A recovery in home improvement spending will soon be underway according to the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) released today by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. Remodeling spending is expected to increase on an annual basis by the end of the year, and the LIRA points to growth accelerating to the double-digit range in the first quarter of 2011.

“Absent a reversal of recent economic progress, there should be a healthy upturn in home improvement activity by year-end and into next year,” says Eric S. Belsky, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Homeowner optimism is bolstering a trend toward investing in the home again. “The recovery in home improvement activity appears to be moving beyond simple replacement projects and energy retrofits to broader remodels and upgrades,” says Kermit Baker, director of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies. “A wider activity base would help generate the expected growth in the quarters ahead.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember Home Star, the killer bill that would incentivize thousands of home energy retrofits across the country, reduce energy bills for struggling homeowners, put some of America’s hardest hit trades back to work, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions? The one backed by a coalition of more than 1,700 organizations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers? (The one that’s not called “cash for caulkers” and please for the luvagod stop using that stupid, misleading name.)

The House passed the bill back in May and it’s been sitting in the Senate ever since. Homeowners are putting off retrofits, waiting to see if it will pass. Construction trades are holding off on hiring, waiting to see if it will pass. Members of the Home Star coalition now populate all 50 states and they are holding their breath, waiting.

Now the bill’s on the knife’s edge. There’s been talk of including Home Star in the Small Business Jobs Bill that’s pending in the Senate Finance Committee. A final decision about whether to do so will be made on Wednesday.

If it isn’t included, it may get caught up in the energy bill mishegas, or may not get taken up again until Fall. That would be incredibly counter-productive and short-sighted on the part of the Senate. This bill is as close to a no-brainer as will ever grace Capitol Hill, supported by left and right and of benefit to every single Congressional district. Surely if the Senate can do anything any more, it can do this.

Power Partners, Inc. has revealed that it is teaming up with the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Arkema Inc. on a $2.54 million research programme to improve the efficiency and test new refrigerants in a type of air conditioning unit that runs on waste heat or heat from solar thermal collectors.

The funding was announced mid-July by DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, otherwise known as ARPA-E, and is part of the agency’s Building Energy Efficiency through Innovative Thermodevices, or BEET-IT programme.

Power Partners is a US manufacturer and marketer of energy-efficient, environmentally friendly ECO-MAX adsorption chillers. The adsorption chiller is a type of air conditioner that is powered by waste heat or by heat from solar collectors. It has few moving parts and uses almost no electricity to operate.

During the three-year programme, the team will design, assemble and test an adsorption chiller that takes advantage of PNNL’s metal-organic heat carrier technology and new types of refrigerants. The goal is to utilize PNNL’s advanced materials and develop adsorption chillers that are smaller, more efficient and affordable enough to be used more frequently in commercial buildings.

Opportunity for energy saving

“More efficient methods of cooling represent a great opportunity to reduce energy consumption in buildings, and in doing so, greenhouse gas emissions as well,” said PNNL Laboratory Fellow Pete McGrail, who is leading the research project. “The ARPA-E program represents a unique opportunity to move a recent laboratory discovery to the mainstream HVAC and commercial buildings marketplace in just a few years,” he said.

“Buildings account for 40% of energy use in the United States,” said Mike Stonecipher, Business Segment Leader at Power Partners. “Cooling is one of the primary uses of energy in buildings, yet the basic approaches for cooling have not changed in decades. We are excited about this joint effort to develop a commercially viable product that can meet the demand for energy conservation.”

Power Partners will lead engineering and testing efforts as the project advances from a bench-scale prototype to a 5-ton cooling capacity demonstration unit, utilizing its state-of-the-art test facility. Adsorption chiller technology is attractive to retail stores, hospitals, universities, office complexes, data centers, trigeneration facilities, processing plants, manufacturing plants and government facilities because it saves energy.

This is the amount of investment Pike Research estimates could be generated by smart grid infrastructure worldwide between 2008 and 2015. Technologies for grid automation upgrades and smart metering will all represent a huge market opportunity over the next decade.

While electricity grids still remain a marvel of the 20th century, they are highly complex with millions of miles of distribution lines. However, unlike IT and communications networks, they still lack intelligence.

The need for improved reliability, security, and operating efficiencies, lower costs, a better balance between power supply and demand, and a reduction in the electrical system’s impact on the climate, are all factors that are contributing to the build-out of intelligent electricity networks or smart grids.

While significant technical, economic and regulatory barriers to this roll-out remain, government and industry bodies are coming together with urgency to drive the industry forward, and Pike Research forecasts that smart grid infrastructure will attract $200 billion in worldwide investment between 2008 and 2015.

Read the rest of this entry »

Never thought you’d see the day when a Texas oilman turns sunny-side up? Oh wait, T. Boone Pickens has been there, funded that.

OK, how about a fictional oil tycoon?

Larry Hagman, who slicked himself up as exactly that in the hit TV soap opera Dallas — Wikipedia tells me it was a hit; it was before my time — has now reprised his role as the famous oilman in a commercial for the German photovoltaic manufacturer, SolarWorld.

It was apparently the BP oil disaster that spurred this actor and solar advocate to produce the TV spot. However, in return for doing the ad, SolarWorld agreed to donate panels to support work in Haiti done by the Solar Electric Light Fund. Hagman serves on the board of this nonprofit.

Still, the way he cackles at the solar panels in the commercial makes me wish he were actually starring in a television show about a solar energy baron striking it rich after finding sun spilling all over his property. Or maybe he could go the reality-TV route and call it “Real Solar Pimps of Texas.” What do you think?