As it stands, most discussions of infrastructure investment do not include customer benefits anywhere near the beginning of the discussion. Because many smart grid investments need to rely on consumer benefits as well as system benefits for a strong business case, lack of a robust consumer-oriented strategy weakens the argument for smart grid investments.

Recently, CNT CEO Kathy Tholin took part in the Economist magazine‘s “Thought Leadership” panel, as part of a Smart Grid Tour, sponsored by Siemens. The tour has been visiting major U.S. cities like New Orleans, Chicago and Washington, D.C. to communicate trends in the industry and identify leaders around the country who have been working and putting together all facets necessary to address the creation of a smart grid electric system—from generation to transmission as well as distribution through consumption. The event in Chicago focused on how to build sustainable energy and smart grid platforms that work within cities like Chicago, with a focus on buildings as a major consumer of energy.

Kathy zeroed-in on the need for critical information in order to make the decisions about one’s energy use as a key factor in reducing demand. Comparing energy usage to transportation use, Kathy pointed out that consumers do not really know what they are spending on transportation, because they do not have the kind of information (or the access to it) to make better choices about their spending. And the same can be said for energy consumption; without the necessary baseline of information on usage, it’s difficult for consumers to be most effective in consuming less.

Smart grids have the potential to disseminate key information on usage and reduction and savings mechanisms more readily than current outdated technologies. CNT Energy is actively involved in exploring the consumer benefits that come from the implementation of smart grid technologies and in 2008, convened the Illinois Smart Grid Initiative to begin the stakeholder driven exploration of Smart Grid benefits for Illinois consumers. Currently CNT Energy is a participant in the Illinois Commerce Commission initiated Illinois Statewide Smart Grid Collaborative.

A key to CNT Energy’s interest in the smart grid is how smart metering can enable new options for consumers. These include new rate options as well as the development and implementation of new web-based and in-home technologies that can better manage energy use and reduce costs for consumers. The work of CNT Energy on residential real-time pricing in Illinois informs CNT Energy’s belief that providing consumers access to variable market-based pricing is a powerful and effective way to make the electric system more efficient and bring real economic benefits to consumers. With Illinois’ initiatives in this area now the largest deployment of residential real-time pricing in the country, they provide important models for other states and utilities.

For a commentary on CNT Energy’s view of getting smart rates right, see Anthony Star’s blog post on GE’s smart grid blog, another major participant in the private’s sector’s participation in driving smart grid innovation.

“This grant represents unprecedented new opportunities for the Chicago region to accelerate efforts for high performing energy efficiency initiatives,” said Scott Bernstein, President of CNT, who attended today’s announcement at the White House. “This award will help organizations around the region to expand existing initiatives and create new ones that save real money for households and building owners while also reducing our region’s carbon footprint.”

This regional initiative will build on the success of existing energy efficiency programs, including CNT’s Energy Savers Program, which is substantially reducing energy costs in tens of thousands of apartments. The DOE award will enable the creation of a one-stop shop to assist home and business owners to identify financing and implement cost effective energy efficient renovations to their buildings. The focus will be on expanding the availability of a trained work force, providing information and financing to building owners to increase demand for energy efficient renovations and reducing the costs of customer acquisition for contractors.

The competition for funds from the US Department of Energy emphasized the ability to effectively scale up retrofit activity and achieve substantial energy savings. CMAP’s proposal on behalf of the Chicago region, envisions a coordinated system that builds on Chicago’s existing strengths and develops a set of comprehensive and coordinated services for the region.  Chicago’s proposal exemplified the findings of the Middle Class Task Force, led by Vice President Biden, which recognized that successful energy efficiency initiatives require coordinated one-stop service delivery that packages specialized information, skillful contractors and affordable financing so that both homeowners and renters can share in a set of true economic benefits together.

The Chicago area’s ability to put together a strong proposal was also greatly enhanced by the activities of Chicago’s philanthropic community, which has supported existing initiatives to develop the Chicago Climate Action Plan, create the Preservation Compact, and support the development of effective energy efficiency programs. These programs not only save energy, but preserve affordable housing, enhance community economic security, create jobs, and contribute to global climate protection.

“We couldn’t be more excited about this award,” said Bernstein. “We look forward to helping Chicago become a model for the nation in “Ramping Up” high performance energy efficiency to benefit our families, our economy, and our environment.”

In just 18 months, Energy Savers has retrofitted 3,500 apartments and other rental units in Chicago and neighboring communities, typically cutting energy consumption by 30 percent. The program has more than 2,500 units in construction and is on track to complete more than 8,500 retrofits by the end of this year, making it one of the country’s largest and most successful programs for retrofitting existing multi-family, rental housing.

