ACEEE Blogs

As US cities take an active role in advancing clean energy, they will need a ready and capable workforce to achieve their goals. The good news: Half (37) of the 75 cities in our 2019 City Clean Energy Scorecard have clean energy workforce development programs, and in a new topic brief published today, we highlight innovative examples nationwide.

These programs and initiatives can help ensure that a pipeline of workers is set to join the growing clean energy economy. As our research shows, these efforts vary greatly, with some offering free hands-on training and others increasing city contracts to minority-owned and women-owned businesses. Some have a strong focus on equity and aim to recruit underrepresented groups for jobs using clean energy services and technologies.

Cities are not doing this alone. Many have cultivated partnerships with utilities, non-profits, colleges, and other stakeholders to support local energy efficiency and renewable energy workforce development efforts, which often provide the necessary training and certifications. In 2018, energy efficiency jobs accounted for nearly half of all energy sector jobs, and the sector is projected to grow nearly 8% in 2019, thus enabling even more economic and job opportunities.

Our new topic brief, Cities and Clean Energy Workforce Development, discusses the models cities can emulate to jumpstart robust and diverse programs, as well as inclusive procurement and contracting strategies. It draws on a larger ACEEE report about local government actions to develop an energy efficiency workforce for new and existing public and private buildings.

It also features case studies of cities with promising programs. In Florida, for example, Orlando offers energy benchmarking workshops for building owners, partners with a local college to develop an energy-focused curriculum, and offers mini-workshops on energy policy and solar installation to at-risk youth, veterans, and low-income community members.

Findings from the 2019 City Scorecard

Most (30) of the 37 cities with workforce development efforts have aligned their programs with existing clean energy policies and/or funded clean energy related trainings. For instance, Birmingham, AL, partnered with local institutions to offer energy efficiency training opportunities to Minority Business Enterprise contracting partners. By strengthening these skills among the local workforce, it plans to scale up energy savings and building efficiency in its municipal buildings and future efficiency projects.

The map below highlights cities that, based on our 2019 scorecard using 2018 data, have clean energy workforce development programs and/or procurement contracting policies to facilitate clean energy investments.

We found that each city takes its own approach to clean energy workforce development, which may include cultivating partnerships with local businesses to sustain high-quality jobs, offering educational and technical support, and/or extending benefits to historically marginalized groups. The following cities have noteworthy approaches:

Buffalo – In New York, Buffalo Public Schools offer career and technical education for students in solar technology, with some schools offering students hands-on training and a certification in solar installation.

Cleveland – Through the Office of Equal Opportunity, Cleveland has an inclusive procurement and contracting process for all projects, including energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

Denver – Denver partnered with Xcel Energy to implement a workforce development program as part of the Denver Energy Challenge that included contractor certification training, health and safety training, and business sales training.

Worchester – In Massachusetts, Worchester provided funding for the South Middlesex Opportunity Council’s Green Jobs Academy. The academy provides free or low-cost building science training to youth and low-income individuals.

For a more detailed overview and a look at what other cities are doing with clean energy workforce development, procurement, and contracting strategies, see ACEEE’S State and Local Policy Database.

These examples and the map above also highlight how cities are incorporating inclusivity and diversity into their workforce strategies. We identified 22 cities with equity-driven initiatives that target traditionally underrepresented groups and/or address disparities by awarding clean energy contracting opportunities to minority- or women-owned businesses. For example, San Jose’s Work2Future program trains young adults from disadvantaged populations in energy-efficient building construction. Since 2014, the program has successfully trained 267 young adults, and it has an 82% job placement rate.

While we profile cities that are helping to achieve energy savings and create real opportunity for high-quality careers for their residents, many cities have not established workforce strategies. Clean energy workforce programs must play a big part in addressing gaps in workers’ skills so we can scale up clean energy projects and extend the economic benefits to more residents, especially those historically left out of the clean energy economy.

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) plan for national appliance standards for 2020 has come into focus, and the picture is not pretty. Hard on the heels of its rollback of light bulb standards in late 2019, the administration last week finalized its re-write of the process used for developing new energy efficiency standards. With this administration yet to complete a single standard update of its own and none close to completion, the re-write seems squarely aimed at tying the hands of future administrations.

