January 1st marked the end of some attractive tax breaks for homeowners who sought to make their homes more energy efficient.

While there certainly were perks for taxpayers, the $858 billion tax bill signed by President Barack Obama in December extended but dramatically cut the dollar amount of tax credits available for energy-efficient home retrofits.

Instead of the maximum tax credit of 30 percent of a project, or up to $1,500, the 2011 credit is 10 percent of a project, or no more than $500. Other restrictions apply, too, like a flat $200 limit for new windows and a $300 limit for the installation of a new water heater. There’s an additional piece of bad news for consumers who were making energy improvements to their homes in phases: Homeowners who already took advantage of the program aren’t eligible for another tax credit.

“The $1,500 was really something that piqued people’s interest,” said Jamie Peters, program manager of the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance. “If I was a homeowner and really got into this in 2010, it’d be disappointing that I couldn’t do anything else in 2011.”

A 30 percent tax credit for major projects like the purchase and installation of solar or wind energy systems or geothermal heat pumps continues until 2016, so that segment of the green building market is still on solid ground. In fact, 5,000 to 6,000 solar energy systems are being installed nationally each month, and that momentum is expected to build as the cost decreases, said Mark Burger, president of the Illinois Solar Energy Association.

Others say they think momentum for smaller projects will continue to build as well, despite the smaller tax perks, because the media attention and product manufacturers’ marketing of the tax credit did much to introduce more consumers to the idea of making their homes more energy efficient and less costly to operate.

New York City’s iconic Empire State Building, once the world’s tallest building, has been undergoing a multi-million dollar green renovation that will now extend to the power that’s used by the 102-story Art deco landmark’s tenants.

Malkin Holdings, which operates and maintains the 2.85 million square-foot office building has announced it will buy 100 percent of its power from a wind farm owned by Green Mountain Energy Company.

“It was a natural fit for us to combine 100 percent clean energy with our nearly completed, groundbreaking energy efficiency retrofit work,” said Anthony E. Malkin, President of Malkin Holdings, which runs the building, said in the announcement.

“Clean energy and our nearly 40% reduced consumption of watts and BTUs gives us a competitive advantage in attracting the best credit tenants at the best rents,” he said.

The two-year contract for 55 million kWh of renewable energy annually will prevent nearly 100 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year, the firm said.

Officials at Green Mountain Energy said that number is equal to the reduction that would be achieved if the lights were turned off in every house in New York State for a week or planting 150,000 trees.

The purchase is also more than double the amount of renewable power that any other commercial customer in New York City is currently buying

“We are extremely pleased that an icon like the world-famous Empire State Building made this important commitment to support renewable energy,” said Paul Thomas, CEO of Green Mountain Energy Company.
“This announcement is historic for many reasons. In addition to being the largest commercial consumer of green power in New York City, the Empire State Building’s renewable power purchase is now the largest purchase in our company’s 13-year history,” he said. “This demonstrates that Green Mountain can serve all sizes of commercial customers with renewable energy at a price they can afford, and that going green doesn’t have to be a trade-off.”

As part of its green retrofit of the Empire State Building, Malkin Holdings has hired Serious Materials to remove, retrofit and replace each of its 6,514 double-hung, dual-pane windows. It’s also adding insulation and other upgrades.

By: Steve Cowell

As our economy continues to sputter, one little-noticed industry has been booming for a while now: energy efficiency. The sector is hiring like crazy — a fact that speaks volumes about the close relationship between clean energy and the economic recovery that we’re all waiting for. Energy efficiency could save us all.

My firm works with utilities, government agencies, housing authorities, and other groups to help increase energy efficiency. We started in 1984 with three employees and one office. Today, we have nearly two dozen offices nationwide and employ 700 staffers from coast to coast. Most strikingly, we’ve added more than 250 people and 12 offices in just the last two years. The reason is crystal clear: Energy-efficiency services are in great demand. We are continuing to expand rapidly as more groups turn to us for help.

