$18.5 Million for New England Energy Projects

[Men working on telephone lines, probably near a TVA dam hydroelectric plant] (LOC) by The Library of Congress On Monday, the DOE announced a $18.5 million grant will be dispersed via the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) amongst various energy research labs and companies throughout New England.  The funds are part of the larger $349 million Recovery Act funding pool and will be used primarily for energy efficiency projects; specifically in this case, solid state lighting using gallium nitride, air conditioning efficiency, chemical flow batteries, and overall energy storage capacity research.

MIT will receive $4.4 million, United Technologies Research Center will receive a total of $8.8 million, Beacon Power Corp will receive $2.2 million, Proton Energy will receive $2.1 million and General Compression will receive $750,000. Massachusetts continues to be a leader in the domestic clean-energy technology revolution and these funds will help push forward numerous projects centered around transformational energy research. For 2011, $299,000,000 is sought so critical energy research can continue to be funded.

Did Cash for Appliances Work?

Graph of the how long each state's rebate program ran before allotted funds were spentIt’s a huge success. It hasn’t gone anywhere. Actually, it’s a little of both.

Fifty states and six territories have launched “Cash for Appliances” programs since late last year. Each one had the same amount of money – about a dollar per resident – but the results have been wildly different. Some states ran through their entire rebate budgets in hours; others can’t seem to give away their money. What’s been going on?

Cash for Appliances, modeled on (or at least nicknamed after) last year’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, was funded as part of the $787 billion stimulus bill. Unlike “Cash for Clunkers”, the appliance rebate program wasn’t designed and administered by the federal government. Instead, the government directed $300 million to the 50 states (plus DC and several American territories), at a ratio of roughly $1 per person in each state. Each state then had the opportunity to design their own program within the general guidelines given by the government.

As you’d imagine with a lot of cooks in the kitchen, no two states designed their rebate program in the exact same way: rebate amounts, categories, eligibility, application processes and marketing plans have all differed. As have the results… Ten states had crushing consumer demand that caused them to run out of rebate funds within 4 days of the respective program start dates, with complaints of flooded call centers and crashing websites. Thirteen other states still have desperate operators standing by and literally can’t give away their money.

Comparing State by State Rebate Programs

It’s not just a matter of some states having better deals than others. Take, for example, refrigerator rebates in Massachusetts, Minnesota and California. The programs in all three states offered $200 rebates on efficient refrigerators. Massachusetts and Minnesota “sold out” in 1 day and 2 days respectively. California? Same rebate amount, but the program has been open since April and still has $19 million in rebates unredeemed.

Across the country, the rebate categories and amounts are all over the board:

CategorySmallest State RebateLargest State Rebate
Refrigerators$50$700
Clothes Washers$35$800
Freezers$25$600
Dishwashers$25$400
Air Conditioners$20$1,075
Furnaces$100$2,000
Heat Pumps$75$2,000
Water Heaters$100$1,400
Solar Water Heaters$150$1,200
Boilers$100$1,200

So what attributes matter the most when it comes to determining whether a state program sells out quickly or not at all? The answers aren’t as straightforward as you’d think. We did some analysis to compare each of the programs to see what predicted their likelihood to sell out.

What Doesn’t Matter

Average Electricity Rates: One of the biggest surprises in analyzing the state by state rebate data is that the average price of electricity in a state has almost no impact on how popular its Cash for Appliances program is. Consumers don’t seem to be thinking about this program in terms of its ability to save them money over the long-term – otherwise, we’d expect to see that the states with much more expensive electricity selling out their rebate programs much more quickly than those that have relatively cheap power.

Non-Appliance Rebates: There are the “shiny” appliances (refrigerators, washers, freezers and dishwashers), and then there are the “boring” systems (air conditioners, furnaces, heat pumps, water heaters, boilers and solar water heaters). There’s almost no correlation between the number of “boring” categories that a state has rebates for, or the maximum amount of any of those rebates, and the speed at which the state has gone or is going through their Cash for Appliances budget. While we haven’t seen break-downs for many states in terms of the numbers of each type of rebate that have been redeemed, this result indicates that most people aren’t being motivated by the number or dollar figures of non-appliance rebates.

What Matters a Little Bit

Number of “Shiny” Appliance Rebate Categories: There are four basic appliance categories where states can offer rebates (refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers and clothes washers). Generally speaking, the states that offer rebates in 3 or 4 of those categories are more likely to have run through their rebate dollars quickly than those that have offered rebates in fewer appliance categories.

The fact that states that offer smaller rebates on a broader set of appliances have handed out their money faster than states that offer larger rebates on fewer types of appliances may mean that rebates aren’t successfully channeling consumers into buying specific appliances, but rather “catching” buyers who were already planning purchases.

