The grant, given under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will expand FSEC’s weatherization training program, which provides inspectors, contractors and other skilled workers training courses in energy efficiency retrofitting and weatherization services, such as house air sealing and air duct diagnoses and repair.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) selected 34 projects in 27 states to develop or expand weatherization training centers. FSEC is one of three training centers in Florida selected to receive part of the $29 million in funding.

Under the Recovery Act, the Obama Administration is making unprecedented investments to help build a clean energy future, including $5 billion to significantly ramp up the pace of weatherization in the United States.

“A well-trained workforce will be a crucial part of America’s clean energy economy in the years ahead,” said Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman. “These investments in efficiency training programs will help build a foundation for long-term growth in America. Energy efficiency improves the competitiveness of our economy, benefits the environment, and puts Americans back to work.”

FSEC plans to expand the scope and curriculum of their training center, originally created to train 150 weatherization inspectors for Florida’s Department of Community Affairs.

The new FSEC courses will integrate Florida-specific weatherization protocols into DOE-standardized weatherization training curricula. Additional training models will be developed to enrich learning and allow increased hands-on testing and measurements. The new course offerings will be applicable to inspectors, contractors and program managers.

The advanced training classes will include:

• house envelope air sealing concepts and approaches,
• duct diagnosis and repair,
• resolving unbalanced return air problems,
• solving wind washing problems,
• the use of infrared thermography to diagnose thermal and air leakage failures in buildings, and
• combustion safety.

“Our training courses will not only teach students weatherization and energy efficiency techniques, but also the safety issues involved when the air tightness of a building is changed,” said Neil Moyer, principal research engineer at FSEC.

The 34 DOE-selected projects will significantly expand access to weatherization training, while improving the quality and consistency of training nationwide.

These investments will continue to build on the Administration’s efforts to expand the green workforce and build a self-sustaining energy retrofit industry that creates high-quality jobs, while improving the environment and saving energy.

For more information, including the complete list of award recipients, see the DOE announcement online at http://www.energy.gov/news/9029.htm.

Share/Save

Retrofit Florida: Create Jobs and Save Money on Electricity from Florida Solar Energy Center on Vimeo.

What will happen to Florida if we do not pass an Energy Policy this year? What will be the cost of our monthly electric bills if we do nothing? Will we save money and create jobs if we do nothing?

Can we invest in our Energy Future without raising taxes?  Let’s look to our homes to create New Clean Green Jobs for Florida so we can create economic growth, which increases the state’s revenues.  Let’s renovate our homes cost-effectively, thereby saving money on our monthly electric bills.  Let’s not ship money out of state for purchase of coal and natural gas to make electricity. Let’s put people to work and use some of the energy savings to put solar energy on our roofs.

Fifty-one percent of the electricity that utilities produce are used in our residences, “we the citizens” consume electricity so, “we” need to use energy efficiently.

Fifty-one percent of Florida's electricity is used in homes.

This plot shows the average annual household electricity use in MWh/yr historically, along with the October 2009 Florida Public Service Commission 10-Year Forecast.

2009 Florida Public Service Commission's 10-Year Site Plan

The actual energy use per household showed an increase from 1993  until the peak electricity use per household of 2003 (14.6 MWh/yr).

Electricity use per household peaked in 2003.

The 2009 forecast, predicted in 2008, shows a decrease of 2.1% in average annual household electricity use over the ten year forecast.

The 2009 Public Service Commission forecast of electricity over 10-years.

Clearly, if “we” use less electricity, it is good for the environment and it requires Florida to import less fossil fuels like natural gas and coal into Florida, but does it mean “we” pay less per month for electricity?

No, we will pay more and this plot shows why.

Projected Electric Costs

This plot of the average monthly household electricity cost over time shows the historical costs and the 10-year forecasted costs. The 2009 forecast shows a decrease in electricity consumption of 2.1% over the ten-year period of 2009 to 2018, but electricity cost is increasing at 4.7% per year, so the electric cost of ~$148 per month of today turns into $210 per month by 2018.

This means that the cost of having no new energy policy and doing business as usual will cost the citizens of Florida at least $62 per month in 2018, there will be no new job creation and we will continue to purchase more fossil fuels and export our money out of the state.

Does it have to be this way? No, we must pass an Energy Policy that provides incentives and loans to retrofit our homes to make them more energy efficient.

An energy policy that incorporates incentives and loans to retrofit homes is essential to create jobs and save money.

We can actually pay less for electricity each month than we do now, and use the savings to purchase the efficiency improvements and provide rebates for putting solar energy on our roofs.

Deep Retrofit Potential

If  we cost effectively retrofit our homes with eight energy efficiency measures and solar hot water heating, instead of paying $82 more each month in 2020, we will save $46 each month over today’s cost.  The cost of doing nothing compared to the cost of an energy policy that encourages energy efficiency and solar energy on your rooftop is more than $128 month or $1,536 per year, per household.

Potential for Cost-Effective Deep Retrofits Compared to Business As Usual (BAU)

The eight energy efficiency measures and solar water heating provides energy savings of 56% ($128 per month per household).

The savings measure in the order of most economical (lowest cost to benefit ratio) are:

We can do something. We should chose to retrofit our homes cost-effectively to make them more energy efficient.  We will then pay less for electricity each month than we do now and use the savings to purchase the efficiency improvements and provide rebates for putting solar energy on our roofs.