A pending dishwasher final rule would not only roll back that standard, it would also take aim at the law’s provision prohibiting new standards that are weaker than current ones. Another pending rule would allow manufacturers to self-assign waivers from test procedures, and yet another would undercut standards for cook tops.

While DOE has been developing this slew of regulatory actions aimed at weakening the national program and taking it backwards, the agency has also been missing one legal deadline after another for updating standards and test procedures.

Is there any good news? With encouragement from DOE, manufacturers and efficiency proponents have been able to come together to reach consensus on how to make progress on future standards for two product categories, certain commercial air conditioning systems and swimming pool pumps. Now, it’s up to DOE to act on those consensus-based recommendations in 2020. 

Interested in more details on any of these topics?  Then read on.

• DOE’s new process: harder, slower, and biased for industry. On Thursday, January 16, DOE released the final re-write of the process used to develop new and revised appliance standards. The new process, which DOE spent more than two years developing, adds steps to the regulatory process, increases deference to industry-developed test procedures and puts some potential new standards off-limits. See ASAP and ACEEE’s statement, and this Washington Post story for more details.

• Anti-backsliding under attack. Responding to a petition from an anti-regulatory advocacy organization, DOE proposed to create a new dishwasher class that takes one hour or less to wash a load. Appliance manufacturers pointed out that a new class is not needed since about 90% of dishwashers already have a short cycle option, typically an hour or less. Here’s the rub: DOE would also eliminate the existing efficiency standards for these products. We argued—along with many others including the attorneys general of a dozen states and two cities, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Earthjustice—that the proposed action is a bald-faced, illegal attempt to circumvent the appliance law’s anti-backsliding clause. If DOE can eliminate an existing standard for dishwashers just by sorting products into a new class, then no standard is safe from elimination. DOE plans a final rule for early this year. Expect litigation. This story provides more details.

• Forget about saving natural gas with future appliance standards. DOE plans to publish a proposed interpretive rule that will make it impossible for the Department to consider condensing technology as the basis for future natural gas appliance standards. Unfortunately, condensing technology is pretty much the only way to achieve large natural gas savings from appliances, and it could save consumers and businesses more than $100 billion while putting a big dent in carbon emissions from buildings that aren’t electrified. DOE initiated this rulemaking in response to a petition filed by the natural gas industry. ASAP and several allies have already submitted detailed comments opposing DOE’s plan.

• Anybody can write their own test procedure. In spring 2019, DOE proposed a rule that would automatically grant manufacturers’ interim test procedure waiver applications if DOE fails to rule on them within 30 days. Since DOE rarely acts that quickly, we argued that the new process is tantamount to self-assigned waivers, striking at the core reliability of efficiency ratings and the national standards program. These “interim” waivers remain in place until DOE either grants or denies the permanent waiver or alters the underlying test procedure, something DOE is supposed to do within a year, but could take longer. Even if eventually denied, manufacturers get six more months to keep selling under the self-assigned waivers. DOE plans to publish the final version this year, but hopefully will back off some of the more reckless elements.

• Standards for cook tops blocked. In August 2019, DOE proposed to withdraw the test procedure for cook tops, fulfilling a request from appliance manufacturers. As we pointed out in comments, data on the DOE record fails to support the Department’s proposed withdrawal. Eliminating the test procedure appears aimed at leaving consumers with less information and setting back any future administration’s potential efforts to set cook top efficiency standards.

Federal law requires DOE to review each appliance standard once every six years. If the agency finds that an upgraded standard is warranted, the new standard must be published two years later. Similarly, DOE must review each test procedure underlying national standards once every seven years.

DOE has now missed 21 standards deadlines and another 19 deadlines for test procedure reviews. Because the process for updating standards requires extensive investigation and multiple steps, it typically takes three years or longer. With most overdue standards still in their early stages, DOE will not be catching up on these overdue deadlines soon.

