By the Numbers: Energy Star homes reach major milestone

1 million

Number of Energy Star-qualified homes built nationwide since the program debuted in 1995. These homes have saved Americans $1.2 billion in energy costs, reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by 22 billion pounds, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The top 10 markets for Energy Star homes are Houston, Dallas, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York City, Tucson, San Antonio, Sacramento, and San Diego.

To qualify for Energy Star, says the EPA, a new home must be at least 15 percent more efficient than homes built to the 2004 International Residential Code and include other features that make them 20 to 30 percent more efficient than standard home, such as effective insulation, high-performance windows, and efficient heating and cooling equipment, appliances, lighting, and ventilation. (The image below, from Energy Star, shows typical locations of air leaks in a home. Check out our recent Weekend Project on weatherizing your attic.)

"This is an amazing achievement for the Energy Star program, but the real winners are the 1 million American families who have the chance to save money and keep harmful pollution out of the air. That's great news for anyone who wants to cut costs and protect our planet," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson in a press release. "We're going to keep the number of Energy Star homes growing, because every new Energy Star home is a step towards lower costs, cleaner air, and communities that are environmentally and economically sustainable."

To boost the energy efficiency of your home and save some real money, start with these simple, inexpensive steps and follow our overall advice for using less energy at home.—Celia Kuperszmid Lehrman | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: If you haven't done so already, get your heating system tuned up and install a programmable thermostat. Also refer to our buyer's guides to furnaces (more details here), water heaters, pellet stoves, and solar water heaters, and find the best compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Remember, some projects might qualify for federal tax credits. If you want energy-efficient appliances, stay up on the news related to the $300 million State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program, also known as cash for clunkers for appliances.

 

At opening of Florida solar-energy facility, President Obama focuses on smart grid and renewable energy

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama promoted the smart grid and renewable energy at the opening of Florida Power & Light's DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center (shown). The facility consists of more than 90,500 solar panels, making it the largest solar-photovoltaic plant in the country and, according to FPL, its annual estimated generation is about 42,000 megawatt hours.

The president outlined how the federal government is making a $3.4 billion investment from Recovery Act funds to modernize the country's electric grid with a goal of creating a more-reliable, more-efficient system. "But getting there will take a few more days like this one and more projects like this one," said the president. "And I have often said that the creation of such an economy is going to require nothing less than the sustained effort of an entire nation—an all-hands-on-deck approach similar to the mobilization that preceded World War II or the Apollo Project."

If you're interested in using solar power at your home, read our report on solar water heaters from the October 2009 issue of Consumer Reports and look for ongoing coverage of these devices on this blog, such as this testing update from earlier this month.—Daniel DiClerico | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: The president referred to World War II the other day, and it was during this era that George Löf undertook his first experiments with solar power. Löf, a solar innovator who died earlier this month at the age of 95, is credited with creating one of the earliest solar-heated homes in this country, according to his obituary in The Wall Street Journal. Löf's system consisted of a large glass roof panel that heated a pile of gravel in the basement, which in turn warmed the house.

Official White House photo by Chuck Kennedy

Shale gas holds promise, but drilling for it is controversial

As we covered in Buzzword: Shale gas, this natural gas contained within fine-grained, sedimentary rock is a topic of much interest for the energy industry. There are vast reserves of shale gas nationwide, and energy companies are working hard and fast to tap these natural-gas sources through what's called water fracturing, also known as hydraulic fracturing or hydrofracking. (The graphic below details how hydrofracking works. It was created by Al Granberg and is being used courtesy of ProPublica: Journalism in the Public Interest, a site that features lots of coverage of shale gas and gas drilling.)

As you might expect, there's more to shale gas than the promise of abundant supplies of natural gas and lower prices for consumers. There's also concern that the process used to tap into the shale-gas reserves presents serious environmental and health risks.

Today's New York Times features an interesting story, "Gas Company Won't Drill in New York Watershed," on the decision by Chesapeake Energy not to drill for natural gas in upstate New York after the Oklahoma City-based corporation's plans met with strong opposition. If you're interested in the topic of shale gas, give it a read.—Steven H. Saltzman | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: If you haven't already, get your heating system tuned up. And to save money on your utility bills, install a programmable thermostat, read our buyer's guides to furnaces (more details here), solar water heaters, and pellet stoves, and follow our overall advice for using less energy at home.

