- By Hugh Wolf
- In Uncategorized
The Energy Efficient Standard, Competition and Innovation
Arizona Ranked 17th in 2015 falling two spots from 2014 ranking by the American Council of Energy Efficiency Economy for aggressive long-term savings targets.
The Standards Addressed:
- Stringent Building Codes
- Code Compliance
- Program Administrators for Code Support
The Scored Card Ranking was based on the following:
- Direct Reduction in waste and end use energy consumption
- Set long-term commitments to energy efficiency
- Established mandatory performance codes and standards
- Acceleration in the adoption of the most energy efficient technologies
- Reduction in market regulatory and information to barriers to energy efficiency
- Providing funding for Energy Efficiency
The current energy efficient standards have given energy efficiency contractors, consumers and businesses better leverage to compete in the open market with a reduction in energy cost, including societal cost reduction in pollution, climate change, and healthcare.
Energy Efficiency Contractors are innovating all the time to reach more costumers and provide more savings for less. For Example: one thing our company is doing is connecting with healthcare professionals via the Essential Benefit Rule through affordable healthcare to reduce large cost from:
- Reduce emergency room visits
- Reduce lost workdays
- Reduce days out of school
These reductions are due to Energy Efficient retrofitting creating healthier homes with better indoor air quality.
Another thing we do is help our clients with budget financing for projects
- Unsecured loans-$7500
- Secured loans-$25,000
- Mortgages-203k
This shows we are all sharing in the cost of making Arizona a top high-ranking energy efficient state.
Technology in the field is also improving. For example, Our company recently went to a presentation where we heard about how new wireless technology local and remote is making a difference by creating tamper proof data, quality control and remote validation. This technology is lowering cost and improving performance by doing the job right the first time and providing on the job mentoring and training. It allows knowledge share when connecting to remote users and by collecting this hard data we can tell better stories, replicate successes, skip the guess work, sell results, make more money and waste less.Our industry practices have also improved. At are company were always trying to keep up to date on the latest industry knowledge and best practices. For Example, our company is BPI certified we have monthly webinars through BPI affiliates implementing changes to stay current with the BPI 1100 & BPI 1200. The current standards are working well and we are exceeding our expectations as a state. We should continue to exceed by keeping the Energy Efficient standards in place and increasing them as they improve.
For Example: Massachusetts Ranked #1 adopted the 2012 IECC with state-specific amendments for both commercial and residential buildings in 2014. Adoption of the 2015 IECC is expected in 2016.
“Arizona earned 2 points out of 7 for its building energy code stringency and compliance efforts. Arizona is a home-rule state, with the majority of localities adopting the 2009 IECC for residential buildings. Utilities are involved in code compliance support activities, and the state also organizes energy code training and outreach. Opportunity remains to update the level of stringency for locally-adopted building energy codes.”.(aceee.org)
We need to do better and by doing this it will help further reduce cost for consumers and businesses making the market more competitive to nurture more innovation in the Industry to waste less energy.