Retrofitting Florida Homes Creates Jobs and Saves Money on Electricity

Retrofitting 3% of the homes per year will generate $1,536 in energy savings per home — a total of $285 million in total cost savings for the 186,000 retrofitted homes, while saving 1.05 million tons of CO2.  Each year we will generate $3.8 billion in new economic activity, 42,026 direct jobs and 15,282 indirect jobs.

If Florida invests in our homes, people go back to work, property values increase, and we save money every month!

Share/Save

Alternative energy is called alternative, until it is cheaper, but cheaper than what? – electricity out of the wall at 12 cents yesterday, 15 cents today, 18 cents tomorrow?  Are you aware that people in the U.S. pay different amounts for electricity?  The average residential retail price of electricity in the U.S. was 10.6 cents per kWh in 2007.  Florida was 11.2 cents, most southern states were about 9 cents, WV 7 cents, UT 8 cents, NY and CT about 18 cents, and CA and NJ 15 cents.  So, states that burn coal have the cheapest electricity rates. Places like Utah and West Virginia burn their own coal, so even though they get all the pollution and the greenhouse gasses, at least they get to keep all their money, unlike Florida which ships more than $25 billion out of state to purchase fuel.  Florida has already been paying more for cleaner burning fossil fuels than the Southern states to our north.  We are now paying more for natural gas than we are for coal, and that price increase is more than what is being suggested to add to our electric bills for solar energy.

New Jersey has more solar than Florida because homeowners in NJ have a Renewable Portfolio Standard, and fees (collected into a Public Benefit Fund) are used to incentivize the homeowner for solar on their roof.  If such a fund collected $1.50 on your electric bill in Florida, we could have the equivalent of California’s Million Solar Roofs Program.  Clearly $1.50 is less than the $40 a month cost of doing nothing.  While solar water heating is cost effective today, solar electricity (photovoltaics) without a subsidy is not cost effective today, but the subsidy is still less than the cost of “accelerated cost recovery” for nuclear power.  What about the jobs?  These jobs will not be in China and India, they will be done by your neighbor.  Vote Solar estimates that more than 3,800 megawatts (MW) of solar could be added by 2020 and with it approximately 85,500 new jobs in Florida. What a great way to love your neighbor.

Jim Fenton, Director
Florida Solar Energy Center

Share/Save

What happens if we use “shovel ready” federal stimulus funds for energy infrastructure improvement to pay a professional to come to your house and change out your incandescent lighting with compact fluorescent lighting (CFL) before the end of 2010?  How much energy would the state save?  Could we put off building new power plants?  How much money would you, the homeowner, save on your electric bill?  How much would it cost to replace all of Florida’s light bulbs?  How many jobs would be created? How much green house gases would be eliminated?

Incandescent light bulbs are only 4% efficient.

An incandescent light bulb is only about 4% efficient (96% of the electricity makes heat), so not only does such lighting gobble electricity for lighting, but it creates heat as a by-product, which must be removed by air conditioners in Florida.  Replacing incandescent lights bulbs provides 75% electric savings on lighting electric use plus an additional electricity savings of 24% for less air conditioning.  Because of this large energy use, incandescent lighting may soon be banned in many parts of the world. The current plans for bans on incandescent sales are: Australia (2010), New Zealand (2010), Netherlands (2011), Canada (2010), European Union (2012), United States (2014), California (2010), Connecticut (2012), New Jersey (2012).

Florida could join the other locations that aim to ban the incandescent lamp or we could use “shovel” ready resources for energy infrastructure improvement to put workers back to work, lower our monthly electric bills, make our air and water cleaner, reduce global warming and keep Florida’s wealth and workers in Florida – all before the end of 2010 and we’d be ahead of the bans!

The typical Florida single housing has approximately 40 lamps. By changing incandescent lighting to CFL, the average home will save $245 per year over the 10-year lifetime of the CFL.  This equates to a statewide cost savings of $2.1 billion per year from Florida’s 8.5 million existing housing units (2006). The energy saved by this transition would also reduce Florida’s energy capacity by more than what we would get from a 1000MW nuclear power plant. [CFL savings calculation (Excel)]

Create jobs and save money by changing to CFLs.

Now what would the improvements cost?  While many CFLs are now $2 each, one pays a premium for recessed and vanity bulbs and three way fixtures, etc., so to be conservative we estimate $4 per bulb (this is really generous – a lighting retrofit operation with high volume prices could be 30% lower).   So the cost of bulbs per housing unit is then, 40 x $4 = $160. The installs would be done by two professionals per housing unit, two hours to do a housing unit from top to bottom at $35/hr plus $50 for travel, profit and overhead for a labor cost of $190.  The total cost per home is then $350 with a simple payback of 1.4 years.  The statewide cost would be $2.96 billion for the 8.5 million housing units.  For 4 person hrs per house times 8.5 million housing units divided by 40 hrs/week and then divided by 52 weeks/yr, one gets 16,350 professionals per year to complete the installation.

This is an ideal “shovel ready” project. The federal government could give Florida $2.96 billion, $350 for every housing unit in Florida , to change out light bulbs and each Florida home would save $245 per year over the ten year life of the CFLs, 16,350 job-yrs would be immediately created and Florida would not have to build at least one nuclear power plant.

The next shovel ready project would be to replace all the thermostats with programmable thermostats, then we upgrade your ducting and your insulation, we install a better air conditioner, and a solar hot water heater.  How far can we play this energy efficiency approach? Let’s play all the way to a net zero energy home.  Let us stop using shovels to dig ourselves deeper in debt and put the shovels and people to work making our homes energy efficient!

Jim Fenton
Director, Florida Solar Energy Cener

Share/Save