By Dave Hewitt | Fri, March 22, 19
Every city climate action plan I have ever read references moving to zero energy buildings as well as more stringent or zero energy building energy codes. These are great plan elements and certainly are “doable” things to include in a plan. That said, zero energy buildings are not all that easy to accomplish across the broader market, and they certainly won’t happen without a substantial supportive effort.
By Dave Hewitt | Fri, March 22, 19
You’ve probably seen the infamous “duck graph”, and then hopefully you’ve read “Teaching the Duck to Fly”. Well, now maybe we have the next example of zoomorphism in the energy world – the butterfly graph.
By Dave Hewitt | Fri, March 22, 19
The commercial buildings market is very complex, with wildly divergent ownership, management control, and building characteristics. Buildings range from strip malls to office towers to convention centers to big box retail stores. Ownership could be local government, merchant builders (who build and then sell), local family businesses, international corporations, and fast food franchises. Each ownership category makes decisions very differently from the others. Some commercial buildings are incredibly complex, some buildings are cookie cutter simple and repetitive.
By Dave Hewitt | Sat, February 23, 19
Thank you for taking the time to read the very first issue of Building Decarb Central.
You may be wondering where the idea for this newsletter came from, or why we’ve decided to tackle the issue of building decarbonization, so let us shed some light.
By Dave Hewitt | Sat, February 23, 19
Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP) has just released Beneficial Electrification of Water Heating, a new paper in its excellent “Electrification in the Public Interest” series.
By Dave Hewitt | Sat, February 23, 19
What are the potential benefits of building decarb to low-income households?
By Dave Hewitt | Thu, February 21, 19
Moving vehicle fuels from gasoline to electricity causes tremendous anxiety in the oil industry; lots of gnashing of teeth and funding of political action committees. Moving buildings to electric space and water heat causes equally-concerning anxiety in the natural gas industry – especially for the regulated natural gas utilities who must respond to state policies and regulations, not just a changing market.
By Lisa Cascio | Wed, February 13, 19
Every year in the fall, I head to Cape Cod for a last-ditch vacation before the year-end work crunch hits and the New England winter begins to take hold. 2018 was no different. At least as I headed to Provincetown.
Three days before I was supposed to return home, vacation was cut short. While I was at the beach without cell service, my family frantically called and texted. “Turn on the news,” all the messages said. And, just like that, life changed.
By Sue Coakley | Tue, December 11, 18
The energy and carbon intensity of existing buildings has been a vexing problem for more than three decades. While lighting, appliances, and a wide variety of other technologies have significantly upgraded energy performance, the buildings that they are placed into have been remarkably resistant to major change.
