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Pumping up your savings while reducing impact

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.

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

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.  

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

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.

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Gardens Dig Greywater

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.

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Two Reminders of Why I Do What I Do

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.

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Building Carbon Zero California: Friday, November 13 in Palo Alto

Building Carbon Zero Palo Alto
  • Friday, November 13, 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
  • Lucie Stern Community Center, Palo Alto, California

Beyond Efficiency will be presenting Case Study: 412 Olive Avenue Office, One Year Later. Come learn about the project's challenges, successes and performance results!

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