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Archive for May, 2009

Urban Eco Wrap

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Today, San Francisco became the first city to launch the Urban EcoMap (www.urbanecomap.org) – a collaborative effort of Cisco and the SF Dept of the Environment. Residents can visit the site and look at their CO2 emission per year (by zip code). This is a large undertaking and we hope that it helps raise awareness and encourages San Francisco residents to make changes in their daily lives when it comes to a more sustainable lifestyle.

It will be interesting to see how the site is marketed and what investments will go into broadening the site’s reach and scope over time … We hope that they take this great start and run with it …

Solar Hot Water was overlooked - not surprising given how few people in the U.S. are aware of the benefits.

In the “Act” section of the website … one of the action items is to insulate your current water heater and save 5%-10% of your gas each year. Curious that they wouldn’t list the product guaranteed to save over 60% …

They added general categories like “Home Energy Retrofit” and Home Energy Audit”, but they are not clear on what that really entails or includes. We would like to see them expand the list of viable options currently available to a homeowner to make to make his or her home more energy efficient. Adding the most environmentally-impactful home energy product might be a good place to start.

All in all, well done … we are looking forward to watching the site expand and grow.

Tags: carbon emissions, home energy efficiency, sf urban eco map, solar water heating, urban eco map, urban ecomap
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2008: 50% Annual Growth in US Solar Water Heating

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

The Solar Thermal Industries Association (SEIA) estimates in its latest publication, “U.S. Solar Industry Year in Review 2008”, that the solar thermal market in the United States has grown by 50% last year, to almost 229,000 m² (160 MW). The state with the biggest share of the market is still Hawaii. The number of solar water heaters that the three public utility companies Heco, Helco and Meco rebated even grew by 55%, to 8,207 systems in 2008 (2007: 5,295 systems). Altogether the number of solar thermal systems installed in the USA add up to about 30,000 systems.

heco_neu

A steep growth in recent years: The number of solar water heaters rebated by the three Hawaiian public electricity utilities Heco, Helco and Meco grew significantly ever since buyers have been able to combine the federal tax credits (30 %) with other credits by the state and local governments. New incentives provided through the recent stimulus bill are expected to add to this growth trend.

In its report, SEIA underlines two other achievements for the solar thermal sector that were realised:

• The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced its new programme for highly-efficient residential water heaters, which includes solar water heaters (SWH), too. SWH qualified for the Energy Star have been available since 1st January, 2009. Energy Star is a voluntary labelling and recognition programme sponsored by DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seeking to accelerate the adoption of clean and efficient domestic energy technologies.

• The U.S. energy ministry DOE decided to make the Solar Heating and Cooling Programme part of its Buildings Technologies Programme. DOE for example set a goal of designing a zero-energy house by 2020. Commercial net-zero energy buildings should be available by 2025. Net-zero energy buildings generate as much energy as they consume through efficiency technologies and on-site power generation. JW.

ourguy