UA wise, detailed, and comprehensive blueprint" -President Bill Clinton

BOLD BUSINESS SOLUTIONS FOR THE NEW ENERGY ERA

AMORY B. LOVI S AND

ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE

FOREWORDS BY

MARVIN ODUM, PRESIDENT, SHELL OIL COMPANY

JOHN W. ROWE, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, EXELON CORPORATION

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These signs of business-led progress in trans­

forming America 's buildings are encouraging. But

will they be enough? Are there o ther levers we

should consider if we're rea lly serious about ending

our reliance on fossil fu els? Yes. Those levers are

held by policymakers, yet strongly informed, tuned,

and exploited by business leaders. A nd to ge t where

we want to be, we should be p ushing, pulling, and

turning every button, lever, a nd knob "ve can find.

Policy-Led Approaches

The slow ad option o f building energy efficiency

re fl ects poorly unders tood va lue propositions and

the "hassle fac tor" of executio n . O vercoming these

obstacles in 120 million buildings requires five

kinds of actions to reduce the generic barriers and

thus scaJe the business opportunity.

MAKING INFORMATI ON AVAILABLE

Smart policies to a llow and accelerate energy

effic iency create ma ny be nefits that can m a ke

T A NING FROM WITHIN THE TRIBE

As the economy slowed in recent years, industrious folks in the construction business have used downtime to retrain themselves . Steve Jungerberg of Retro Green Homes, in Carmel Highlands, California, took a life-changing class on building science at the Building Performance Institute. Now he's teaching other contractors new skills, peer to peer, about how to build and retrofit better. As a former contractor, he has connections with residential contrac­tors and large developers. He also works with owners and architects, focusing mainly on shell and heating: efficiency first, then renewables.

"This has to be local and done with enthusiasm," Steve says. "You have to love your neighbors and your commu­nity and want to make it better. You can learn these things fairly easily and apply them and make a real difference in your community. Ilook at every person from where they're at and want to get them one step closer."296

112 REINVENTING FIRE

business opera tion s easie r, no t more burdensom e.

Rules ca n improve the efficiency of the m a rke t,

h elping unlock more opportunity. Requiring di s­

closure of buildings' energy use, as the EU bega n

to in 2006 a nd some US . jurisdictions have initi­

ated, g ives eve ryone-from buyers and renters

to brokers, and en ergy efficiency providers-the

informa tion they need to make inte lligent choices .

Th at's good for build ing owne rs seeking to

improve, and good for serv ice providers w ho want

to help the m . A nd it's good for the w hole building

s tock a nd the country, because it rewa rds owners

of efficient build ings and g ives others an incentive

to join the m .

Hig h-qua lity, timely, m easured da ta- espe­

cia lly link ing technical with economic perfor­

m ance-re ma in surprisingly sca rce. Ye t cheaper

sen sors and monitoring technologies, cheap and

ubiquito us te lecommunications, the d awn of the

sm a rt g rid, a nd rising cus tomer d em and are creat­

i.ng mom entum, capabil ity, and m a rke ts for high­

quality d a ta collection and applica tio n . Businesses

More specialized teachers are also emerging. Eric Walters at Pool Power in Modesto has been spreading the "big-pi pes-small-pumps" approach (see chapter 4) to pool pumps. (Simple techniques like stra ighter pipes, better pumps and controls, and bigger-hence lower-friction and longer-lived-filters can save most of pool pumps' electric­ity.) Walters started his pool busilless 10 years ago. The first customer's pool equipment Eric looked at had elbow fittings everywhere. A huge, noisy pump was shoving water through a maze of piping but delivering little flow. The second pool he viewed was the same, and the third, and the fourth . One week confirmed that Eric's customers were wasting hundreds of dollars every month by ignoring basic flow physics in their pool systems. So he's grown his own retrofit business while working to train installers-and to improve California building codes to reduce pool pump­ing's hidden but large energy USe. 297

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