News Release from EPA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEFebruary 22, 2012 

Energy Star Leaders Achieve President Obama’s Energy Efficiency Goal for Buildings 

EPA’s Energy Star provides model for superior building energy performance and savings 

WASHINGTON –The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that nearly half of the organizations recognized as Energy Star Leaders have improved the energy efficiency of their building portfolios by 20 percent or more. Last year, President Obama announced a nationwide call to action to improve the energy performance in buildings across the nation by 20 percent by 2020. EPA’s Energy Star program has helped these 90 leading organizations achieve the President’s goal by providing them with a proven energy management strategy, which includes a focus on ongoing performance measurement and whole-building improvement. Energy Star Leaders have cumulatively saved more than $150 million on utility bills and prevented greenhouse gas emissions equal to the electricity use of nearly 95,000 homes.

“Making our buildings more energy efficient is one of the most effective ways for American businesses, government and other organizations to save money and reduce the pollution going into the air we breathe,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “With help from EPA’s Energy Star program, these leaders are benefitting their bottom lines while protecting our health and the environment.”

Energy Star Leaders must meet one of two energy efficiency improvement milestones. The first milestone requires a 10 percent improvement in energy performance across their entire building portfolio, and subsequent recognition is given for each 10 percent improvement thereafter. The second milestone, known as “top performer,” requires the buildings in an organization’s portfolio, to perform on average in the top 25 percent of similar buildings nationwide. To be eligible for Energy Star Leaders recognition, organizations are required to track and submit energy performance data for all buildings and fuel sources through EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool.

In the past year, EPA also recognized Decatur County Community Schools in Indiana as the first Energy Star Leader to improve energy efficiency across their building portfolio by 60 percent. The complete list of Energy Star Leaders has grown to more than 200 organizations, including school districts, national retailers, commercial real estate companies, healthcare systems, supermarket operators and hotel managers that have achieved energy efficiency improvements across more than 11,400 buildings covering nearly 730 million square feet in the United States.

With help from EPA’s Energy Star program, thousands of businesses and organizations are improving the energy efficiency of the places where we work, play and learn and are saving billions of dollars while preventing millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere each year. 

Energy Dept. & Volvo Build More Efficient Trucks & Mfg. Plants

News release from the U.S. Department of Energy:

Energy Department, Volvo Partnership Builds More Efficient Trucks and Manufacturing Plants

January 27, 2012 

Washington, D.C. –Today, Acting Under Secretary of Energy Arun Majumdar joined with North Carolina Congressman Howard Coble (NC-6) to tour the Volvo Group’s truck headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, and highlight the blueprint for an America built to last laid out by President Obama in his State of the Union address earlier this week. The Department of Energy is partnering with companies like the Volvo Group to help harness American ingenuity to commercialize and deploy cutting-edge trucking technologies that will help boost the competitiveness of the U.S. auto and manufacturing industry, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and create jobs for American workers.

“Earlier this week in his State of the Union address, President Obama outlined a blueprint for a stronger American economy based on a resurgence in American manufacturing and innovations in the way we use energy,” said Dr. Majumdar. “Companies like the Volvo Group that are pursuing energy efficiency in their operations, putting Americans to work, and building more fuel-efficient vehicles underscore how investments in clean energy technology are helping to secure America’s future economic prosperity.”

In partnership with the Energy Department, the Volvo Group is helping to lead the industry to advance innovative clean energy vehicle technologies and energy-efficient manufacturing. Through the Department’s SuperTruck program, the Volvo Group was awarded $19 million – which the company is matching dollar for dollar – to improve the efficiency of heavy-duty vehicles like the Mack and Volvo Trucks. Volvo Group has also embraced manufacturing efficiency as part of the DOE’s Better Buildings, Better Plants Program, pledging to reduce the energy intensity of its manufacturing plants with assistance and guidance from the Energy Department. These steps to become more energy-efficient will reduce operating costs at the facility, improving the competitiveness of the company’s products and manufacturing plants.

Dr. Majumdar and Congressman Coble were hosted by Dennis Slagle, Executive Vice President of Volvo Group Trucks Sales & Marketing - Americas, on the tour of the Volvo Group’s Technical Center, which is in the midst of an $8 million expansion.

The Volvo Group’s award was one of four Energy Department-sponsored SuperTruck development projects, which focus on increasing the fuel efficiency of Class 8 trucks – better known as 18-wheelers – by 50 percent.  To achieve this goal, companies like the Volvo Group are developing and improving vehicle technologies in engine efficiency, aerodynamics, waste heat recovery,  and hybridization, among other approaches.  Through the SuperTruck program, the Energy Department expects fuel economy increases from 6.5 miles per gallon to 9.75 miles per gallon – saving long-haul truckers more than $15,000 per truck per year in fuel costs.

