Here’s a quick run-down of several energy-efficient projects cited in the article.

Projects at Fairmont Waterfront hotel include a heat-recovery system to preheat incoming city water using heat captured from the hotel’s water system. It saves an estimated 305,380 kilowatt-hours (1,100 GJ) per year and $12,000 per year. Estimated payback is in two years.

In a separate article, Fairmont set a corporate commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 20 percent from its 2006 levels by 2013.

The conference was opened by Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell, C. Donald Babers, Regional Administrator for Region VI, U.S. HUD and Texas Public Utility Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman.

Smitherman provided some interesting Texas/ERCOT stats:

+ 1.7 million smart meters are installed as of July 31
+ 6 million will be installed by 2013
+ 9300 megawatts from wind in ERCOT footprint (900 MW more in Texas but out of ERCOT footprint)
+ 18,500 megawatts from wind in ERCOT planned by 2013 (that would be 20-25% of load)
+ There is a proposed rule for NON-WIND renewable target of 500 MW (most likely, solar)

From Dub Taylor of the State Energy Conservation Office, he provided this data of the fuel mix in Electricity in Texas for 2009:
+ Natural Gas 51%
+ Coal 34%
+ Nuclear 10%
+ Renewables (basically wind) 4%

One of the highlights of the conference, of which there were many, was the presentation by the new City of Houston Sustainablity Director, Laura Spanjian (we touched on Spanjian earlier this month on this blog here), summarizing the Houston’s achievements in sustainable growth. In March of this year the City of Houston was recognized for being ranked sixth on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 list of cities with the most energy efficient buildings.

Ms. Spanjian woke the crowd up after lunch with an inspired delivery of City of Houston accomplishments.

Solar and Wind initiatives include: A 100KW solar system at George R. Brown Convention Center funded jointly by the Houston Endowment ($850k), BP ($100k) and CenterPoint ($50k) and the purchase of 2 billion kwh (50 MW of power) from Texas Wind Farms over the next 5 years. The EPA ranks the City of Houston as the #1 in terms of renewable energy purchased by a municipality.

Other energy efficiency initiatives include the LED traffic lights at 2,000 intersections which have a cost savings of $3.6M per year, the LED Streetlight Pilot Project which are up to 50% more energy efficient and 755 hybrid vehicles (the 3rd largest municipal fleet in the country). It should also be noted METRO is purchasing is purchasing 100 hybrid buses a year and will have 449 in total by 2011.

Houston is “LEED”ing the way for all new construction, as mandated in 2004, and the Looscan Library was the City’s first LEED Certified building with a LEED Gold on Central Permitting Center and Fire Station 90 not far behind. Add to all of this the Residential Program for kWh reductions, the Weatherization Program, improving air quality using MAAM and DIAL technologies and Houston is well on its way to leading the nation in energy strategies.

We applaud the new Mayor Parker and her selection of Laura Spanjian as Sustainability Director.

It was a great presentation!

By the way, the event was held at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center on UT’s campus. The facility is LEED Gold.

The study concluded that along with renewable energy being 100% feasible, it was also a reliable and economically sound energy decision.

Interesting side stat: Germany currently has one of the biggest renewable energies markets in the world with 2009 showing a 16.1% increase in the total share of electricity from renewable resources.

Other interesting survey notes from McKinsey:

More than 50 percent of executives consider sustainability—the management of environmental, social, and governance issues—“very” or “extremely” important in a wide range of areas, including new-product development, reputation building, and overall corporate strategy.

Yet companies are not taking a proactive approach to managing sustainability: only around 30 percent of executives say their companies actively seek opportunities to invest in sustainability or embed it in their business practices, for example.

Presenter Chris Helm, a GIS developer at the DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory, showcased a web tool called In My Backyard (IMBY).

It is a web based simulator for small commercial and residential solar projects, calculates production potential, and estimates cost of the system and energy savings (including applicable rebates and local electric rates). It also can do a bit cruder simulation for wind projects, including calculations for production potential (limited to 38 states), but with no economic components.

Future versions will potentially include an Open API, enhancing the wind components, adding dynamic building loads (currently assumes your house and standard power consumption), and perhaps even an iPhone application.

You can check out IMBY here.

It is a good first step for looking at potential solar projects, but it has several obvious drawbacks like ignoring shading and it also assumes constant electric rates for the life of system.

They mentioned a similar tool at Cooler Planet.

For grins, I tried a house that I own in Austin, Texas for the south-facing roof space and got the following results: 11 kW generation system, $90K gross cost, only federal incentive (30%), $63K net, expected energy savings year 1 at 9 cents per kWh = $1250, payback = over 50 years. Yikes.

I also did an apartment project in Houston, Texas with a similar payback timeframe.

