EETD Communications

“Just think how often your fancy new mobile phone or computer has become little more than a paperweight because the battery lost its zeal for doing its job,” says John Chmiola, a chemist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). “At a time when cellphones can do more than computers could do at the beginning of the Clinton presidency, it would be an understatement to say that batteries have not been holding up their end of the mobile device bargain.”

Chmiola is a staff scientist in the Advanced Energy Technologies Department of Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division. His research is aimed at addressing this problem of relatively short-lived portable energy storage devices. Chmiola believes he has found a solution in electrochemical capacitors, which are commonly referred to as “supercapacitors” because of their higher energy storage densities than conventional dielectric capacitors and higher abuse tolerance than batteries.

Read the rest of Lynn Yarris’s story here:

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2010/04/23/micro-supercapacitor/

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have teamed with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to offer the following opportunity to inprove the energy efficiency of new and existing commercial buildings. Berkeley Lab is passing along this press release from NREL; all three Labs invite interested parties to learn more by going to the websites referenced in the release.

This is the formal announcement for which the pre-announcement appears two entries below this one in this blog.

NREL press release text follows:

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced support for energy-saving commercial building projects as part of an ongoing effort by DOE to improve the energy efficiency of buildings in the United States. With money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, DOE’s national laboratories will select and fund technical experts to provide technical guidance to commercial building owners and operators.  The goal of this Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP) initiative is to increase the energy efficiency of selected new and existing buildings.

DOE’s CBP initiative will foster collaborative relationships among the owners and operators of commercial buildings, researchers from DOE national laboratories and private-sector technical experts. Building owners receive technical expertise on how to design, build and maintain low-energy buildings that can reduce energy use and lower energy bills across their building portfolios. These collaborations help to move energy-saving strategies into the marketplace quickly and cost-effectively. Each of the CBP building projects will be documented in publicly available case studies that will provide detailed energy use data and best practices to other building operators across the country.

Three DOE national laboratories are managing this new effort: the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo., the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.

“CBP participants will create buildings with measured energy savings of at least 50 percent for new construction and 30 percent for existing buildings,” said Paul Torcellini, group manager for commercial building research at NREL. “This initiative is unique because it demonstrates that it’s cost-effective to make buildings more energy efficient, and that energy-efficient buildings are easy to replicate.”

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/commercial_initiative/building_partnerships.html

Applicants can apply through the laboratories for the following two initiatives:

Call for Energy Efficient Commercial Building Projects

To get involved, owners and operators of commercial buildings—retail and office buildings, for example—will submit plans for projects that will upgrade new or existing buildings, and they commit to working with the laboratories and technical experts to make these buildings significantly more energy efficient. Although they receive no direct funding, owners and operators have access to state-of-the-art technical guidance to implement energy efficiency technologies throughout the design, construction, and evaluation of their building and retrofit projects. This technical expertise includes guidance with energy modeling, assessing and choosing appropriate energy efficiency measures, and energy performance verification.

Online applications to the call for projects are due by May 10, 2010. Learn more about the call for projects and access the application.

https://www.nrel.gov/ap/commercial_building_partners/call_projects.cfm

Request for Proposals from Commercial Building Technical Experts

Technical expert teams and measurement and verification technical contractors interested in providing technical guidance to the successful applicants to the call for projects can respond to this request for proposals (RFP). Technical expert teams need to provide a broad range of technical expertise including all or some of the following areas: architecture, engineering, HVAC and controls, daylighting, lighting, energy modeling, commissioning, building auditing and data collection, and cost estimation. Using Recovery Act funding, the participating national laboratories will contract with technical experts to provide this guidance.

Completed proposals are due by May 10, 2010. Learn more about this opportunity and read the RFP.

Learn more about Commercial Building Partnerships and these new opportunities at the Building Technologies Program website.
https://www.nrel.gov/ap/commercial_building_partners/call_projects.cfm
NREL is DOE’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by The Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC

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Visit NREL at:

www.nrel.gov

Visit Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at:

www.lbl.gov

Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division:

eetd.lbl.gov

Visit Pacific Northwest National Laboratory at:

www.pnnl.gov

Berkeley, CA — Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) released a new study on the bill savings received by residential customers with solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems, under the net metering rates currently offered by California’s two largest electric utilities. The report focuses on California, as it is the largest PV market in the U.S.