Looking at the future of the energy-efficient home at the 2009 Solar Decathlon

Mother Nature didn't make it easy for the teams that took part in 2009 Solar Decathlon, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The homes designed and built by 20 college and university teams were put through the weather wringer during the final days of the event last weekend, with cold, rainy, overcast weather prevailing—not exactly ideal conditions for solar-powered homes.

The homes in the 2009 Solar Decathlon were judged on 10 characteristics, including architecture, comfort, lighting, appliances, hot water, home entertainment, and market viability, or how easy and affordable the home is to build. Readily available products used in the houses include compact fluorescent lightbulbs and LED lighting, induction cooktops, front-loading washing machines, energy-efficient windows, bamboo flooring, and low-VOC paint.

Team Germany took first prize in the fourth installment of this competition (see its home in the video above) earning 908.29 points out of a possible 1,000, followed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Team California with 863.08 points. See the complete final standings.

With umbrella in hand and galoshes on feet, I checked out the future of the energy-efficient home. (You can avoid any inclement weather by visiting the 20 projects via a virtual tour.)

While the competition calls for uniformity in overall size—houses can be no larger than 800 square feet—the first thing I noticed was how different the houses looked from one another. With teams from throughout the U.S. as well as Canada, German, Puerto Rico, and Spain, each featured a design unique to its climate and region.

10 Questions for . . . Jack Hidary, Chairman of SmartTransportation.org

In this installment of 10 Questions for . . . , Senior Editor Daniel DiClerico speaks with Jack Hidary, chairman of SmartTransportation.org, which brings together various organizations seeking innovative transport solutions. Here, Hidary talks about the inspiration behind last summer's Car Allowance Rebate Program (cash for clunkers), the $300 million State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program, and why he's now focused on making American homes more energy efficient through the PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) bond program. As always, the responses below are the opinion of the interviewee.

You're an entrepreneur with a background in finance, technology, and medical research. What turned you on to energy efficiency?
I love taking an idea from the back of a napkin to a full-fledged company. In 2001, I built an energy practice that exposed me to the inefficiencies of fossil fuel. Take coal. By the time you go from the coal mine to the processing plant, over the power line and into the home, you're left with around 15 percent of the original energy. That's an enormous waste. Then there are the health and environmental issues related to carbon emissions, not to mention the economic and national-security issues related to our dependence on fossil fuels.

How did that translate into cash for clunkers?
In 2005, I spearheaded the effort to change the taxicabs in New York City to hybrid vehicles. Today, 25 percent of the city's fleet are hybrid, and the rest will so be in two to three years. The success in New York got me thinking about the roughly 250 million cars in the rest of the U.S. I realized that there needed to be an incentive to accelerate their turnover, especially since the average age of our vehicles has gone from seven years to 14 or 15 years. When I was growing up in Brooklyn, our local utility had a program that gave rebates for trading in an old air conditioner for a new unit. That to me was a great model for what we needed to do with cars. So I put together some ideas for a cash-for-clunkers program and presented it at the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative.

Do you think cash for clunkers will have a long-term impact on our culture?
There's now an entire set of programs based on clunkernomics, or the notion that efficiency makes good economics. During cash for clunkers, people walked into their dealership with a totally different mind-set. They weren't just looking at the transaction value of the sticker price but also at the cost of gas and maintenance. They understood that if a car is $500 less on the sticker but costs $2,000 more each year to operate, that's a bad deal. In technology, we call this total cost of ownership. The concept has been around for years, but it's entered the consumer lexicon, and moved well beyond cars.

The U.S. Department of Energy recently kicked in $300 million for cash for clunkers for appliances. And I just had an e-mail from a leader in computer-data centers, which suck up about 2 percent of the country's electricity. She's proposing a cash-for-clunkers program that would help swap out these massive servers for more efficient ones.

Why have you turned your attention to buildings?
We're hoping to catalyze the same paradigm shift in how people buy and maintain homes. The built environment—houses, apartments, commercial buildings, warehouses, etc.—is responsible for 40 percent of the nation's energy use. The average American household uses 50 percent more energy than the average Italian household. So there are a lot of things we can do to make buildings more efficient.

We have better windows and lighting and ways to harness solar power. These things all have great payback, but they also cost a lot to buy and install. Enter two guys from Berkeley, California, named Cisco DeVries and Dan Kamen. They came up with the model for a bond-based financing mechanism that would give people loans to pay for their energy retrofits and solar. They approached me and several other folks with the idea. We looked at it and decided to take it to scale through the formation of the PACE Now coalition. We're predicting that the program will stimulate up to $500 billion in business over the next decade.

