EERE: Solar Home Events, LED Lights, and Efficient Fridges

On 9/29/2010 2:04 AM, EERE Network News wrote:

A weekly newsletter from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The EERE Network News is also available on the Web at: www.eere.energy.gov/news/enn.cfm September 29, 2010 News and Events DOE Announces Dates for the Solar Decathlon 2011 National Solar Tour Comes to All 50 States This Year DOE Announces Winners of the Lighting for Tomorrow 2010 Competition DOE Proposes Higher Efficiency Standards for Refrigerators DOE Acts to Stop Sales of Inefficient Air Conditioners DOE Awards More Than $30 Million for Electric Grid Cybersecurity Energy Connections Early Equipment Retirements Not Needed to Avoid Severe Climate Change

News and Events DOE Announces Dates for the Solar Decathlon 2011 In less than one year, the National Mall will bustle with construction as teams prepare for the Solar Decathlon. This photo is from the second day of assembly at last year's event. Credit: Angel Borrego Cubero/DOE Solar Decathlon DOE announced on September 23 that the Solar Decathlon 2011 will hold its opening ceremony on September 22, 2011, and will be open to the public from Friday, September 23, through Sunday, October 2. The DOE Solar Decathlon is a competition that challenges collegiate students from across the globe to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, attractive, and easy to live in. Student teams generally spend nearly two years designing and partially building their solar homes on or near their campuses. The teams then transport their homes to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where they complete construction of the homes and then operate them for more than a week while competing in ten contests. The 2011 competition will feature 16 U.S. teams from 14 states, including California, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. The competition will also include teams from Belgium, Canada, China, and New Zealand. While getting the houses to the National Mall is a challenge for all teams, with most shipping their houses on flatbed trucks, the trip will be particularly difficult for the teams in Hawaii, Belgium, China, and New Zealand, as they will likely ship their houses by barge and then load them onto trucks for delivery to Washington, D.C. Once on the National Mall, the teams will compete in ten contests that give the Solar Decathlon its name. Juried contests select the teams that best meet the competition's criteria for architecture, market appeal, affordability, engineering, and communications (that is, communicating their accomplishments to the public). In addition, monitors in each house will determine which teams do the best job at keeping their home in the comfort zone; delivering 15 gallons of hot water over a 10-minute period each day; washing and drying laundry and operating other appliances, including a refrigerator-freezer and a dishwasher; and meeting all of the home's energy needs. A tenth contest judges the teams on home entertainment and includes criteria that are measured—such as lighting the house, boiling water to simulate cooking, and operating a television and computer—as well as two dinner parties and one "movie night" that are awarded points by the attendees, who come from neighboring teams. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency. The Solar Decathlon educates both student participants and the public about how to integrate affordable clean energy products into homes to save money and reduce energy use, and it provides participating students with unique training to enter the clean energy workforce. This will be DOE's fifth Solar Decathlon competition. See the DOE progress alert and the Solar Decathlon Web site. National Solar Tour Comes to All 50 States This Year Local tours of solar houses are being offered throughout the United States on or about October 2. Enlarge this image. Credit: MSB Energy Associates DOE's Solar Decathlon is still a year away, but for people eager to tour a solar home, the opportunity is now at hand. The American Solar Energy Society (ASES) is hosting its fifteenth National Solar Tour, which features open-house tours of solar-powered homes, businesses, and public agencies in local events held across the county. The National Solar Tour is nominally held on Saturday, October 3, although some tours are scheduled earlier and some are later, so be sure to check the date for the tour in your area. For the first time, tours are being offered in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia. Tours are also being offered in the U.S. Virgin Islands and in the Mexican state of Jalisco. According to ASES, more than 650 community solar tours have been registered, nearly triple the number of tours offered in 2009. Last year, 150,000 people participated in the event. See the ASES press release and the National Solar Tour Web site. DOE Announces Winners of the Lighting for Tomorrow 2010 Competition Philips Lighting won the first "LED replacement lamp" award for its 12-watt substitute for a 60-watt incandescent bulb, shown here unlit (left) and lit (right). The EnduraLED A19 lamp will be available later this year. Credit: Lighting for Tomorrow DOE, the American Lighting Association (ALA), and the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE), announced the winners of the Lighting for Tomorrow competition on September 24. The winning solid-state lighting (SSL) fixtures all featured light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and were submitted by Edge Lighting and Kichler Lighting, both of which won two awards. Honorable mentions went to Albeo Technologies, Inc.; Blackstone International Ltd.; and Cree LED Lighting. In addition, Philips Lighting won the first award for an LED replacement lamp. Awards for lighting controls went to Legrand/Pass & Seymour, Leviton Manufacturing Company, and Lutron Electronics Company. The annual competition aims to increase market acceptance and awareness of energy-efficient lighting by recognizing the best-designed energy-efficient lighting products available to the residential market. Design competitions are a key part of DOE's national strategy to accelerate the advancement of SSL technology from laboratory to the marketplace. Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and other SSL technologies have the potential to cut U.S. lighting energy use by one-fourth by 2030. In addition to advancing energy efficiency, SSL lamps and fixtures last longer and offer opportunities for U.S. global leadership in technology development and manufacturing. DOE has worked with its partners to run the Lighting for Tomorrow competition since 2004. This year, the lighting competition focused on SSL technologies and was expanded beyond fixtures to include LED replacement bulbs. The competition also included lighting control devices that are compatible with such energy-efficient technologies as LEDs and fluorescent lamps. Fifty companies submitted 107 products that were evaluated by a panel of judges representing a cross section of industry. See the DOE press release, the Lighting for Tomorrow Web site, and DOE's Solid-State Lighting Web site. DOE Proposes Higher Efficiency Standards for Refrigerators DOE released a new proposed energy efficiency standard for residential refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers, and freezers on September 27. Under the proposed standard, the energy use of most refrigerator-freezers would decrease by 20%-25% by 2014. Thanks to technological advances and current efficiency standards, today's refrigerators already use two-thirds less electricity than models sold in the mid-1970s. If the proposed standard takes effect as planned in January 2014, it will save nearly 4.5 quadrillion Btu and would avoid 305 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the following 30 years. By 2043, the standard would also eliminate the need for up to 4.2 gigawatts of new generating capacity, equivalent to eight or nine coal-fired power plants. DOE will host a public meeting on the proposed standards on Thursday, October 14, in Washington, D.C., and will accept public comments on its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) until November 26. See the DOE press release and the NOPR. The Alliance to Save Energy, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, and the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) all hailed the new proposed standards, noting that the standard reflects a consensus reached among appliance manufacturers and energy efficiency, environmental, and consumer advocates. Under an agreement made in July, the organizations are also recommending new standards for clothes washers and dryers, dishwashers, and room air conditioners, which DOE is evaluating for future rulemakings. See the press release and agreement on the AHAM Web site. DOE Acts to Stop Sales of Inefficient Air Conditioners DOE announced on September 23 that it has taken action against Air-Con, International, requiring the company to stop selling certain air conditioning systems in the United States that have been shown to violate minimum energy efficiency appliance standards. DOE is proposing a civil penalty of more than $230,000 for importing and distributing these inefficient cooling products. This action and the proposed penalties are part of DOE's continued commitment to act aggressively to remove unlawful products from the market. To date, nearly 70 different non-compliant products have been removed from commerce since 2009. In March 2010, DOE issued a subpoena requiring Air-Con to submit detailed information about the energy consumption of its products and about how the company marketed and sold them in the United States. Based on Air-Con's responses to the subpoena, DOE has found that the company imported and distributed nearly 2,000 air conditioning units that are rated at 10 SEER, while the federal standard requires a minimum 13 SEER rating. The announcement covers two air conditioning unit models: ACN-09/12/18/24-GCH and ACN-MTS-09CO/12CO/09EV/12EV. The notice proposes the maximum penalty for selling non-compliant products and requires Air-Con to immediately cease further U.S. sales and provide written notification to its customers who purchased these units. If Air-Con fails to cease distribution of these models in the United States, DOE will seek a judicial order to prevent additional sales. See the DOE press release and the full Notice of Noncompliance Determination and Proposed Civil Penalty. DOE Awards More Than $30 Million for Electric Grid Cybersecurity DOE announced on September 23 the investment of more than $30 million for 10 projects that will address cybersecurity issues facing the nation's electric grid. Eight projects will research, develop, and commercialize a comprehensive range of cybersecurity solutions for the grid, many of which will also apply to the Smart Grid. For example, Sypris Electronics will enhance the security of the Smart Grid meters at residences, ensuring the data remains private through the use of electronic data keys. Two additional projects will support a new National Electric Sector Cybersecurity Organization (NESCO). The Energy Sector Security Consortium, Inc. will form NESCO, a broad-based, public-private partnership that will work to improve electric sector computer and network cybersecurity, including the security of the Smart Grid. Working with DOE and other federal agencies, NESCO will bring together domestic and international experts to assess, analyze, and disseminate information about electric infrastructure weaknesses and threats. Meanwhile, the Electric Power Research Institute will conduct research, assessments, and analyses of cybersecurity requirements in support of NESCO. See the DOE press release and the complete list of projects. DOE also released the 2010 U.S. Smart Grid Vendor Ecosystem Report, which shows the level of commercial activity being generated by the Smart Grid. The report highlights $2.75 billion in annual product sales in three key Smart Grid categories: advanced metering infrastructure, demand response, and distribution grid management. See the report.