The study shows that the bill savings per kilowatt-hour (kWh) generated by a PV system varies by a factor of 4 to 5 for residential customers of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) within the study sample, and by a factor 2 to 3 for Southern California Edison (SCE) residential customers in the sample.

Net metering is a billing arrangement that allows customers with PV systems installed on-site to offset their monthly consumption with PV generation, whether or not the demand for power coincides when their systems are generating power. In conjunction with other policy support mechanisms, net metering has been instrumental in jump-starting the market for distributed PV in California and elsewhere in the U.S. However, alternative compensation methods are under consideration in some jurisdictions.

“One purpose of this study,” says report co-author Ryan Wiser with Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Energy Technologies Division, “is to help policymakers and others that seek to support the development of residential distributed PV in California understand the bill savings benefits of PV under net metering, and how those savings compare to other possible compensation mechanisms.”

Read the rest here:

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/04/21/net-metered-photovoltaics/

As part of an ongoing effort to reduce energy use in new and existing commercial buildings by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), commercial building owners, operators, and technical experts can join DOE’s Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP) initiative. Three DOE national laboratories—the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab), the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)—will manage this new effort, which is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

In support of this new CBP initiative, the national laboratories will issue two opportunities for commercial businesses in mid-April 2010. Specifically, they are seeking:

• Commercial building owners and operators interested in constructing new buildings or retrofitting existing buildings so that the buildings are significantly more energy-efficient than the current building stock.
• Technical Expert Teams and Measurement and Verification Technical Contractors to assist with CBP. Technical Expert Teams need to provide a broad range of technical expertise including all or some of the following areas: architectural, HVAC and controls, daylighting, lighting, energy modeling, building auditing and data collection, cost estimation, and commissioning expertise.

About Commercial Building Partnerships

CBP accelerates the deployment of energy efficiency measures by teaming commercial building owners and operators (Participants) with laboratory researchers and private-sector technical experts to provide technical expertise to Participants in the design, construction, and validation of low-energy building designs. Participants benefit by learning about cost-effective energy saving measures that they can apply across their extensive building portfolios. Bringing private-sector technical experts into the process to assist Participants further increases the likelihood that the energy efficiency measures and strategies used in CBP projects will move into the marketplace quickly and cost effectively.

In addition, each CBP building project will be documented in publicly available case studies. This detailed documentation will make it straightforward for building owners and operators outside of the CBP initiative to benefit from the work.

Here are the details for building owners, building operators, and technical experts interested in getting involved with CBP.

Call for Energy-Efficient Commercial Building Projects

Commercial building owners and operators can submit planned new or retrofit commercial building projects that will achieve significant energy savings by responding to the Call for Projects. Successful applicants will work with researchers at the national laboratories and with private-sector technical experts under contract to the national laboratories to achieve energy goals. Participants will receive no direct funding, but will have access to the technical expertise of both national laboratory personnel and private-sector technical experts.

An online application is expected to be available at www.nrel.gov/cbp on April 19, 2010, and completed applications will be due by May 10, 2010. Those interested in applying are urged to begin considering planned building projects to submit. Note that this is a competitive process and not all projects will be selected.

Request for Proposal from Commercial Building Technical Experts

Private-sector technical experts interested in helping Participants achieve the CBP energy saving goals can respond to the technical experts’ request for proposals, which is expected to be available at cbp-forum.lbl.gov on April 19, 2010. The deadline for submitting a proposal will be May 10, 2010. Those interested in applying as part of a Technical Expert Team are urged to begin consolidating team members. Note that this is a competitive process and not all technical experts will be selected.

Learn more about Commercial Building Partnerships and these new opportunities.

A new study by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) examines the workforce needs of the energy efficiency services sector, and finds that the speed with which employment will grow will depend in part on how effectively the nation deploys training and education programs for the energy efficiency workforce.

“There is a shortage of formal training programs in energy efficiency, and an extremely high demand right now, thanks to the infusion of funding for energy efficiency from the growth in ratepayer-funded utility programs and federal and state budgets devoted to efficiency, for example, in programs funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” says Charles H. Goldman, a scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Berkeley Lab. Because of this growth, Berkeley Lab researchers decided to examine whether education and training programs were adequate to meet the workforce needs of the next ten years. The study began in 2008, before the passage of the Recovery Act.

Read the rest here:

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2010/04/07/energy-efficiency-workforce/