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Exciting Building Products From Passive House Conference

Submitted by Dan Johnson on Thu, 10/05/2017 - 10:21

In late September I gave a presentation at the 12th Annual North American Passive House Conference, organized by PHIUS, describing how heat pump water heaters can be used for combined space heating and water heating. When strolling the vendors' floor between presentations, I was pleasantly surprised to see an increase in the quality of Passive building products.

Category: 
News + Events
Technical

Musings on the Solar Eclipse, One Month Later

Submitted by Katy Hollbacher on Fri, 09/22/2017 - 13:51

I was lucky to be in Jackson Hole, Wyoming—virtually smack-dab on the "blue line" in the narrow path of totality—for the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in 99 years on August 21. There was so much hype leading up to this event, and it was completely justified! For an unforgettable moment in the midst of our vast universe, in a special spot dynamically shifting east along with the movement of our planetary objects, our sun and moon literally aligned and our little spot of Earth was transformed: the sky darkened, the horizon turned orange, stars appeared, and the air felt freezing.

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News + Events
Random
Technical

Pumping up your savings while reducing impact

Submitted by Jose Rivero on Mon, 06/05/2017 - 05:38

Thanks to a recent presentation by Pierre Delforge from the Natural Resources Defense Council (select sides below), the case for deploying heat pump water heaters to replace both electric and natural gas models is becoming more clear for many.

Pierre began by showing that as our electricity gets cleaner, the natural gas we burn is making up a larger portion of greenhouse gas emissions. Two thirds of Bay area household CO2 emissions now come from burning natural gas.

Category: 
News + Events
Technical

AB 802 - Moving Towards an Era of Energy Use Disclosure and Benchmarking

Submitted by Mrigesh Roy on Tue, 05/23/2017 - 17:22

With the passage of Assembly Bill 802 earlier in 2015, California became the first state in the nation with the mandate to provide energy use data to users so they can measure or benchmark the energy use of building for operational, behavioral, and explore retro-commissioning activities to reach energy efficiency goals.  

Category: 
Policy

What's the Dirtiest Time of Day to Use Electricity?

Submitted by Dan Johnson on Fri, 05/12/2017 - 14:36

Are there "dirty" hours when the California electric grid is producing a lot of CO2 per kWh, and "clean" hours with low CO2 output? It seems that midday should have lower CO2/kWh compared to other hours, if a large fraction of power across the state is generated by solar photovoltaics (PV) during these hours. Looking at data, Beyond Efficiency did in fact find a midday reduction in CO2 emissions per kWh generated for 2014 onward.

Category: 
Policy
Technical

Gardens Dig Greywater

Submitted by Jennifer Love on Sat, 04/29/2017 - 10:25

With record setting rain and snow fall the past 5 months, 75% of California is out of the drought. Still it will take years to fully recover and recharge the groundwater deficit. As Jeremy Miller outlines in the New Yorker “California’s drought may be over, but its water troubles aren’t.” Now is not the time to go back to the old ways.

Category: 
Technical

Two Reminders of Why I Do What I Do

Submitted by Jennifer Love on Thu, 11/19/2015 - 14:32

I recently went to two events, a LEED for Homes Rater Training in Chicago and a Passive House California conference in Palo Alto. These separate events reinforced two things that I had lost focus of in the day-to-day business of being an energy and sustainability consultant. The first is that California is so far ahead of the pack when it comes to sustainable building. So much of what people in other parts of the country struggle with is already codified in California.

Category: 
News + Events

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