Energy Connections Early Equipment Retirements Not Needed to Avoid Severe Climate Change If the world agrees to take action to avoid severe climate change, does that mean that you'll have to scrap your car or that your utility will need to shut down its new power plant? Not necessarily, according to a new study from the Carnegie Institution. The study examined the current sources of greenhouses gases throughout the world, and based on their expected lifetimes, calculated the total emissions expected from all the existing power plants, vehicles, buildings, industries, and other sources. That works out to about 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide. Climate models predict such emission levels would result in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide stabilizing at less than 430 parts per million, resulting in a global temperature increase of 1.3°C (2.3°F) above pre-industrial levels. That's below the targets of 450 parts per million and 2°C that many consider the upper limit to avoid severe climate change impacts. The authors note, however, that the world will soon need to shift to low-carbon energy sources to avoid future emissions. They also note that their study does not account for the impact of today's infrastructure on tomorrow's energy choices. For instance, the ready availability of gasoline fueling stations and the current lack of electric-vehicle recharging stations may make it more likely for future consumers to buy gasoline-fueled vehicles. The study also assumes that existing infrastructure will be retired at the end of its expected useful life, although many of today's coal-fired power plants have been kept running far past their original retirement dates. See the Carnegie Institution press release.

This newsletter is funded by DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and is also available on the EERE Web site. If you have questions or comments about this newsletter, please contact the editor. This service is provided to you at no charge by DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE). Visit the Web site at http://www.eere.energy.gov.

 

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