But, under increased oversight pressure from Congress, the agency appears to be picking up the pace of work. DOE’s 2020 regulatory agenda, published in November, shows that nearly every single product subject to DOE standards will have some active rulemaking phase in 2020. Election years are notorious for shutting down regulatory work, and DOE has rarely hewed to its published schedules under this administration, but, nevertheless, standards supporters should be prepared to actively engage in rulemakings for any number of products this year. For example, DOE opened the review processes for clothes washer and refrigerator standards recently, and solicited comments on revisions to the refrigerator test procedure.

Now back to the aforementioned good news. For two products, DOE helped foster constructive negotiations among manufacturers and efficiency supporters, including utilities, consumer groups and environmental advocates. An agreement reached last fall paves the way for DOE to adopt an updated test procedure and standards that will better reflect the actual performance of variable refrigerant flow (VRF) air conditioners, a type of commercial air conditioning system. Earlier in 2019, manufacturers and efficiency supporters agreed on action to close a loophole in existing swimming pool pump standards. These proposals are now in DOE’s hands. 

This progress shows dialogue and compromise is possible, even in the current political climate. But, with so many pending actions that will take efficiency backwards, 2020 is shaping up as a year when any step forward could be swamped by DOE actions that will undercut national appliance standards.

Rural communities have distinct energy efficiency and renewable energy needs. While rural residents experience higher energy burdens than their metropolitan counterparts, energy efficiency programs can help offset these burdens. Renewable energy projects for rural homes, businesses, farms, and institutions can also help keep dollars local and increase rural prosperity.

We will explore these topics and others at ACEEE’s upcoming Rural Energy Conference next month in Chicago, our second convening to examine ways to advance efficiency and renewables in rural America.

To give you a sneak peek, we asked one of our featured speakers, Sarah Mills, to preview her research on the impacts of renewable energy development in rural communities. Mills is a senior project manager at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy’s Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP).

The primary benefit is economic. Rural property owners who invest in energy efficiency technologies or put renewable energy technologies on their property see savings on their utility bill, just like urban and suburban residents. 

Utility-scale renewable energy systems provide a unique economic opportunity to rural communities. In most states, renewable energy developers pay property taxes that support local government services like road maintenance, schools, libraries, and fire departments. In a rural community with a relatively small tax base, a $100 million wind- or solar- project can mean a huge jump in tax revenues going to the local government.

Landowners who host wind turbines or solar panels on their property receive lease revenue from the energy developer.  While revenue varies across and within states, my research from Michigan finds that landowners who host wind turbines on their property reinvest those dollars into their farms (see table below).  As a result, those lease revenues recirculate many times over within the rural community—to the contractor who is putting in field tile, or the dealership who is selling more tractors, or the lumberyard who is selling materials for new barns.

Question:  Since 2008, about how much money have you spend on…

Source:  Mills, 2015. “Farming the Wind:  The Impact of Wind Energy on Farming”; Based on a survey of 1,210 owners of farmland in 14 Michigan townships. 

Because rural communities have ample land resources for siting wind and solar projects, any state policies related to large-scale renewable energy projects affect rural areas more acutely than urban areas. The renewable energy systems brought online to meet renewable portfolio standards (RPS) will largely be built in rural areas. Any subsequent state policy decisions—for example, how to tax or site renewable energy projects—will ultimately have the biggest impact on rural areas.

But this isn’t the only way state energy policies uniquely effect rural areas. Because electric cooperatives (co-ops) are more prevalent in rural areas, for example, state policies that do (or don’t!) apply to co-ops have a disproportionate impact on rural customers. For example, state energy efficiency requirements often don’t apply to co-ops. Similarly, utility-based weatherization programs disproportionately leave out rural areas that are more likely than urban areas to rely on delivered fuels such as propane or biomass for space heating. 

One of the key ways that Michigan is working to tailor its energy policies is by understanding how energy customers in rural and urban communities have different energy needs, service providers, and access to assistance. The Michigan Energy Office funded an Agriculture and Rural Communities Energy Roadmap that provides this comparison and further identifies the gaps, issues, and opportunities for policies to better reach rural Michiganders.

