Setting the Table for Building Decarbonization

Photo courtesy of LUMEN.org Remember when all it took to buy a bulb was to choose between which wattage you needed (40/60/75/100 Watts)?  This system worked when you had a single technology on the market.  But as Guest Contributor, Penni McLean-Conner from NSTAR mentioned in her blog post on Monday, the new efficiency standards for light bulbs have sparked a flood of new technologies…

Penni McLean-Conner, NSTAR Beginning in 2012, new federal standards for energy efficiency will usher in an era of improved lighting options for consumers. If we take time now to familiarize ourselves and our customers with the coming changes, we’ll all be more informed shoppers when the new standards go into effect. The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), signed by President George W…

The November issue of Highlights is now available, with update to date news and views about energy efficiency policy developments in Northeast! This issues features an introduction to our new Policy Roundup for 2011, discussion of the coming federal lighting standards, and updates from our recent Building Energy Codes Working Group Meeting in Hartford and the EM&V Forum Annual Public…

Over the past six months, the Northeast has been hammered with unexpected and extreme weather.  Tornadoes tore through Western Massachusetts in June and Hurricane Irene wreaked havoc throughout the entire region in August, devastating Vermont with the worst flooding they’ve seen in 84 years.  We also felt the strongest earthquake to rattle the region since World War II, and last month’…

Richard Donnelly, Efficiency Vermont With economic and social challenges ranging from climate commitments to deferred maintenance, how can colleges and universities make the investments necessary to control their costs and reduce carbon emissions? As energy efficiency projects directly compete with limited funds to pay for other expenses, how can colleges and universities capitalize on long-…

We in NEEP’s policy shop are constantly tracking state energy efficiency happenings— from legislation and regulatory proceedings to spending and savings data. Now we’ve released our first Regional Roundup, a new report examining overall trends and which states are leading and lagging in capturing cost-effective energy efficiency. The report provides a summary and analysis of some of the…

Xinhua News Agency Following the U.S., the E.U., and many other countries, China announced today that it will introduce lighting standards in 2012 to phase out inefficient incandescent bulbs by 2016 to help achieve the country's goal to cut energy consumption by 16 percent and carbon emissions by 17 percent before 2015. Xinhua News Agency reported today that imports and sales of 100-watt-and-…

Yes Halloween is just around the corner, but we’re not talking about those types of vampires or phantoms. What we ARE talking about can be just as frightening — vampire or phantom loads refer to the appliances and electronics that draw electricity from your outlets even when they are turned off. The constant sucking of electricity these products produce not only are a drain on your…

Which Bulb Should I Use?! 2012 is almost upon us and in preparation for the upcoming change in lighting standards the LUMEN (Lighting Understanding For a More Efficient Nation) Coalition gave media an opportunity to see a variety of energy-efficient lighting choices in action in a real home while also rolling out LUMENnow.org. The LUMEN Coalition is an ad hoc consortium of organizations…

ACEEE today released its 2011 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard, and Massachusetts topped the rankings. Also making the top 10 were New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maryland. Clearly, the Northeast is the leader in setting policies that recognize and value energy efficiency as a key economic and environmental resource. In each of these states, strong executive leadership has…