Re/Action on Climate Protection

Sonoma County Business Activity in Climate Protection

There are three projects going on in Sonoma County now that involve businesses taking action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from their activities in the community. The businesses, a winery, a home builder and an organic waste processor, represent major economic activities in Sonoma County.

Why Energy Efficiency for GHG Reduction?

Efficiency in energy use represents a technological approach to reducing energy use and GHG emissions without "sacrifice". Better technology, less energy use, same effect. Increased cost from new technology offset by savings from lower energy use. What's wrong with this picture?

Questions on efficiency

Here are some questions related to efficiency:

Can the market deal with energy efficiency in a way that slows down the growth in GHG emissions?

Is energy price alone sufficient to drive efficiency such that absolute emissions are decreased?

Is it necessary to subsidize (give away) energy efficient new technology to replace older, less efficient technology that is in place?

At what point do efficiencies backfire because reductions in emissions from improved efficiency are swamped by new growth?

CPC's Energy Tracking System

In Sonoma County, Climate Protection Campaign has been working with the nine municipal governments, the county government, and the water agency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions due to their operations. As cities develop and implement their climate action plans, they need to be able to monitor their emissions to see how they are doing on achieving their emission reduction target. Climate Protection campaign has built an Energy Tracking System (ETS) to give the city government officials up-to-date information on emissions from city operations. The ETS consists of three elements:

Apollo Alliance

The Apollo Alliance is promoting an energy policy that emphasizes efficiency and renewable energy. It stands in stark contrast to the current energy bill just passed by Congress. The vision of the AA policy is American energy independence, but their policy is a model for how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a national level. www.apolloalliance.org

Energy Efficiency Financing

One of our commenters asked about financing for energy efficiency improvements. There are a whole range of financing options in the State of California. These include both federal programs and state programs.

Climate Change Economics - More on efficiency

Energy efficiency improvements we have been talking about involve swapping existing methods or technology for other methods or technology that provide the same service with less energy. For example, there are many alternatives to the old incandescent "lightbulb".

Basic GHG reduction economics

One often hears the concern that GHG reduction is "too expensive" or will "wreck the economy". Are these claims true? In order to determine whether a measure is cost effective, or makes sense economically, a basic financial analysis must be done.  There are some tools available to help with this analysis. In order to use these tools, basic familiarity with spreadsheet software such as Excel is useful.

There are two types of investments in GHG reduction: 1) in measures that reduce demand for GHG generating energy, such as energy efficiency improvements; 2) in measures that replace GHG generating energy, such as solar photovoltaic panels. These measures avoid the emission of GHGs. Thus the investment in these measures can be expressed in "cost per unit weight of GHGs avoided over the life of the measure". In order to calculate the weight of the GHG avoided, a number called the "emission coefficient" is used. For example, in California, our statewide emission coefficient for electricity is 0.73 pounds of equivalent CO2 per kilowatt-hour. This just means that every kilowatt-hour of electricity that is used results in the emission of the atmospheric equivalent of 0.73 pounds of carbon dioxide from the generating power plants.

For example, suppose you replace a 100 watt incandescent lamp with a 20 watt compact fluorescent (CFL). Assume that the life of either bulb is 10,000 hours. Over the lifetime of the two lamps, the incandescent will use 1,000 kilowatt hours and the compact fluorescent will use 200 kilowatt hours. Using the emission coefficient, using the CFL in place of the incandescent will result in avoiding the emission of 387 pounds of carbon dioxide over the 10,000 hour lifetime. If the difference in cost between the two lamps is $10, the cost of the avoided carbon dioxide is approximately $50/ton. This metric can be used to compare cost-effectiveness of different measures.

In both demand side reduction measures and supply side measures, financial models are used to compare the investment in efficiency or new renewable generating capacity to other types of investments. The simplest financial model is known as "simple payback." This is a calculation of the length of time it takes for the savings from a measure to accumulate to the initial cost of the measure. For example, if a measure costs $100, and saves $10/month, it will "pay for itself" in 10 months. In our incandescent vs. CFL example, the CFL would pay for itself in approximately 1200 hours of operation if the electric rate is $0.10/kWh.