The state is also working to understand what information or resources local officials in rural communities need in order to incorporate clean energy into local government policies. I worked with the Michigan Energy Office to send a survey to the head officials in each of Michigan’s 1,856 units of local government—most of which are rural. We are using the data from the survey to provide templates, case studies, technical assistance, and workshops to rural officials.

Just as it’s important to understand the differences between urban and rural communities with respect to energy, it’s equally important to realize that not all rural communities are affected the same way or need the same energy efficiency or renewable energy solutions. It’s critical to engage with a range of rural communities to understand those differences. 

Join utilities, state energy offices, local governments, program implementers, and academic researchers next month to dive deeper into these topics. Register here for the 2020 Rural Energy Conference.

A promising array of new electric trucks, buses, and delivery vans is slated to soon enter the US market, and to address climate change, California and a few other states are beginning to push for their wider use.

As a new ACEEE paper explains, electrification of trucks and buses can bring many benefits, including lower energy use and emissions—even when the impacts of power generation are included—as well as reduced operating costs, including fuel and maintenance. Other benefits include higher torque (useful for starts and going up a slope) and quieter operation.

Currently, however, these vehicles cost more up front, generally have reduced range compared to conventional trucks, and must depend on limited charging infrastructure. Efforts to address these limitations are underway, and leading experts expect electric trucks to be widespread by 2040. The speed of the transition between now and then is an open question. 

Electrification of trucks is important because trucks account for a substantial share of vehicle energy use and emissions. While trucks and buses are only 5% of the vehicles on US roads, they account for 27% of vehicle energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. Trucks also emit nitrogen oxides (NOx), black carbon, and fine particles, harming human health and contributing to global warming. Heavy-duty on-road vehicles account for 16% of total US NOx emissions, 15% of black carbon emissions, and 9% of fine particle emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest National Emissions Inventory.

Dozens of electric truck and bus models are now on the market, and many more are slated to enter it in the next few years. Leading states and cities have begun to transition their bus purchases to electric models, putting buses at the forefront of heavy-duty electrification.

Delivery trucks and certain other vocational vehicles are also well-suited to electrification and will soon reach net cost parity (considering operating, finance, and other costs) with diesel trucks for a number of market segments. They thus could serve as a bridge to electric trucks in a wide array of applications. Heavy pickup trucks are also an important segment; electric light-duty pickups are on the way, and the technology will eventually reach the market’s heavier segment.

Tractor-trailers are by far the largest energy user and pollution emitter in the truck sector, accounting for the majority of truck energy use, and they present an important but challenging target for electrification because of their range and charging requirements. Electric models currently on the market have a short range, but models with longer ranges (one manufacturer is claiming up to 500 miles) are scheduled to enter the market in 2020 and 2021. Most truck routes are less than 500 miles and might be suitable for electric trucks; for longer hauls, fuel-cell tractors, which could be better suited than battery-electrics, are scheduled to enter the market in late 2022. 

In all of these market segments, electric vehicles (EVs) have substantially higher upfront cost than conventional vehicles, due primarily to the cost of batteries. To help bridge this gap, financial incentives and financing will be useful, if not essential. Zero-emission truck mandates, as California is now developing and other states are considering, are likely to play a pivotal role in increasing electric truck adoption.

Another critical issue is electric charging infrastructure for fleets and truck stops. Charging stations suitable for heavy-duty vehicles are virtually nonexistent today, creating one of the largest obstacles to heavy-duty EV adoption. For large fleet lots and truck stops with many chargers, the power needed to charge vehicles will be in the megawatts (a megawatt is average power draw of about 800 US homes). Electric utilities will need to plan for how they can bring so much power to these locations.

Electric trucks have a promising future, but much work remains in the near term to overcome present challenges. Priority should be given to overcoming initial cost barriers, including through financial and other incentives, and building the charging infrastructure. 

It took a lawsuit, but today the Department of Energy (DOE) published the first new national appliance efficiency standards since 2017. The new standards, finalized under the Obama administration in December 2016 but withheld from official publication by the Trump administration, will cut energy waste for four product categories: portable air conditioners, commercial boilers, uninterruptible power supplies and industrial air compressors.  It’s an eclectic bunch of products, but the savings really add up.