But energy-services firms are not the only ones that can benefit from the demand for energy-efficiency services. With the right programs in place, reducing power consumption can improve the bottom line for many other types of companies. Case in point: The building infrastructure in this country is old and inefficient. Retrofitting these buildings requires an army of workers. These include heating/air conditioning installers, insulators, and building inspectors. Many of these tradespeople are out of work and these retrofitting jobs can get them back on their feet. Products like insulation, caulk, triple-paned windows and doors, and high-efficiency heating and cooling systems will also get a boost. And that’s not all. The goods need to be made, inspected, shipped, and sold, widening the circle of employment opportunities for manufacturers, retailers, and distributors. This expanded workforce means people will have more money to spend.

Now that’s what I call a “trickle down economy”!

Most importantly, jobs created to support energy efficiency are America’s jobs. More than 90 percent of products and 100 percent of the labor used in residential energy work are American. If Home Star becomes law, weatherization products and equipment will fly off store shelves faster than you can say “retrofit.” Most of these supplies are made domestically, so our factories will need to step up production. Home Star is expected to increase demand for retrofitting by a factor of 15, benefiting those hardest hit by this recession — manufacturing and construction workers. An estimated 168,000 jobs would be generated to carry out the program. Consumers who take advantage of Home Star would save our country an estimated $10 billion in energy costs by 2020. The program would jolt our economy by pumping in $6 billion over two years and cut down on carbon emissions. Supported by Republicans and Democrats, environmentalists and businesses, the bill was introduced exactly one year ago. Home Star has been stalled in the U.S. Senate for months after having passed the House last May. We hope the new Congress will put Home Star on the front burner.

New economic analysis shows that clean energy legislation will create up to 1.9 million new jobs, increase annual household income by up to $1,175, and boost the GDP by up to $111 billion. Over the years, study after study, from groups like the Center for American Progress and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, have supported the direct correlation between green industry growth and jobs. Eighteen months ago, findings from a study by the Pew Charitable Trust found that green jobs are growing at a national rate of 9.1 percent, while traditional jobs are growing by only 3.7 percent.

As someone who’s been working in the industry for more than 30 years, I’m not surprised at all. Clean energy is job creation, hands down. Our time has come!

So what are we waiting for?

ATLANTA, Georgia–Shumate Mechanical, which has operated in Atlanta to provide residents with all of their heating and cooling demands since 1978, announces that it’s now the exclusive Bosch tankless water heater dealer for Bosch in Georgia. The condensing tankless water heater sold by Shumate Mechanical is state of the art. While actually cheaper than the non-condensing tankless water heaters on the market today from companies like Rinnai, Noritz, and Rheem, it is next generation technology that saves more energy.

In addition, the new Shumate-Bosch partnership is utilizing a proprietary and first of its kind program to actually let consumers buy the tankless water heating unit directly from Bosch online… and then, seamlessly arrange installation by Shumate within 24 to 48 hours by Shumate. This unique system is obviously faster and more customer-friendly than water heater ordering and installation systems have operated in the past. This is just one more way in which Shumate Mechanical seeks to maximize the benefits that customers derive from doing business with them.

Why should you want to have Shumate Mechanical installing a Bosch tankless water heater in your home? To begin, A Bosch tankless water heater provides endless hot water while using energy more efficiently. A tankless water heater turns on and off when you open and close the faucet. What this means is that the only energy that gets consumed is for the hot water that is being used–the tank is not constantly filling up with, storing, and heating hot water for later use. So, you don’t waste energy heating water when you don’t require it. With a Bosch tankless water heater, when you open a faucet the flow of the water triggers the heater to turn on. Whether you use gas or electricity for your fuel, the powerful gas burners or electrical elements will instantly turn on, rapidly heating the water as it passes through the unit. The water is heated instantly.