This model does not take into account two important factors: the future value of money and utility rate escalation. These to factors are critical to take into account for an accurate estimation of the financial implications of investment in GHG reduction. We will discuss financial modeling that includes these factors in another post.

Water & Wastewater Systems - Good candidates for GHG reductions

Water and Wastewater systems are typically the largest regional individual energy users, and consequently, the largest single GHG emissions sources. We have found this to be true both at the state and local levels. In Sonoma County, the Water Agency is the largest individual energy customer. The wastewater treatment plants are the largest users within a municipality. The reason for this, primarily, is water pumping. In wastewater treatment plants, the largest energy users are aeration blowers and pumps. We have found that the best way to improve efficiency in a wastewater treatment plant is to improve control systems so that the aeration blowers are controlled by the level of dissolved oxygen in the aeration basins, and to improve the efficiency of the blowers themselves. Currently, Turblex makes the highest efficiency aeration blowers. We have found that installing a DO control and high efficiency blowers can reduce the energy use by 30% or more. This translates into a 30% reduction in GHG emissions from the largest energy user/emissions source in typical municipal operations.

The efficiency of pumps can be improved by changing pump motors to premium efficiency rating. This is an efficiency rating that exceeds the EPAct levels. Usually there are rebates available for switching to a premium efficiency motor. Additionally, energy use by a pump can be reduced if the pump can be run at less than full speed. Using a Variable Speed Drive or VSD to slow down the pump to the minimum required level can save energy. If a pump can be run at an average of 80% of full speed, that is a 20% or more energy savings, depending on the load on the pump.

There are other, more sophisticated methods for reducing energy use in water/wastewater systems, such as using reclaimed water instead of potable water, and peak demand reduction by using storage.

The State of California is very interested in the "Water/Energy Nexus". Here is a link to a white paper prepared by a working group of the California Energy Commission. http://www.energy.ca.gov/2005publications/CEC-700-2005-011/CEC-700-2005-011.PDF

Climate Protection Campaign contributed input to this paper on the effects on GHG emissions from improvements in energy efficiency in water and wastewater systems.

Here is a link to the section in the CPC white paper on removing carbon from water and wastewater systems:

http://climateprotectioncampaign.jot.com/WaterWastewater

Megawatts vs. Negawatts for GHG reduction?

Does added renewable generation capability give you the best bang for the buck for reducing GHG emissions? How does reducing power needs by improving efficiency stack up? Amory Lovins of Rocky Mountain Institute coined the term "negawatts" back in the early days of the energy efficiency movement. This concept compares the cost of a watt gained by the system through improved efficiency, vs. the cost of a watt gained by the system through new generation. In GHG terms, one watt not used reduces overall GHG emissions as much as one additional watt generated by a non-fossil fuel powered generator. Here is a worked example that demonstrates this concept:

If you put in a 3kW PV system on your home, that will cost you about $20,000, after rebates. If you finance that at 5% over 30 years, which is the life of the system, that will end up costing you about $39K. That system will generate about 4600 kWh/yr in Sonoma County, CA, which is about 1.6 tons of CO2 avoided. Over the 30 yr period, that is about 48 tons of CO2 avoided. That is about $800/ton of CO2 avoided.

Now take a 20 watt compact fluorescent bulb, replacing a 100 watt incandescent. Let's assume the lifetimes of the two bulbs are equal, 10,000 hours (they're not, but it doesn't really matter in this case). Let's say the compact fluorescent costs $10, and the incandescent costs nothing. Over the lifetime of the two bulbs, the compact fluorescent avoids 800kWh, which is about 560 lbs of CO2, at a cost of $10. This works out to about $35/ton of CO2 avoided.

Here is a good resource for energy efficiency information: www.aceee.org