DOE estimates that the new standards will save consumers and businesses about $8.4 billion and cut climate-changing carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 100 million metric tons over a 30-year period.  That’s roughly equivalent to taking 21 million cars off the road for a year.

Depending on the product, manufacturers must comply either two, three or five years from today’s publication of the standards in the Federal Register. 

The Appeals Court decision (NRDC v. Perry), published in October, turned on the plain meaning of the words “will publish.” Under a DOE procedure known as the “Error Correction Rule,” DOE must make final rules establishing new or revised appliance standards available for review and allow for a 45-day period during which anyone can point out errors. Errors are limited to “an aspect of the regulatory text of a rule that is inconsistent with what the Secretary intended regarding the rule at the time of posting.“ Examples include typographical, calculation or numbering mistakes.  If no errors are identified by the public or DOE, then, under the rule, the agency “will publish” the new standards in the Federal Register. 

In the case of these four rules, one comment identified a single non-substantive error, yet DOE refused to publish the rules anyway. Demonstrating its zeal to avoid regulation regardless of its own rules, the law or the benefits for consumers and the environment, the administration argued that the words “will publish” really meant “may or may not publish.”
 

Multiple entities challenged DOE’s failure to follow its own rules. Natural Resources Defense Council, and Earthjustice (representing Sierra Club, Consumer Federation of American and Texas Ratepayers Organization to Save Energy), and the Attorneys General of 12 states (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Washington) joined by New York City, the District of Columbia and California Energy Commission sued.

Neither the District Court nor the Appeals Court had any sympathy for the administration’s attempt to twist the meaning of “will.”  The unanimous Appeals Court decision said, “the word ‘will’ unambiguously imposes a mandatory duty.”

It’s a shame that the current administration chose to waste three years and who knows how much taxpayer money challenging the meaning of the word “will.” Fortunately, the federal judges on this case have a clear understanding of the English language.

While the court case proceeded, states committed to policies that save people money and continue addressing climate change. In general, once a product has a federal standard, then states cannot set their own standard. But for three of the four products –- portable air conditioners, uninterruptible power supplies and industrial air compressors –- no prior federal standard existed.  As a result, states were free to act. 

Several states acted to make sure that efficiency would continue to advance for these products regardless of the outcome of the lawsuits. First Vermont, and subsequently, California, Washington and Colorado, adopted all three standards. Since the state compliance dates are generally sooner than the federal compliance dates published today, these states will achieve savings for their residents sooner. Perhaps some manufacturers will choose to simply comply nationally before the federal compliance dates, rather than meet standards in some states but not others.

These states have not limited their work to just these three products. They and others have generally pursued packages of new efficiency standards, seeking to step up as the federal government has pulled back. ASAP and ACEEE have provided data, analysis and model legislation to assist these efforts. 

Keep an eye out for a future post from us on what to expect from the federal appliance standards program in 2020.  Spoiler alert: it’s not pretty if you’re interested in saving energy and money and reducing environmentally damaging emissions. The list of threats is long: the rollback of the light bulb standards, a re-write of DOE’s internal rulemaking process that appears intended to make it harder and more time-consuming to update standards; DOE’s attempt at an end-run around the law’s anti-backsliding clause; a rule designed to ensure that future standards for natural gas appliances do very little to save natural gas; and another that would allow manufacturers to self-assign waivers from DOE test procedures.  All vigorously pursued by DOE while the tally of missed deadlines for updated standards, now at 19, continues to mount.

But the four money-saving and emission-reducing standards published in the Federal Register today show that, although it may take time, these threats can be turned back. 

Note:  For readers interested in more details on the specific new standards and what they mean for the products, our 2016 posts provide information as do the rules published by DOE today.

Despite billions of dollars invested in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), new ACEEE research finds that most utilities have vastly underused this technology to help customers save energy. Our report, which surveys 52 of the largest US electric utilities, shows how utilities can tap such data to deliver energy savings.