As you can imagine, this saving of energy means saved money for you. You can drop anywhere from 5% to 69% off your current hot water heating bill, depending on which model you purchase and what system you are replacing. In addition, you are conserving water, which is healthier for the environment. Yet, heating the water as you’re using it means that you get an endless supply of hot water – no more waiting for the tank to heat up in between showers, running the dishwasher, and so forth.

In addition to these clear advantages of having a tankless water heater installed in your home, there are even more. For instance, a tankless water heater is very small–small enough for you to hang on the wall and thus save yourself valuable floor space. It’s designed with replaceable parts and is built with such materials as copper, stainless steel, and aluminum so that you probably only need to buy one in your adult lifetime, while storage tank water heaters decrease in efficiency over time and eventually need to be replaced. The Bosch tankless water heater is almost completely recyclable, so if you should ever decide to replace it you won’t be negatively impacting the environment by taking up more landfill space. A tankless water heater also won’t develop a corrosive leak like a storage tank water heater all too easily does; this keeps you protected against expensive water damage in your home.

As the new construction market climbs out of the grips of the recession, it is still fighting a glut of existing homes that are priced to move. The element that is being used to level the playing field is home efficiency, and pending legislation that would help make it more affordable. It’s a ray of light for HVAC subcontractors who want to offer a true value proposition in the new home market. It could mean the cost of an upgraded HVAC system could be written into the home’s mortgage.

Lisa Marquis Jackson is vice president of John Burns Real Estate Consulting, Irving, Texas. She said that although the market is still very broad (with “a ridiculous amount of business models whose result is always to create a profitable home”); “this whole issue of energy efficiency, green, and home automation” is moving forward. In the not-so-distant past, it was more the domain of a custom home buyer. Now, “It’s migrating more to the mass home builder, who is offering more that can be touted as energy efficiency. They recognize the importance of it,” Jackson said.

The key for some customers is to promote energy efficiency rather than green; “Green can even have a negative connotation,” she said. “When you say energy efficiency, it’s a private benefit versus a public benefit.”

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By: Todd Woody

Four months ago, General Electric fired up the imaginations of would-be entrepreneurs tooling away in garages everywhere when it offered up $200 million as part of an “Ecomagination Challenge” to crowdsource smart grid and renewable energy ideas.

On Tuesday, the global conglomerate announced the first set of winners, a dozen startups that collectively will secure $55 million in investment from GE and two venture firms collaborating with the company, Foundation Capital and RockPort Capital Partners.

The winners hail from everywhere from Silicon Valley to Sweden. Most are developing technology for the smart grid.

Others are focused on smart buildings. ClimateWell of Stockholm is making heating and cooling systems designed to operate not on electricity, but on solar-heated hot water. Soladigm of Milpitas, Calif., meanwhile, manufactures windows that incorporate electronics that allow them to darken — keeping buildings cool during sunny summer months. In winter, they lighten to trap the sun’s heat.

The payoff for these companies goes far beyond the cash. Given GE’s involvement in just about every aspect of the electricity distribution system as well as its smart home efforts, the global behemoth is a huge market for their services.

“We are working with these new partners to accelerate the development and deployment of these concepts on a scale that will help drive a cleaner, more efficient, and economically viable grid,” Jeff Immelt, GE’s chief executive, said in a statement. “The partnerships formed through this Challenge represent a new way of doing business at GE as we continue to expand our broad digital energy offering in the growing power grid market.”

GE also named five Innovation Challenge award winners that will each score $100,000. Among the most intriguing startups is Capstone Metering, a Texas company developing a smart water meter, and WinFlex of Israel, which is developing an inflatable wind turbine.

GE and its venture capital partners received nearly 4,000 entries in the contest.

“This is perhaps the largest participation in an open innovation challenge a company has ever generated,” GE executive Beth Comstock said on a conference call Tuesday.

Another executive noted that the company received many ideas from individuals, which will prove valuable to GE.

“It gives us insight into how consumers are thinking about energy and energy efficiency,” he noted.

QUINCY, MA The state declined to grant a variance for a heating-system replacement project for Quincy public housing because the new heating units do not comply with a new energy code that took effect July 1.