How does a PACE bond work?
PACE stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy. It's very simple for consumers to access. They apply for a loan from their city or municipality, say $20,000 to replace the windows, lighting, and central air conditioning. The city issues a PACE bond and then lends the money, which the borrower pays back over 20 years via a surcharge on their property taxes. That's plenty of time to break even on the energy retrofit and solar installation, and consumers still qualify for federal energy tax credits, saving them even more on the project.

U.S. households could bank savings on heating costs this winter

Your heating bill could drop this winter, thanks to lower fuel prices and a forecast of slightly milder weather in many areas, according to the latest projections from the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration.

The EIA estimates that the average U.S. household will spend about $960 on heating during the October 2009-March 2010 heating season. That's a decline of $84, or 8 percent, from the 2008-2009 heating season. The biggest savings are expected for homes that heat with natural gas or propane. You can save even more money by installing and using a programmable thermostat.

• Natural gas. The EIA expects that the average household that heats with gas save 12 percent this heating season, with those in the Midwest spending 15 percent less. (Check out our buyer's guide to furnaces.) A record high inventory of natural gas has resulted from a huge decrease in demand by the industrial sector and an increase in domestic production, including shale gas.

• Propane. Midwesterners might see an average decrease of 21 percent while those in the West should spend only 5 percent less. One reason for the variation is that the Midwest is projected to have a winter that's about 4 percent warmer while the West could be about 4 percent colder, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

• Heating oil. Oil is used by only 7 percent of U.S. households, the majority of which are in the Northeast. This season, those who heat with oil could save about 3 percent, around $60. Heating oil is averaging about $2.64 a gallon, 2 cents less than last season and 67 cents less than the in 2007-2008.

• Electricity. Those who heat with electricity will spend 2 percent less than last winter , an average of $20.—Kimberly Janeway | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential reading: Our latest report on pellet stoves highlights the pros and cons of this alternative heat source. (Ratings are available to subscribers.) To cut energy use year-round, find out how to save up to $1,500 on your annual utility bills, read our report on solar water heaters, and learn which compact fluorescent lightbulbs top our ratings.

Inside Consumer Reports Test Labs: Solar water heaters update

When we published initial results from the testing of solar water heaters, we knew the analysis was a work in progress. For instance, when the October 2009 issue of Consumer Reports went to press, some data from the hottest months of the year were missing. And one of the key deciding factors in buying a solar water heater—how much money it can save you—tends to change like, well, the weather. Here's an update on our testing of the solar water heaters installed on the roof of our Yonkers, New York, headquarters:

Second panel boosts savings. When we added a second panel to the $6,000 Heliodyne 50180 system—a move that gave this model Energy Star qualification—we saw a definite jump in the percent savings from the 32 percent we reported, even during a period with unseasonably cool weather. Still, the $1,500 extra you might pay for this two-panel system could result in a longer payback period even considering whatever state tax credits you can get on top of the 30 percent federal credit. Read "Energy Tax Credits at a Glance" for more information.

A newcomer shows promise. An Eagle Sun model, $6,000 to $9,000 installed, is the newest system on the roof. While the model is rated by the Solar Rating and Certification Corporation to supply 70 percent of the energy needed to heat the water for a two- to four-person household, we won't have enough data to report on until sometime next year. Still, the expected savings from the Eagle Sun are much higher than those of the first solar-thermal systems we installed. (The photo shows Senior Lab Technician Eric Hado (left) and Senior Project Leader David Trezza installing the Eagle Sun system on our roof.)

Higher savings are achieved. Installing the Hot₂O Solar Hot Water System by Fafco, a do-it-yourself system (we recommend pro installation), cost us $2,200. But the company has updated its installation instructions. After we modified the setup, which included insulating the hot-water tank, the average savings climbed from about 29 percent to roughly 42 percent.

Performance stays consistent. We took the Rheem RS47-21BP, $5,000 to $6,200 installed, out of service to make room for the newer systems, but until the day we removed it in mid-September, its average savings remained at the roughly 32 percent we first reported. And the SunMaxx 3570 (PDF), $5,500 to $7,000, is maintaining the same 23 percent savings we saw in the system's first weeks in place; its single array of tubes is roughly equivalent to a single flat panel in terms of performance.