Class 8 trucks represent only 4 percent of the on-road vehicles in America, but are responsible for almost 20 percent of the country’s on-road fuel consumption.  Implementation of SuperTruck technologies will not only lessen the nation’s dependence on petroleum, but also improve the global competitiveness of U.S. truck manufacturers.

While Volvo is building more efficient vehicles, the company is also improving the energy efficiency of the manufacturing plants that make them. In December 2009, the company joined the Department of Energy’s Save Energy Now LEADER initiative, now known as the Better Buildings, Better Plants Program, to begin an ambitious effort to significantly reduce the energy intensity of its operations as a way to increase competitiveness. Since then, Volvo’s New River Valley plant, located in Dublin, Virginia, has implemented a range of measures with guidance from the Department’s technical experts that reduced its energy intensity by almost 30 percent in just one year. Embracing energy efficiency measures helped Volvo cut costs and keep operations—and jobs—for its truck manufacturing business here in the United States.

Volvo Truck Corporation is one of the leading heavy truck and engine manufacturers in the world. Volvo Trucks manufactures a line of Class 8 trucks, and is known as a major innovator in the heavy-vehicle industry, selling products in more than 180 markets worldwide.

Houston Joins Better Buildings Challenge

U.S. Dept. of Energy News Release:

City of Houston Joins Better Buildings Challenge, Partners with Energy Department to Reduce Energy Waste and Boost Efficiency

January 26, 2012 

Washington, D.C. — Building on President Obama’s call in the State of the Union address earlier this week for a new era for American energy, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu joined with Houston Mayor Annise Parker today to announce that Houston, Texas is joining the Better Buildings Challenge.  Houston is the latest community to join the Challenge, a public-private partnership that seeks to improve energy efficiency 20 percent by 2020 in commercial, government, and school buildings across the country. As the newest Challenge community partner, the City of Houston is committing to improve energy efficiency across 30 million square feet of public and private buildings throughout the city.

“As President Obama made clear in this week’s State of the Union address, one of the easiest ways for businesses to save money and improve their competitiveness is to reduce energy waste in their buildings and factories,” said Secretary Chu.  “Through the Better Buildings Challenge, the city of Houston is helping to boost manufacturing, create U.S. jobs, reduce pollution, and build an American economy that lasts.”

“I am committed to sustainability,” said Mayor Parker.  “It’s not only helps our environment, it also saves taxpayer dollars.  The city and its local corporate partners in the BBC have already taken numerous steps to make buildings and other facilities more energy efficient and more efficiencies will follow.  We are leading by example.”

Through its participation in the Better Buildings Challenge, the City of Houston works with local partners to implement initiatives that reduce emissions, protect air quality and save taxpayers money. The city becomes the most recent community partner to join the Challenge since President Obama announced last month nearly $4 billion in combined federal and private sector funding for building energy upgrades over the next two years. To date, more than 60 companies, cities, universities, hospitals, and other partners throughout the U.S. have committed to upgrading more than 1.6 billion square feet of building space nationwide.

About the Better Buildings Challenge

The Better Buildings Challenge is a national leadership initiative that calls on corporate chief executive officers, university presidents and state and local leaders to make a significant commitment to energy efficiency. These leaders are recognized for the innovative work they are doing, the results they are achieving and the leadership role they provide for other organizations to follow. The goal of the Better Buildings Challenge is to create jobs, eliminate waste, and save money by making the nation’s commercial and industrial buildings 20 percent more efficient by 2020. The Challenge is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Marriott in Deal to Reduce Energy Use at Hotels

The following was gleaned from an article in the Dec. 13 New York Times with the above title.

Marriott International, has signed a deal to reduce its hotels’ energy use, particularly during times of peak demand.

Marriott will save on electric bills and also earn incentive payments from utilities as a reward for its efforts during peak periods when utilities struggle to meet demand and often have to pay high prices for electricity.

But the success or failure of the program, will be in how well it can make the cuts without affecting its customers.

Marriott signed the agreement with Constellation Energy last month and plans to adopt the energy-saving program at 264 of its hotels in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states and in Texas and California.

The VirtuWatt energy management system from Constellation will work with the hotel’s property management system to track power use and automatically activate the cuts when utilities are strained.

Constellation will cover about half the cost of installing the automated technology, but most hotels would break even on the investment within two years and generate at least 25 percent returns — and as much as 100 percent returns — by the end of the five-year agreement through the cost savings and the incentive payments.

“In effect, the hotels act like a generator in the market, and a reduction in consumption is roughly the same as the addition of a new generator to the system,” a utility representative said. “And so we pay them roughly what we would have paid a generator to produce the same amount of energy.”

==========