Then Ted Quinby, another GIS developer at the DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory, showed the Open PV Mapping Project.

It allows you to see where current solar projects exist that have been entered into the NREL database and it includes information on each like size, cost, date of install, and location.

The Open PV Project can be viewed here.

It is a great visualization of the available stats, but it is limited since it is only as good as the data that has been added. Think about it like Wikipedia.

Perhaps the most interest stat of the day was that the average price in the U.S. for the average size solar system is coming down substantially. It was $11.00 per watt in 1998 to $8.01 per watt in 2009.

“We actually are a perfect environment, economically and thermodynamically, as a raw resource for solar, but it hasn’t taken off,” said Michael E. Webber, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas to the Dallas Morning News.

The PUC’s solar program would be based on the existing renewable portfolio standards, a requirement dating to 1999 for electric companies to include sources such as wind, solar and other renewable sources in their energy mixes.

Texas’ renewable energy standards, among the most aggressive in the country, have been so successful that electric companies met the 2009 goal by 2005. The Legislature responded in 2005 by setting more ambitious targets for 2015 and 2025.

Nearly all of Texas’ growth in renewable energy has been in wind power, which increased fourfold over 10 years. Other renewable power sources remained afterthoughts.

Solar power was especially held back by its cost, technological challenges and lack of transmission lines from sun-rich West Texas to energy-hungry cities.

Legislators recognized the lag with a 2005 mandate that Texas energy include at least 500 megawatts of new power from sources other than wind by 2015. The state also took steps to provide more electric transmission lines.

Interestingly, the DOE announced a new study which was carried out by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and AWS Truewind, finds that the contiguous 48 states have the potential to generate up to 37 million gigawatt hours annually. By contrast, total U.S. electricity generation from all sources was roughly 4 million gigawatt hours in 2009. Texas was estimated to be able to contribute 6.5 million gigawatts of that amount or 17.5%.

Here are the wind potential estimates for the contiguous 48:

In a similar note, I just noticed that TXU Energy, a Texas retail electric provider, is instituting a program to help 400 homeowners lease their rooftop solar. Very interesting.

Huge retailer, Kohl’s, increased its green energy purchase by 160 percent, from 851 million kWh to 1.37 billion kWh, moving from the third-largest purchaser to the second-largest purchaser in the country. Kohl’s is second to Intel, who although not a retailer, also announced that it has contracted new solar electric installations targeted at eight U.S. locations in four states, generating approximately 2.5 megawatts of clean solar energy.

Staples, the office products retailer, unveiled a 1.01 megawatt solar power installation in Maryland at its 200,200 square foot fulfillment center in Hanover. The photovoltaic system will generate approximately 1.2 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per year, and 21 million kWh during the initial 20 years of the project. The solar installation was financed, built and maintained under a power purchase agreement (PPA) with SunEdison.

The top five retailers in the US by green energy purchases according to the EPA are:
1. Kohl’s
2. Whole Foods Market
3. Walmart
4. Starbucks
5. Staples

Kudos to the above list.

And in the UK, Tesco, a large supermarket store owner, announced that it opened its first zero carbon store in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire.

Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy said: “It shows that you can dramatically alter how much carbon you use and life can go on”. The new store, he said, “cost 30% more to build, but it uses 50% less energy, and with oil at $70 a barrel it is a business case in itself”.

“That region of the country has 80 gigawatts of renewable energy potential. It’s massive,” said Phillip Harris, architect of the Tres Amigas plan. Tres Amigas is the company who made the proposal.  ”And this nation needs that to meet all the climate issues, environmental issues and energy needs…”What I’ve done, I’ve engineered a solution to get the three large North American interconnections to move power in and amongst themselves in a credible way.”

The initial cost could begin at $300 million and rise to $1 billion as the station’s capacity expands, he said. Initially, it will have the capacity to move 5 gigawatts of electricity, with a top potential of 30 gigawatts. “We are going to build it in components, like a space station,” Harris said.

The co-owners of Tres Amigas are Ziad Alaywan, former head of market and grid operations for the California Independent System Operator, who now heads the Z-Global consulting firm; Alt Energy LLC, an equity fund, and American Superconductor Corp., which provides the DC transmission cable technology.  They say they have not requested any federal funding for the project.

Hat tip to Bounce Energy for the article.

Earlier that day (3am to be exact), wind produced 25% of ERCOT’s demand, according to ERCOT’s CEO, Trip Doggett.

I realize that it was just a single point in time, but that is progress for renewable energy for sure.

And if you are wondering, Spain actually holds the record.

Between 4:30 and 6 a.m., Spanish wind turbines took advantage of a particluarly windy day to generate 53% of the electricity coursing through the grid. Spain had never gotten more than 43% of its juice from wind power before. It suddenly had so much wind power, it had to export some electricity.