As we move into fall and then winter, we'll see whether evacuated-tube systems like the SunMaxx really perform better and save more money than flat-panel designs in cold weather.—Ed Perratore | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: If you're considering a solar water heater, read our recent report on alternative energy (specifics on solar water heaters are available to subscribers). The American Solar Energy Society kicked off its 14th annual National Solar Tour on October 3. To find a related event in your state, visit this page. If a solar water heater isn't for you, check out our coverage of tankless water heaters.

By the Numbers: Virgin Earth Challenge calls for innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gases

$25 million

Prize in the Virgin Earth Challenge, which will be awarded to the individual or team to come up with a commercially viable design that accomplishes or appears capable of achieving the net removal of significant volumes of man-made greenhouse gases annually for at least 10 years.

Sir Richard Branson, of the Virgin Group, and former Vice President Al Gore are two of the six judges for the competition, which was launched in February 2007. As of the end of September, 900 entries had been received. A review of entries that made the first cut will take place next February.—Kimberly Janeway | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential reading: Use less energy and save up to $1,500 on your annual utility bills. Read our reports on pellet stoves and solar water heaters and find out which compact fluorescent lightbulbs top our ratings (available to subscribers).

By the Numbers: New EPA rule aimed at lowering greenhouse-gas emissions

25,000 metric tons

Minimum amount of greenhouse gases that an industrial facility would have to emit annually to be affected by a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule aimed at regulating carbon emissions. The rule will require facilities producing more than 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases to obtain permits demonstrating their use of the best available technology to reduce emissions, or face penalties. The final rule was signed by EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson on September 22.

"By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we can begin reducing emissions from the nation's largest greenhouse-gas-emitting facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast majority of our economy," said Jackson in a September 30 speech. "This is a commonsense rule that is carefully tailored to apply to only the largest sources—those from sectors responsible for nearly 70 percent of U.S. greenhouse-gas-emissions sources."
 
About 14,000 facilities, namely power plants, refineries, and factories, would be affected. Farms, restaurants, hospitals, and other small businesses would not, according to the EPA.

The new EPA rule comes in advance of December's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Critics of the rule contend that it unfairly singles out big industry and that the EPA is violating the terms of the Clean Air Act by using it to regulate greenhouse gases.—Daniel DiClerico | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: You can lower the amount of greenhouse gases you generate at home and on the road. Whether you use compact fluorescent lightbulbs or install a solar water heater (stories and ratings available to subscribers), you can cut your utility bills by $1,500 a year.

Roundup of the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative: What's coming next for energy efficiency at home

The fifth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative resulted in 284 "commitments to action" valued at $9.4 billion. As we reported last week from the event, energy efficiency dominated much of the discussion, and if adopted, this year's commitment-to-action initiatives could eliminate 30 million metric tons of greenhouse-gas emissions a year; bring clean energy to an additional 7 million people worldwide; and engage 1.5 million new people in climate-change efforts.

"I think we can say with some certainty that this [commitment to action] model actually does work," said former President Bill Clinton during the CGI's closing ceremony. "People don't have to have the same politics, the same religion, or speak the same language to work together and to have an impact. We all have things to learn from each other. What we need is a shared mechanism to achieve common goals."

While most of the commitments were prepared in advance, some happened spontaneously, underscoring Clinton's call for collaboration. For example, CGI member Mouhsine Serrar, CEO of Prakti Design Lab, developed a commitment at the meeting to deliver efficient kitchen appliances to the people of Haiti.

Another commitment that bears closer watching came from Jack Hidary, chairman of SmartTransportation.org and the man behind the Car Allowance Rebate System, or cash for clunkers, which he unveiled at last year's CGI meeting. Hidary is now setting his sights on the country's inefficient housing stock, with a commitment to bring low-cost financing for energy-efficient retrofits. The illustration above, from the National Energy Technology Laboratory, shows energy-saving opportunities in a typical home.

The October 2009 issue of Consumer Reports details ways to make your home more efficient and cut your annual utility bill by $1,500. But upfront costs can be steep, especially if you install a pellet stove or a solar water heater.

Hidary's plan would alleviate that burden by letting you pay the costs over several years using the savings from your lower energy bills. Look for more details in our upcoming 10 Questions for . . . interview with Hidary.—Daniel DiClerico | e-mail | Twitter | Forums | Facebook

Essential information: Visit our new Energy Saving & Green Living guide for more advice on how to save money on heating and cooling your home.