In Pennsylvania, for instance, there are no rebates on “basic appliances”. All the rebates being offered in that state are for the behind-the-scenes systems for heating water and air (furnaces, boilers and water heaters) –systems in the home that utilize far more energy than kitchen and laundry appliances. And yet, Pennsylvania is one of the “slowest” states utilizing their Cash for Appliances money: of their $11.9 million, they’ve only given out $2 million as of early July. Does that mean that Pennsylvania is failing in their “Cash for Appliances” program? As an economic stimulus, it has clearly not injected as much activity as other “fast” states. But in the longer term, its rebate program should save Pennsylvanians more money than states using their money on appliance rebates only – saving more kWh per rebate dollar spent – if homeowners would just use the program!

Highest “Shiny” Appliance Rebate Dollar Amount: If you exclude several outlying state programs, where very large appliance rebates are provided but only to low-income (Kansas, Oregon) and disabled (Alaska) residents, there’s some correlation between the dollar amount of the largest appliance rebate and how quickly the program dollars ran out, though not nearly as much as whether a program required reservations.

What Really Matters

“Do you have reservations, sir?”: The number one predictor of whether a state rebate program sold out quickly didn’t have anything to do with how generous the rebates were. It actually turned out to hinge on the program’s design. Virtually all the “fast” states required consumers to pre-reserve a rebate application before making a purchase. These states set up websites and call centers that “opened” at a certain date and time, creating an “event” that turned into a feeding frenzy of activity, before closing down within days, or even hours.

Think of the lines around the block at your local Apple store each time a new version of the iPhone comes out. With the iPhone 4, everyone was just standing in line for a reservation! Do you really think Apple’s product marketers could have been taken by surprise by consumer five times in a row (4 iPhone versions and the iPad)?

Ten of the 17 “fastest” states required consumers to reserve a rebate before purchasing a qualifying appliance. Six others had hybrid programs where consumers could either reserve ahead of time or get the discount at the point of sale (if available). Of the 15 “slowest” states, 11 have no reservation system, and three others have optional reservation systems. Basically, all the “slow” states use mail-in rebates after purchase.

Conclusions

For consumers, there’s not much more to say than to give the advice to make calculated, rational decisions about the upfront cost of energy efficiency measures, the available rebates and the 3-5 year payoff. Of course, it’s been pretty well documented in recent behavioral economics research that most consumers don’t behave rationally. So, how about this? At least make sure that you’re aware of all the state, utility and federal energy rebates and tax credits that you can “stack” together and pay for your projects. And, if you’re not sure which projects are the best investment, EnergySavvy has an online energy analysis tool to help you figure it out.

For rebate program designers in government, utilities or manufacturers, there are a few lessons that can be taken away from the Cash for Appliances results:

  1. Create demand through scarcity by requiring pre-reservation for new rebate programs. For rebate programs like Indiana and Pennsylvania (and like many utility rebate programs across the country), that only pay out non-appliance rebates, a potentially effective strategy to kick-start demand would be to re-launch the program with higher rebates for the same back-end measures, but require consumers to pre-reserve their rebate on a specific launch date.
  2. Bundle “shiny stuff” (basic appliances) and “boring stuff” (HVAC systems) together to increase the uptake of less exciting, but greater energy saving, systems.
  3. Catch the “already upgrading” crowd by offering rebates on a wide set of categories but only on the most efficient models in each category. The program may not be stimulating purchases that wouldn’t have happened already, but it can nudge consumers to the highest efficiency products in each category.

The data from the Cash for Appliances program results fit with academic research on consumer behavior.

“The variable rates of uptake based on seemingly trivial factors such as creating a sense of urgency are further evidence that, when the goal is to encourage consumers to act in their best interest, giving them some reason other than pure rationality can be surprisingly effective,” said Michael I. Norton, Associate Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School, “Inserting some excitement into behaving well – in some sense, copying the way parents induce their children to eat their vegetables via airplane noises – should always be an important consideration for policymakers interested in encouraging behavior change.”

For more information on this report and analysis, contact Scott Case at EnergySavvy.com.

Replacing our Desktop Computer with a NAS

Home NAS device replaces a desktop computer for storage When we tested all our electronics with the Kill-a-Watt, we found out that the ten-year-old desktop was using a lot of energy, even when it wasn’t powered on. Since we were mostly just using the desktop for storing our music and pictures—we’re primarily laptop users now—we thought it would be a good idea to replace the poor old thing with network-attached storage (NAS for short).

A NAS is a mini-server built specifically for storage. If you work in a corporate environment, there are probably more than a few hanging around on your network. Only in the past five years or so have they started to be sold into the home market. It’s basically a tiny computer built around a bay for hard drives. When I started looking, my basic criteria was: 1) something that chews up less electricity than the old Windows Vista desktop (not hard to do) and 2) something that we can access from the laptops and backup our data to.

