Abstract
Energy efficiency—using less energy to provide the same or enhanced services—has, for four decades, delivered incremental improvements in energy use around the world. Efforts to increase efficiency in the built environment—including in office buildings, schools, single-family homes, and other structures—have been driven largely by policy mandates, building codes and standards, and a growing private-sector energy efficiency industry. Today, however, more-ambitious policies, enabled by a new set of energy efficiency technologies and new funding tools, are demanding more of energy efficiency and the industry.
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Notes
- 1.
Oswaldo Lucon et al., “Buildings,” in Ottmar Edenhofer et al., eds., Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge, U.K. and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 675; The Holy See, “Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home” (Vatican City: May 24, 2015).
- 2.
Greg Kats and Andrew Seal, “Buildings as Batteries: The Rise of ‘Virtual Storage,’” The Electricity Journal 25, no. 10 (2012): 59–70.
- 3.
Capital E, “CO2toEE,” https://cap-e.com/industry-transformation/co2toee.
- 4.
Figure 9–1 from Jason Channell et al., Energy Darwinism II: Why a Low Carbon Future Doesn’t Have to Cost the Earth (London: Citi Global Perspectives & Solutions, 2015).
- 5.
International Energy Agency (IEA), Energy Efficiency Market Report 2015 (Paris: 2015); Institute for European Environmental Policy, Review of Costs and Benefits of Energy Savings: Task 1 Report ‘Energy Savings 2030’ (London: 2013); Birol quotes from Jocelyn Timperley, “Ten Billion Tonnes CO2 Emissions Saved Thanks to Energy Efficiency Over Past 25 Years, Says IEA,” BusinessGreen.com, October 9, 2015.
- 6.
World Energy Council, World Energy Perspective: Energy Efficiency Policies: What Works and What Does Not (London: 2013); ODYSSEE-MURE, Synthesis: Energy Efficiency Trends and Policies in the EU: An Analysis Based on the ODYSSEE and MURE Databases, September 2015.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
Efficiency Valuation Organization, “History,” www.evo-world.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=40&Itemid=163&lang=en. See also linked archival documents at Wikipedia, “International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_performance_measurement_and_verification_protocol. Disclosure: The author served as the Founding Chairman of IPMVP.
- 9.
Building Performance Institute Europe, Europe’s Buildings Under the Microscope: A Country-by-Country Review of the Energy Performance of Buildings (Brussels: October 2011).
- 10.
Graham S. Wright and Katrin Klingenberg, Climate-Specific Passive Building Standards, prepared for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Building America Program, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) (Golden, CO: NREL, July 2015).
- 11.
Marika Rošā, Claudio Rochas, and Nicholas Stancioff, F3Horizon 2020 Programme, “SUNShINE,” presentation, Brussels, April 28–29, 2015, www.managenergy.net/lib/documents/1369/original_SUNSHINE_Marika_Rosa.pdf?1431000214; Steven Fawkes, personal communication with author, October 2015.
- 12.
U.S. General Services Administration, “Green Building Advisory Committee,” www.gsa.gov/portal/category/102591; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “The Social Cost of Carbon,” http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/EPAactivities/economics/scc.html. Disclosure: The author serves as Chair of this Federal Advisory Committee.
- 13.
John Shonder, Energy Savings from GSA’s National Deep Energy Retrofit Program (Washington, DC: September 2014); DOE, EERE, “Buildings,” http://energy.gov/eere/efficiency/buildings; Paul Torcellini et al., Main Street Net-Zero Energy Buildings: The Zero Energy Method in Concept and Practice (Golden, CO: NREL, July 2010).
- 14.
Future Communities, “Hammarby Sjostad, Stockholm, Sweden, 1995 to 2015,” www.futurecommunities.net/case-studies/hammarby-sjostad-stockholm-sweden-1995-2015.
- 15.
Renovate America website, https://renovateamerica.com; PACE Funding website, www.pacefunding.com.
- 16.
Amy Westervelt, “Why the Military Hates Fossil Fuels,” Forbes, February 2, 2012.
- 17.
For many examples, see C40 Cities, “C40 Cities,” www.c40.org/cities; Gregory Kats, President, Capital E, presentation at Institute of Medicine Workshop on Bringing Public Health into Urban Revitalization, Washington, DC, November 10, 2014, http://iom.nationalacademies.org/Activities/Environment/EnvironmentalHealthRT/2014-NOV-10/Videos/Welcome%20and%20Session%201/3-Kats-Video.aspx.
- 18.
Greg Kats and Keith Glassbrook, Affordable Housing Smart Roof Report (Washington, DC: 2015). Figure 9–2 from Gregory Kats, Greening Our Built World: Costs, Benefits, and Strategies (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2009). The figure shows the present value of 20 years of estimated impacts based on the study data set and synthesis of relevant research. Note that there is significantly greater uncertainty, and less consensus, around methodologies for estimating health and societal benefits.
- 19.
Percentages based on author experience.
- 20.
Sean Cahill, D.C. Building Industry Association, personal communication with author, June 2015.
- 21.
Box 9–1 based on the following sources: EnerNex Corporation, Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study, prepared for NREL (Golden, CO: 2011); Jim Eyer and Garth Corey, Energy Storage for the Electricity Grid: Benefits and Market Potential Assessment Guide, a study for the DOE Energy Storage Systems Program (Albuquerque, NM: Sandia National Laboratories, February 2010); AtSite website, http://atsiteinc.com; Kats and Seal, “Buildings as Batteries: The Rise of ‘Virtual Storage’”; National Research Council, Rising to the Challenge: U.S. Innovation Policy for the Global Economy (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2012); quotes from speech by Dorothy Robyn, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment, ICF International, Washington, DC, April 19, 2012; U.S. Department of Defense, Annual Energy Management Report, Fiscal Year 2010 (Washington, DC: July 2011). See also testimony of Gregory Kats before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, July 2012, at https://cap-e.com/media/; Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speech at Energy Security Forum, Washington, DC, October 13, 2010, www.jcs.mil/speech.aspx?id=1472; U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington, DC: February 2010).
- 22.
Greg Kats et al., Energy Efficiency Financing Models and Strategies: Pathways to Scaling Energy Efficiency Financing from $20 Billion to $150 Billion Annually, prepared by Capital E for The Energy Foundation (Washington, DC: March 2012).
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Kats, G.H. (2016). Energy Efficiency in Buildings: A Crisis of Opportunity. In: State of the World. State of the World. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-756-8_11
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