The state Board of Building Regulations and Standards rejected the Quincy Housing Authority’s variance appeal after a hearing last month, the authority’s director and Quincy’s inspectional services director said.

The appeal was filed after Jay Duca, the city’s inspectional services head, denied a contractor permits to install more than 400 heating units because they cannot be programmed to turn on and off at preset times. That programmability is a requirement of the latest International Energy Conservation Code, which took effect July 1 in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, some residents of public housing in Quincy have been without heat for nearly a year.

The units that were to be installed – gas-powered, direct-vent wall furnaces similar to ones found in hotel rooms – are made by Rinnai America Corp. of Georgia.

Quincy Housing Authority officials want to use them to replace old, leaky and mold-prone steam radiators. The radiators often malfunction, leaving residents of Snug Harbor in Germantown and West Acres in West Quincy without heat.

Andrea Lindo, a Snug Harbor resident, told The Patriot Ledger that her heater has been broken since February and that the housing authority placed three standalone space heaters in her apartment. Lindo’s neighbor said she hasn’t had heat since 2009.

Housing Authority Director Jay MacRitchie declined to comment on specific tenants’ circumstances. He said eight of the authority’s 436 apartments are currently without heat, and that the authority spends about $50,000 annually to replace boilers.

MacRitchie said if the stimulus money does not come through, the authority will replace boilers as it customarily does – a short-term fix.

“It will be like saying, ‘We know you’re going to get a new car, but we’re going to replace the transmission,’” he said.

The $2.5 million for Quincy is a portion of $25 million in federal stimulus money that the state doled out for public-housing heating upgrades.

The state Department of Housing and Community Development, which approved the Rinnai system, “is still continuing to work with all parties to replace those old heating systems,” spokesman Phil Hailer said.

Hailer said if appeals of Duca’s denial are exhausted, the agency “will consider the feasibility of an alternative, comparable, conforming heating system.”

Asked about the standstill, Christopher Walker, spokesman for Mayor Thomas Koch, said the mayor “doesn’t overrule his inspectors.”

Duca and Quincy’s fire chief have criticized the proposed system as inadequate to heat multi-room apartments. The system requires wall fans and gaps in doorways to circulate hot air. Duca said no system of its type has been approved for use in Massachusetts.

The Board of Building Regulations and Standards voted on May 5 to grant the Quincy Housing Authority a variance to use the heating system under the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code.

Shortly thereafter, the city granted permits to install 10 of the heating units, a test run called for in the housing authority’s contract with Rinnai. When the company returned in September for the rest of the needed city permits, it was turned down because the new code had taken effect.

The Board of Building Regulations and Standards agreed, declining to grant the authority a second variance after an Oct. 19 hearing.

“You’ve got to meet today’s codes,” Duca said.

Washington, DC – Since its launch in 2000, the LEED green building certification program has been recognized internationally as the leading benchmark for buildings that are designed, constructed and operated sustainably. The new LEED International Program furthers the global reach of LEED by emphasizing global consistency, enabling a regional approach, and providing local outreach and support.

The increasingly global nature of the green building movement – and its unrivaled potential to effect real economic and environmental progress worldwide – is at the heart of the Greenbuild 2010 International Forum, being held in Chicago Nov. 16 in conjunction with the annual Greenbuild International Conference & Expo. The International Forum is also your first chance to learn more about the LEED International Program from representatives of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the nonprofit organization that develops the LEED rating systems and hosts Greenbuild. Learn more at www.greenbuildexpo.org/international.

“For years, the leaders of the global green building movement have looked to LEED as the benchmark for what it means to build green,” said Scot Horst, Senior Vice President of LEED at USGBC. “The LEED International Program allows us to work collaboratively to bolster the power of LEED to transform the marketplace in communities worldwide.”

Over the years, the green building community has found many innovative ways to adapt the LEED rating systems to locally and regionally specific needs. Under the LEED International Program, a globally consistent set of LEED rating systems will ensure that LEED certification represents the same level of rigor no matter where a LEED-certified building is located.