After some comparison, I chose the Netgear ReadyNAS NV+. It’s a very sexy little silver box that slides right into my entertainment center. The old PC ran at 110W–121W (plus 18W for the monitor) and used 6W when it was off (plus 2W for the monitor). The NAS uses 29W–45W, and just 1W when it’s off. In comparison with other NASes on the market, it’s in the middle of the pack somewhere: not the lightest sipper of electricity but not a workhorse server either. One of the many reasons I chose it is that it has an array of possible energy-saving features, such as:

  • A variable-speed fan—it senses the temperature and adjusts how fast the fan spins automatically.
  • Automatic disk spin-down—most new computers spin down when they’re not in use, but NASes generally don’t.
  • Scheduled startup and shutdown—in case we forget to turn it off at night, although I try to turn it off when I’m not using it.

The electricity draw varies based on what sort of hard disks one puts into the box, so it’s important to look for low-power drives to go with your NAS. I picked the WD Caviar Green drives, but there’s a variety of equally good “green” hard drives on the market now. “Green” in this case indicates only that they spin at a slower speed and thus suck down less energy. This means that they’re a little slower, but you’ll probably never notice on a network-connected server.

Other reasons I chose the ReadyNAS:

  • It has a reputation as a reliable device.
  • It supports RAID (redundant array of independent disks), which allows me to stuff a bunch of hard disks into the box and, if one of them fails, still keep all of my data. Additionally, if I need more storage in the future, I can just stick another hard drive into the box or replace my old ones to expand my storage space.
  • The most silly: I can connect it to my Tivo right out of the box. Tivo’s a funny beast that doesn’t support DLNA like almost every other streaming device on the network (PS3, Xbox, etc). Most other NASes support DLNA, but not Tivo.

All in all, I really love it. I’ve moved my entire iTunes and picture libraries onto it, and they’ve barely dented the total storage capacity (1.8 terrabytes!). It’s hard to describe how freeing it is to finally be able to access all of our files without having to exile myself to the office.

Cross-posted on pragmaticenvironmentalism.com

Peabody Terrace Competition Results

On March 6th, 84 residents at Peabody Terrace participated in an incandescent light bulb swap for compact fluorescent bulbs. Residents received one free CFL for every incandescent bulb they turned in—over 200 efficient CFLs found homes. The CFLs were provided by the Cambridge Energy Alliance and Harvard Real Estate Services (HRES). HEET, CEA, and HRES organized the promotion and logistics of this successful competition.

During the swap, residents learned about other ways to cut their carbon emissionsseasonable tips also available—and many signed up for a two-month long competition to see who can reduce them the most.

The results are in!

  • Apartments reduced their electricity use by an average of 11%
  • The top six winners reduced their electricity use by 30%
  • And the first place prize winner reduced electricity use by 58%

Winners received several enticing prizes including Smart Strips; credit at Zip Car; and gift certificates/cards from Clear Conscience Café, Shaw’s and Harvest Co-op Market.

ecO ‘lectrc’ty where art thou?

green power by S Migol Did you know that you have the option to choose who makes your electricity? Since deregulation in 1997, NSTAR no longer generates electricity. This is why there are separate charges on your utility bill for generation and distribution.

One of the hopes of utility deregulation in the late 90s was that it would allow for market forces to create a cleaner energy supply. The idea was that if customers were not forced to buy energy from their local utility they might express demand for less damaging electricity generation. Many academics and environmentalists were worried though, that consumers would instead focus on cost and become blind to other energy attributes, or remain ignorant of the specific ties and between power generation and the environment. This belief seems well-founded since more than five years into deregulation, fewer than 4% of Massachusetts customers had chosen competitive suppliers.

Bay State policy makers foresaw the difficulties for individuals in overcoming inertia to become informed and make the switch to another provider, an therefore included a novel clause in the deregulation act providing for something known as community choice aggregation. Community choice allows municipal governments to go through the competitive supplier selection process on behalf of all of their residents, permitting them to take advantage of the resulting collective bargaining power. Although Cambridge has not availed itself of this option, dozens of communities have, including those served by the well-known Cape Light Compact. Therefore, you are most likely receiving electricity through NSTAR’s default or standard offer service. Because NSTAR no longer runs power plants it acts as a de facto aggregator itself, and through an annual bidding process selects a provider for customers without a competitive supplier.

How green is this supply? What if you want something different? NSTAR began offering a wind-based power supply a little over two years ago, but there are other options available. At one point many businesses sought to be competitive suppliers in Massachusetts, but very few remain in the residential sector. Fortunately NSTAR provides a more up to date database of competitive suppliers. Simply search for your rate class (typically 01 for residential and 02 for small business) to obtain a list of alternative electricity suppliers.