The program is one of six key initiatives spearheaded by The Preservation Compact, a public/private partnership working to preserve and improve the supply of affordable rental housing throughout Cook County.

In their announcement, Julia Stasch, co-chair of the Preservation Compact and Vice President for Human and Community Development at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, recognized its partners’ expertise and the program’s efficient design. “Energy Savers has quickly delivered on three key objectives: keeping our region’s rental housing affordable, creating new jobs, and achieving significant energy efficiency gains.”

Ms. Stasch stated, “We are excited that Energy Savers has achieved such solid results in a short period of time.”

Launched with seed funding from the City of Chicago and three major foundations, Energy Savers has a sustainable business model that covers the program’s ongoing costs through long-term financing shared by building owners and local utilities.

Energy Savers is also the model for a new region-wide effort to take energy efficiency services and financing to scale for both single and multi-family housing and for non-residential buildings. This new effort is backed by CNT Energy and Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) and is being funded by the Chicago Community Trust.

Read full press release here.

During the project’s first year the U.S. Green Building Council—Chicago Chapter and its partners collected and analyzed data from 25 projects across the state.  With the generous support of the Grand Victoria Foundation and the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation, we will re-engage the initial 25 projects while adding 25 more projects, for a total sample size of 50. This is one of a few post-occupancy studies with such a broad scope of metrics and is among the first to collect multiple years of data and provide ongoing analysis to participants.

Click here to learn more about year 2 of the Regional Green Building Case Study, including eligibility requirements.

Click here to learn more about CNT’s work on the year 1 of the Regional Green Building Case Study.

The report analyzes how 25 LEED commercial building projects in Illinois perform post-occupancy over multiple years in areas including energy and water use, greenhouse gas emissions, operating costs, commute transportation and occupant comfort. The research is funded for a second year, which will kick off later this fall, and will include up to 50 new and returning projects.

The report includes nine case studies and a sample feedback report to building owners. It also discusses why both individual and program level-building performance evaluation must be tracked regularly. Understanding how a building ‘actually’ performs, rather than relying on modeled data only, is the essential first step toward improvement. Several case studies describe how their buildings’ uses have changed over time and how the changes impact their performance. “Measure and Improve!” was the steering committee‘s mantra to participants throughout the project.

This regional report is timely since it is being released as the national USGBC responds to calls for performance-based evaluations of the market dominant LEED rating system. In August, USGBC launched its Building Performance Initiative, which will create a system for collecting, analyzing and reporting on the performance of LEED buildings.

CNT and CNT Energy are working on several additional building performance initiatives. We’re developing a predictive transportation energy intensity (TEI) index with a USGBC research grant, and providing one-stop shop residential energy retrofit services for Illinois homes and apartments. We track the performance of our own LEED Platinum and Energy Star Labeled office building through our Green Intelligence Tool.

To learn more about the USGBC-Chicago Chapter Year 1 Study:
Read the report and executive summary.
Read the press releases from CNT and USGBC-Chicago Chapter.

With funding from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation, CNT is working with municipalities around the region to assess and analyze their resident’s energy and emissions usage. Each profile includes aggregates of annual natural gas consumption and electricity consumption from account-level data; aggregate annual electricity consumption from account-level data; annual greenhouse gas emissions inventory; and annual transportation by vehicle miles traveled, provided by the natural gas and electricity utilities serving Northern Illinois—ComEd, Nicor, Peoples and North Shore Gas.

The information and tools that CNT will provide can help position these municipalities to better leverage federal funding through the ARRA’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program to help them design programs to begin to address energy consumption and create programs that promote efficiency.

Energy profiles for all other 283 municipalities in the region will be completed. CNT will use this region-wide information to create a data center for energy efficiency planning for northern Illinois, and continue to provide assistance and develop regional partnerships. For additional information on how you can work with CNT, contact Lindy Wordlaw at Lindy@cntenergy.org.

This report examines the economic impact of green retrofits. CNT’s LEED Platinum office building saves nearly $18,000 in energy costs annually and was built at a cost comparable to a standard renovation. Our building serves as a demonstration that energy efficient retrofits are a good investment. The recently released McGraw Hill report suggests that green building is more than just a trend and that existing buildings are the fastest growing market for green buildings.

Earlier this week, Vice President Biden unveiled the Recovery Through Retrofit report which highlights the benefits, including job creation and energy savings, of green retrofits to existing buildings. At the press conference, Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, that we must “build on the foundation laid in the Recovery Act to expand green job and business opportunities for the middle class while ensuring that the energy efficiency market will thrive for years to come.” In fact CNT has been working toward this end for many years, including the energy efficient retrofits to our office in 1987 and 2004 and the implementation of Energy Savers, a one-stop energy efficiency shop for multifamily building owners.

