FEATURES AND NEWS
The world’s energy demand can be cut by 25 percent by 2030, according to a study from the Renewable Energy Agency and the Copenhagen Centre on Energy Efficiency. Results will vary across the countries studied, which were China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, ... Read more »
Approximately 30 percent of buildings in Washington, D.C. that have to follow the city’s energy and water benchmarking requirements did not file the necessary paperwork by the deadline, according to The Washington Business Journal. The D.C. Department of Energy and the Environment issued 450 notices of violation to property owners on ... Read more »
The California legislature has passed SB 350, the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015. The bill calls for energy efficiency in buildings to increase by 50 percent and for 50 percent of the state utilities’ power to come from renewable energy by 2030. The provision to cut petroleum ... Read more »
E-Commerce creates new environmental sustainability challenges. UPS aims to improve e-commerce while shrinking its carbon footprint.
By unanimous vote, the five-member Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) agreed on September 10 to consider changes to the marketing rules applicable to retail electric suppliers in the Prairie State, in order to provide an extra layer of consumer protections. The revisions will be made expeditiously. The ICC order requires completion ... Read more »
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On September 8, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed [Slip Opinion No. 2015-OHIO-3627] a Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) decision authorizing East Ohio Gas (d.b.a. Dominion East Ohio) to terminate its standard choice rate offer to commercial and industrial customers. In doing so, the court took another step toward deregulation ... Read more »
Lower natural gas prices and cheaper power imports into the Panhandle and South Plains – the latter, made possible by new transmission line connections – are making it possible for Xcel Energy to refund $18.6 million to its Texas retail customers, the utility announced on September 10. The company reduced ... Read more »
PJM Interconnection announced on September 9 that its second transition auction, opened on September 3, achieved its targeted procurement of resources to meet strict Capacity Performance (CP) standards for the 2017/2018 delivery year. Specifically, the targeted procurement quantity for the 2017/2018 delivery year was 112,194.5 megawatts (MW) – or 70 ... Read more »
Since 2012, the Northwest Power Pool’s (NPP’s) Members’ Market Assessment and Coordination Committee has spearheaded an effort to improve the reliability, efficiency, and cost of regional operations. On September 4, the committee petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for the answers to key “threshold questions” about its final work ... Read more »
Industry consultants and executives assessed Nebraska’s public power system — and some found it wanting — at an Energy Symposium in Lincoln on September 9, saying private competition could save ratepayers millions of dollars. In fact, opening Nebraska’s retail electricity market to outside competition could save the state’s energy customers $250?million ... Read more »
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A report released by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation on September 9 reveals that business costs in the Bay State – especially, expenditures for electricity and health insurance –rank among the highest in the nation. Founded in 1932, the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation is widely recognized as the state’s premier public policy ... Read more »
PECO – a subsidiary of Exelon that serves about 1.5 million electric customers and over 500,000 natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania – filed a settlement petition on September 10 with the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC), reflecting a $127 million overall increase in electric delivery rates. Based on the ... Read more »
Dallas-based Ambit Energy, which claims to be “the world’s largest direct seller of energy” and a leading U.S. retail energy provider, announced on September 8 that the company expects to expand into Ohio by the fourth quarter of this year. Ambit currently provides electricity and natural gas services in deregulated ... Read more »
Xcel Energy’s Building Optimization Pilot Program will use a predictive energy optimization energy management software platform from BuildingIQ in a pilot program in Colorado. The software uses predictive analytics for intelligent building management. Factors such as occupant comfort, the buildings’ characteristics, historical data and weather forecasts are data elements that ... Read more »
To be fair, a lot of the blame for the current state of affairs in materiality must be laid at the feet of the audiences that read these sustainability reports. In a variety of ways, stakeholders give credit to companies that adhere to the letter of the law under reporting ... Read more »
I recently attended the Green Sports Alliance Summit (GSA) in Chicago, Illinois. I came home convinced that there is enough knowhow and technology available for the business community in North America, if not globally, to embrace and achieve the goal of net zero building (NZB). For those of you not ... Read more »
DuPont is in court this week facing its first trial over perfluorooctanoic acid exposure. Residents in West Virginia are suing the chemical giant, alleging that perfluorooctanoic acid, known as PFOA or C-8, leached into their drinking water from a nearby plant, Reuters reports. The residents say developed cancer after drinking ... Read more »
The International Organization for Standardization today published its much-anticipated updated ISO 14001 environmental management systems. More than 300,000 organizations globally use the environmental management standard and have achieved ISO 14001 certification. ISO says the updated standard will better support businesses as they manage growing environmental risks and take advantage of ... Read more »
Bank of America, General Electric, Duke Energy, Autodesk, Microsoft and Cisco Systems are among the founding partners of the White House’s smart cities initiative announced yesterday that will invest more than $160 million in federal research and leverage more than 25 new technology collaborations to help local communities. The smart ... Read more »
Royal Dutch Shell is no longer a member of the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group — a leading climate change advocacy group it helped start 10 years ago. Shell’s departure comes as environmentalists increasingly call for the oil company to halt its drilling operations in the Arctic Ocean. A ... Read more »
In an effort to remain financially solvent during the crude oil market slump, a number of US oil companies are looking for investors for their saltwater divisions, Reuters reports. SandRidge Energy, for example, is marketing its saltwater division as a master limited partnership. Oasis, on the other hand, is looking ... Read more »
Derive Systems, an automotive fleet engine software developer, announced today its partnership with Clean Fuels Ohio as part of the Midwest DRIVES Initiative. The goal of Derive Systems’ involvement is to provide a simple and cost-effective way for fleets in the Midwest and throughout the US to save fuel and ... Read more »
FirstCarbon Solutions, an environmental, social and governance services provider, and environmental disclosure reporting organization CDP today announced a further expansion of their global scoring partnership for climate change and supply chain water disclosures. Entering its fifth year of partnership with CDP, FCS has scored more than 15,600 company disclosures as ... Read more »
The need to plan for electric vehicle charging stations in buildings and parking garages has been brought into focus by Saint Peter’s University Hospital and the Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G). The hospital, which is in New Brunswick, NJ, has completed installation of a five-vehicle charging system on ... Read more »
Building faults are estimated to waste 20 percent to 30 percent of a building’s annual energy expenditures. Finding problems, however, often is a highly automated operation – and one that only shows its effectiveness hours later when conditions are shown to improve or not. The U.S. Department of Energy has ... Read more »