This global consistency depends on the ability of LEED credits to be applicable regardless of geographic or climatic region. Under the LEED International Program, this does not require a fundamental change in LEED or a rewriting of the credits; instead, alternative compliance paths will offer country-neutral ways to reach a credit’s intended outcome, allowing teams a non-country-specific option by which to earn the credit.

The regional approach of the LEED International Program will incorporate global perspectives through the LEED International Roundtable, with representatives from green building councils and leadership organizations around the world. The roundtable will provide regular feedback on the non-country-specific options and the LEED International Program in general.

“The LEED International Roundtable enables us to collaboratively identify common solutions to regional issues,” said S. Raghupathy of the India Green Building Council, a LEED International Roundtable member.

And because all green building occurs locally, the LEED International Program will provide resources, tools, education and other outreach to help advocates and project teams find on-the-ground success with LEED. This will include some translation of LEED materials into difference languages.

by John R. Hall

One of the most glaring inconsistencies in the HVAC contracting trade is the array of licensing requirements across the 50 U.S. states. The disparity is evidenced by the number of states that have no licensing requirements at all — 22. Of the other 28 states, some merely require a business to be registered or to work on projects in excess of $50,000.

The HVAC trade isn’t alone among the many service trades when it comes to license requirements, but the lack of uniformity has made the HVAC contracting trade an easy target for criticism over the years — by the mainstream media and consumers who believe that HVAC contractors are less than scrupulous – thanks to publicized stings and media “hazing.”

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By: Todd Woody

The United States is on the verge of a solar boom that could provide 4.3 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2020, according to a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

There’s just a 12-figure catch: Investors need to put $100 billion into the solar industry to keep the generation of solar electricity growing by 42 percent a year for the next decade to expand capacity from the current 1.4 gigawatts to 44 gigawatts.

“Policy measures such as tax credits, capital expenditure grants, generation incentives and renewable electricity credits will remain a key driver of solar uptake in the U.S. for at least the next three years,” according to the report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research and consulting firm. “The current drop in solar costs is taking place just as such policies are being implemented by the federal and various state governments, which is expected to lead to rapid growth in commercial, utility and residential solar power.”

Over the past two years, solar module prices have plunged by 50 percent as low-cost Chinese manufacturers expanded production and entered the U.S. market.

“Policy, rather than sunshine, will remain the U.S.’s greatest solar resource for the next few years,” Milo Sjardin, Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s head of U.S. research, said in a statement. “By the middle of this decade, however, the U.S. retail solar market will be driven by fundamental, unsubsidized competition, which should transform the U.S. into one of the world’s most dynamic solar markets.”

Exhibit A for such a phenomenon is Germany. With about as much sunshine as Maine, the European nation became the world’s solar stronghold through policies that rewarded homeowners, businesses, and farmers for generating their own electricity.

Such policies are needed in the U.S., according to the report, given that solar electricity remains four times as expensive to generate than coal-fired power.

Of course, the failure of Congress to pass national climate change legislation and the current attempt to kill California’s global warming law shows that progress on green energy issues is not guaranteed in the U.S. And Congress’ habit of offering short-lived tax incentives for renewable energy and then dithering about extending them when they expire has played havoc with the industry and investors.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts photovoltaic panels will account for 30 gigawatts of the 44 gigawatts of solar electricity generation by 2020, with 14 gigawatts coming from solar thermal power plants. Solar thermal farms deploy huge arrays of mirrors to heat liquids to create steam that drives electricity-generating turbines.

That might be a conservative estimate, if the California and federal officials’ rush to green light big solar projects in recent weeks is any indication. On Monday, for instance, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved a 1,000-megawatt solar thermal power plant to be built in the Southern California desert.

By year’s end, nearly four gigawatts of solar thermal projects are expected to be licensed. Just 10 gigawatts to go until 2020.