Statewide LG EE Best Practices: Weekly Update

Here are your wEEkly updates:

1. Prop 39 Proposed Changes Webinar 7/6: Get the word out to your schools and local educational agencies (LEAs): The California Energy Commission has initiated a substantive changes cycle for the Proposition 39: California Clean Energy Jobs Act – 2016 K-12 Program Implementation Guidelines. Learn more, review the changes and sign up for a CEC webinar to review.

2. Smart Cities Webinar 7/14: This free 1-hour webinar sponsored by DNV GL will feature two contrasting cities – Cambridge, Mass., and San Diego, Calif. – to explore on-going “smart city” initiatives that intersect with climate resiliency, clean and renewable distributed energy, microgrids and zero net energy concepts.

3. SEEC Forum Plenaries online: Miss this year’s SEEC Forum? You can hear from the CEC, CPUC, SGC, OPR, environmental justice leaders, and energy and climate specialists in recordings of the SEEC Forum plenary sessions. Visit the EECoordinator.info main page for descriptions and Youtube links.

4. New Energy Efficiency 101 resources: As Coordinator I hear about the need for 101 resources from beginner and veteran local government energy leaders alike. Whether its due to staff turnover or transfers, or the wealth of rapidly evolving information on energy best practices in California, it helps to have some introductory resources in one place.  Check out a new (and growing) page of Energy Efficiency 101 resources and presentations on the EECoordinator site – and feel free to request additional information.

5. Low-Income EE resources expansion: SoCal Gas announced a significant expansion of its Energy Savings Assistance Program. As many as 500,000 additional low-income families may now be eligible to receive no-cost energy efficient home upgrades.

6. PACE Savings through HERO: A press release from the residential PACE HERO Program released this week announced that Californians Are Saving 10 Billion Kilowatt-Hours Through the HERO Program - roughly equivalent to taking almost a million Americans off the grid for a year or closing two coal-fired power plants for a year.  For more on financing, click here.

7. Commercial EE opportunities: We learned in the SEEC plenary on the State of Local Climate Action that a number of California local governments are seeing high savings in the commercial sector. New coverage from ACEEE shows commercial sector savings, but also a number of remaining opportunities.

8. Motivating Commercial EE: Something to share with your commercial sector partners: stakeholder requests for EE and sustainability information are changing trends in business activities and reporting. A new report shows that 81% of S&P companies produced Sustainability Reports in 2015.

9. Clarifications on heat pump water heater compliance: the CEC’s Advisor Patrick Saxton spoke to requirements for residential heat pump water heaters in the Q&A of the Forum’s opening plenary session. Some additional residential heat pump water heater compliance guidance from follow up with the CEC is available here.

10. New water efficiency standards in effect TODAY: With all the excitement around the new building energy efficiency standards becoming open for cities and counties to adopt by January 1, 2017, we can’t forget about new water efficiency standards! Read an excerpt from the California Energy Commission (CEC)’s blog, and get links for more information here.

11. New EIA study projects the effect of energy policies: Projecting the effect of policies is a challenging but critical part of energy planning and governance. See how the U.S. Energy Information Administration has analyzed U.S. energy policies and released its findings of an estimated 30% increase in clean power from Clean Power Plan implementation.

12. Time-of-Use Service for Residential: A new “time of savings” service offered through a partnership between Nest and SolarCity offers residential customers deeper demand response and EE savings. Learn more here.

13. Procurement templates for energy storage: Clean Energy Group and the Clean Energy States Alliance, with support from Bright Power, Sandia National Laboratories, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity, and the Barr Foundation, have drafted and released a series of energy storage procurement guidance documents for municipalities.

14. Job announcement: Marin County is hiring for a Sustainability Program Planner! For more information click here.

15. Job announcement: MCE is hiring for several positions, including a Customer Programs Specialist and Customer Programs Manager! For more information, click here.

That’s all for this week!