Columbia University Publishes NYC’s Energy Data Block-by-Block

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Robert Hash

This interactive map from Columbia University is making headlines this week, and for good reason. The map shows New York City’s building energy consumption, block by block. Information for each block is provided in terms of total energy use and is also broken down by space heating, space cooling, electricity and hot water.

It goes without saying that it’s a pretty impressive collection of data presented in an easy to use format. And, with a building’s energy use out in the open, tenants can now point to hard data when they raise concerns about energy use in their buildings.

Solar Shipments Up, Cost Down in 2010

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Robert Hash

The EIA’s data for solar shipments is in, and the news is good.

The recently released report, available now, shows that PV shipments shot up in 2010, and their unit price continued to decrease. Good news for manufactures and purchasers, alike.

So, where are these PV modules being built, and where are they going? The EIA says that 82% are built in California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. These modules were sent to all 50 states and DC, but the vast majority (70%) went to California, New Jersey, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado. Of these states, California and New Jersey received 39% and 15%, respectively.

We’ll have to wait to find out the 2011 data, but it is encouraging to see that, in a tough economic cycle, PV manufactures seemed to hold their own.

NREL RE Atlas Shows Intersection of Resources

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Robert Hash

(Clockwise, from top left: concentrated solar in red and wind; concentrated solar, wind and biomass in green; hydro in purple and geothermal; PVs and wave energy.)

It’s easy to spend a lot of time adding and removing layers from NREL’s RE Atlas tool. It’s simple to use, and provides a wealth of information. Recently, while using the RE Atlas we started looking at where the various RE resources intersected.

Why? Well, not so much for land-use questions (biomass and wind don’t really compete for land) but for investment. Yesterday’s post showed that the U.S. had a strong year for RE investment, but that different technologies fared better than others. So, we wanted to see which states had a diverse range of resources and which didn’t. Above, you see a few images of what we found.

One more thing that came to mind while using the RE Atlas, none of these places are that close to major urban areas on the east or west coasts. Which made us wonder, where are the transmission projects?

D.C. Tops LEED Buildings List

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Robert Hash

The USGBC recently announced their 2011 list of top 10 states for LEED green buildings. DC beat out every state with 31 sq. ft. of LEED-certified space per person. The fact that this announcement comes not long after the Treasury Building was LEED certified – and became the oldest building to receive certification – firmly places D.C. in a leading role for building efficiency and design in the nation.

Read more about the list, including notable projects from the top ten, at CEILeadership.org.

A Tale of Two States

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Robert Hash

The state in the darkest shade of blue on the map above is New York. In New York in 2009, per person energy consumption was 196 million BTUs. This was the most efficient number, as a state, in the nation.

The state in the darkest shade of orange on the map above is Wyoming. In Wyoming in 2009, per person energy consumption was 956 million BTUs. This was the most inefficient number, as a state, in the nation

The fact that New York was the most efficient state in 2009 isn’t that surprising. New York had, and still has, a lot of great financial incentives for energy efficiency in place. And there’s no real surprise that Wyoming came in where it did either, though some incentives and policies are in place in the state to encourage efficiency and renewables. What really struck us after looking at the map and the per-person data, is the size of the gap between #1 and #51 (including DC) and the apparent positive results of good policy. States known to have good energy policy show up in blue right across the country.

Putting A Price Tag on Nature

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Robert Hash

Watch Pavan Sukhdev’s TED talk and find out how he and his team converted nature’s contribution to world economies into terms of dollars and cents. The moral of the talk: just because something isn’t priced doesn’t mean it lacks value.

Energy: Who Bought It & What We Paid

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Robert Hash

The two EIA graphs above tell a good-news/bad-news tale. The good news? Industrial and transportation energy costs have gone down significantly lately. The bad news? Residential and commercial costs haven’t, and those two of the sectors that have grown the most, by consumption, since 1960.