We live in an age of “big data.” Our digital and connected world creates, transmits, and stores immense amounts of data on all aspects of our lives. Not surprisingly, AMI — which comprises smart meters, communication networks, and data management systems — has grown rapidly. A key element of grid modernization, AMI is now in place in many states, covering nearly half of all meters in the United States.

AMI measures our electricity use in short intervals (typically 15 minutes or 60 minutes) rather than by month. Our electricity providers can use such timely, granular data to better manage and optimize generation and grid operations, thereby reducing costs and responding faster to power outages. They can also use the data to offer better programs and share insights from the data to encourage customers to save energy.

Yet our report shows that only one of the 52 utilities surveyed — Portland General Electric (PGE) — is building its capacity to optimize use of AMI for saving energy. PGE is tapping all six of the use cases we have identified for applying the data. These cases fall into four categories:

• Feedback: Moving from monthly, confusing energy bills to near real-time, customized feedback and applying behavioral insights on how customers can save energy and money.
• Pricing: Shifting from fixed rates that don’t reflect the underlying cost of service to time-of-use rates that inform and enable customers to respond to price signals.
• Data disaggregation: Using granular data for program targeting, evaluation, and innovative designs, such as “pay-for-performance.”
• Grid connectivity: Offering new programs with grid value and customer bill savings, such as grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEB) and conservation voltage reduction.

Our survey showed that behavior-based feedback and time-of-use rates are the most prevalent use cases, with 26 utilities implementing each of these measures. The least common are newer applications: data disaggregation (seven utilities) and GEBs (four utilities).

PGE has developed customer applications for AMI data, which include customer portals to track near-real-time energy use, data disaggregation for key end uses, behavioral tools, connections to energy efficiency programs, and pricing alerts. It is also piloting time-varying rates and conservation voltage-reduction programs.

Three utilities in our data set, Commonwealth Edison, NV Energy, and CPS Energy, leverage AMI for five use cases. Twenty-one utilities leverage AMI for two to four use cases, and seven report using AMI for only one use case.

These findings suggest a large untapped potential for using AMI to deliver energy savings.

We found that providing customers with AMI data alone generally does not result in energy savings. Rather, the data should be paired with customer engagement tools, pricing and incentive strategies, and programs that enable, motivate, and support customers to take actions to modify their energy use.

For example, Baltimore Gas and Electric automatically enrolls customers in its Smart Energy Rewards program when AMI is installed. Customers receive feedback, peak time rebate incentives, and corresponding information on programs to reduce energy costs from energy efficiency and demand response measures.

Targeting programs to customers most likely to benefit from them is another way to leverage AMI. As an example, Pacific Gas & Electric found that AMI-based targeting for a home retrofit program could deliver 3.5 times more energy savings in targeted homes than in non-targeted ones.

Failure to optimize AMI’s potential for customer energy and cost savings can pose risks to utilities because these benefits are typically used to justify AMI investments. Regulators could deny cost recovery of such investments or not approve future investments proposed by utilities. There are cases of such regulatory rejections of AMI in Massachusetts, Kentucky, Virginia, and New Mexico.

To optimize AMI’s potential for energy savings, utilities may need to overcome regulatory, technological, and structural barriers and take steps to invest in complementary systems and workforce, prioritize the customer experience, and pilot new approaches and ways of leveraging the data.

Utilities will need the support of their regulators. For their part, regulators will need to recognize, support, and promote the energy-saving benefits of AMI in investment approval and oversight. In many cases, they will need to establish protocols for data access. They can consider creating performance incentives to encourage use of AMI for energy savings and can also encourage new uses of AMI data through innovation and pilots.

AMI is part of the fundamental transformation underway in our electric utility system. We are rapidly moving from a system marked by large, centralized resources with one-way flows of energy and information to an advanced grid marked by distributed, decentralized, decarbonized resources with two-way flows of energy and information. Greater energy efficiency and flexible loads will be hallmarks of an advanced grid. Our research shows how AMI is a powerful tool for helping customers and utilities manage and reduce their energy use and costs, benefitting both. Most utilities do not currently capture these benefits and should take steps to maximize AMI to save energy.