Learn more about the report here.

The goal of the “Recovery Through Retrofit” plan is to expand home energy retrofit programs and energy efficiency. The report sites the barriers that have prevented the field from expanding and reaching more of the 130 million homes in the United State that could use a boost in efficiency. The key to the new initiative is to overcome these barriers to help homeowners make cost effective investments in their homes.

A common reason many people do not make the investments is the initial cost. One proposed solution is to take the cost of the home energy improvements and incorporate them into property taxes each month. Turning the payments into a monthly obligation would allow for a scenario where the monthly energy cost savings would be offset the change in property taxes.

Additionally, the report covers a collaboration between the Department of Labor, the Department of Energy, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency to establish national workforce certifications and training standards. The goal would be to expand the home energy retrofit workforce and to build a foundation of strong consumer confidence.

This is great step towards expanding the cost effective solutions that can help alleviate the strain that energy bills place on so many families. The real challenge will be catalyzing consumer action in making a smart investment in their home. The proposed changes should initiate job creation in a field that needs a rapid expansion in both quality assurance and opportunity to homeowners.

To learn more read the report and executive summary here.

Here is a link to additional commentary from The New York Times.

Discussions of ACES often focus on the proposed cap and trade program outlined in the bill, but the report released last week by Environment Illinois and the American Council for an Energy- Efficient Economy (ACEEE) makes clear that the benefits of the energy efficiency provisions are sizable and should not be overlooked.

The report finds that, in 2030, the energy efficiency policies from ACES can save American consumers an average of $486 per household, create over 600,000 jobs, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 500 million metric tons (MMT) and avoid the need for 419 medium-sized power plants. In Illinois alone these policies would create 20,000 new jobs, save the average household $193 a year, and reduce annual carbon emissions by 9.7 million tons by 2020. Environment Illinois and ACEEE recommend policy improvements that would result in 48 percent more jobs and 32 percent more consumer savings than the efficiency measures in the House passed bill.

CNT is encouraged to see that various provisions in American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) simultaneously address environmental and economic concerns of individuals and communities. As stated by Anthony Star, “We think it is important to look for strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that let us invest in consumers’ ability to be more energy efficient—reducing energy use, and therefore consumers energy costs, by 30% or more is feasible today and it creates a long term stimulus that helps households and communities in a tangible way.”

Provisions in this bill will lead to more support for individuals and businesses looking to reduce their energy use. In particular those that require utilities to obtain 20% of their energy through a combination of renewable energy and energy efficiency by 2020 and those that outline incentives for existing building retrofits. CNT’s Energy Savers program works with landlords of multifamily rental buildings in the Chicago metro area is a demonstration of that potential being realized.

Other provisions, namely those that codify Energy Efficient Mortgages and Location Efficient Mortgages, are important from an equity point of view. They help provide appropriate value for living in urban areas well served by public transit. The bill also requires that metropolitan plans for greenhouse gas reduction from travel; in effect, this adds CO2 to the air quality requirements for State and metropolitan area plans. To help understand the potential impact of this, you can take a look at CNT’s H + T index which now produces CO2 maps from transportation, we have 55 regions available now, 337 covering 80% of the US population will online by the end of September.

Thursday’s press conference included presentation by Brian Spranger of Environment Illinois, Anthony Star of CNT Energy and a representative of Heat and Frost Insulators Local 17.

The guide introduces the energy efficiency and conservation strategy, gives a model outline, a process guide, execution options, and where to go for resources and help for communities receiving funding under “The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant” (EECBG) program, which was passed as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Within 120 days after receiving initial funding, eligible communities must submit a proposed Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy that describes the energy goals and proposed plan for the use of the EECBG grant.

Chicago’s Guide will help cities and counties to thoughtfully plan for long-term and sustainable energy efficiency and conservation and maximize the opportunity EECBG planning dollars represent. The requirement to develop a plan is also a great opportunity. A strong strategy can provide not only a roadmap for reducing energy use, but also for lowering government, business, and resident energy costs, and promoting economic development and job creation.

Chicago has undertaken this kind of planning and this Guide builds on the lessons of the Chicago experience. The very inclusive Chicago process took more than a year to complete, but the time dedicated to systematic assessment and broad engagement had a high payoff. Taking advantage of the work that Chicago did and the reports posted on Chicago’s climate action website is one way to expedite the energy efficiency and conservation planning process.

The report can be downloaded at CNT’s site or at Chicago’s Climate Action website.