Although it is still listed, Just Energy no longer offers service in Massachusetts. Neither Alternative Energy Resources nor Angora has publicly available information, and both did not respond to inquiries. The table below summarizes the information I was able to gather about the remaining residential competitive suppliers in Massachusetts. Prices are ¢/kWh for December 2009.

New England AverageNSTAREasy EnergyDominionHorizon
BasicGreen 50Green 100BasicGreen 50Green 100
Biomass6.0%10.1%12.4%2.1%0.2%
Hydro5.4%3.0%1.0%8.0%35.5%74.9%7.1%1.1%
Solar3.1%6.2%
Wind50.0%100.0%3.4%6.4%0.9%
“Renewables”3.3%8.0%5.0%
Incinerator0.5%3.0%0.6%
Landfill gas0.5%0.3%
Nuclear14.4%29.0%15.0%35.0%14.0%28.8%35.6%
Coal8.9%16.0%7.0%13.0%6.0%15.8%53.3%
Diesel2.1%
Natural gas38.0%35.0%17.0%27.0%16.5%35.1%7.5%
Oil24.6%10.0%5.0%11.0%4.5%2.9%0.6%
“Other”5.4%6.5%2.4%
Base9.229.229.228.68.68.6
Premium0.841.41.252.5

Sources:

Simple savings with smart strips

Smart power strip by villagelinca Too lazy or forgetful to turn off your subwoofer when you shut down your stereo? Or maybe you take the time to do so, but wish a magic elf would power down your computer’s monitor and external hard drive for you instead? You’re in luck, local water & energy efficient device supplier EFI is offering smart power strips at approximately 40% off retail (with the included free shipping), in partnership with Mass Save. With these power strips you can save the energy these dormant devices would otherwise use since all of the peripherals plugged into white sockets will automatically be turned on or off when you do the same to the device plugged into the blue socket; avoid the reds, they’re always on. Ain’t science super? Offer ends May 30.

(Of course you’d still be better off using the power switch for the whole strip, but these are often located in inconvenient places, and some energy savings beats no energy savings.)

Fun with a Kill-A-Watt

We finally got that Kill-A-Watt we’ve been thinking about, and we spent a good part of last weekend running around the house measuring the energy use of every single piece of electronic equipment we own. It was surprisingly fun. It was also a lot of numbers. (See below.) But we could draw a few conclusions from all of them: Continue reading

Cross-posted on pragmaticenvironmentalism.com

Smart Grid = Smart Appliances

smart_dryerYesterday’s New York Times carried an article about appliance maker Whirlpool, who was the recipient of a $20 million grant from the Federal Government to fund product development in the rapidly developing field of smart appliances.

These devices, once connected to a Smart Grid-enabled electricity supply, will be able to receive information from the grid and cycle down their power demands during times of peak energy use (and higher costs per kWh). At the moment, they are anticipating savings of $40 per year for a standard size dryer.

As always, your mileage may vary.

Next in the Smart Grid appliance pipeline, General Electric Co. will soon roll out its first commercial smart appliance, a hybrid electric heat pump water heater. The company said the pump will save consumers $250 a year in energy costs.

Other “demand response” appliances expected within the next year are refrigerators able to delay defrost cycles and dishwashers that delay operation until energy demands and costs decline at night.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission estimates smart grid-enhanced home appliances could shave up to 7 percent off U.S. peak demand through 2019. When this is added to the 15% reduction in demand that Smart Grid monitoring devices have been able to achieve in field testing, we have within our grasp the ability to reduce electricity consumption by 20% without making any structural changes within our homes.

IBM survey suggests awareness is not enough

Japanese tea pot A recent study conducted by IBM in Great Britain uncovered some non-intuitive trends. Although millenials seem to be the most aware of environmental issues in general, they still remain grossly ill-informed about the specifics, and waste more resources than their elders. It seems, having rarely experienced shortages themselves, British youth consume utilities with little consideration while professing eco-consciousness. For instance, approximately half of millenials surveyed waste a dozen or more gallons of water per day by running the shower before use, and not turning off the tap while brushing teeth. More astoundingly, 55% of youth—and 43% of Britons overall—were unable to indicate that a dryer uses more energy than a typical light-bulb!

Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits. – Edmund burke

Unfortunately, conscientious use of resources does seem to correlate more with personal experience of scarcity rather than expressed concern for the environment. So, next time you’re rinsing out your coffee pot, consider using the fluid to brew your next batch, or make flavored ice cubes for an iced coffee. Cooking pasta? Water the garden after draining.