jobs don’t exist now.
The
ordinance establishing the City’s first energy policy was custom-fitted
for Atlanta because it drew on best practices of other cities and were
refined them to meet Atlanta’s needs, according to Melissa Wright,
Director of the City Energy Project at NRDC. And therein lies the
potential for other municipalities: With the mountains of data that will
be made available, other cities can learn what efficiency upgrades and
renovation investments can work best for them, they conditions they deal
with and the climates they exist in.
Orlando is the only other city in the Southeast U.S. that is a part of the City Energy Project. The
building sector is the single largest category of energy users in the
United States, accounting for roughly 40 percent of total energy
consumption. In cities, however, that figure can be even higher: 60, 70,
even 75 percent, and much of that energy is wasted, according to NRDC
and the Institute. The City Energy Project also is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Kresge Foundation.
http://theenergycollective.com/jimpierobon/2220001/data-and-transparency-are-key-atlanta-s-push-national-leadership-building-effici
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