U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu
U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced a new $450 million program last week designed to catalyze a nationwide energy efficiency upgrade that experts estimate could save $100 million annually in utility bills for businesses. The Recovery Act’s “Retrofit Ramp-Up” program will pioneer innovative models for rolling out energy efficiency to hundreds of thousands of businesses. The DOE intends to create models that, when undertaken nationally, will save consumers billions of dollars on their utility bills and make the huge savings of energy efficiency available to everyone.
“Energy efficiency isn’t just low-hanging fruit; it’s fruit lying on the ground. We have the tools to reduce energy use at home and at work and to provide huge savings to families and businesses on their energy bills. But use of these technologies has been far too limited because we lack the simple and effective ways for people to access them,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
“The ‘Retrofit Ramp-Up’ program will support large-scale models that can open new energy efficiency opportunities to whole neighborhoods, towns, and, eventually, entire states,” continued Secretary Chu. “The Recovery Act will allow innovative communities to demonstrate a variety of sustainable business models that can be replicated across the country.”
Daylighting is the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to energy efficiency and renewable energy!
With much of the emphasis from the larger media and political commentary going towards renewable energy, it is about time that the powers that be recognized that efficiency is where the greatest and most cost effective opportunity lies for reduction of carbon based energy use. Electrical lighting is a major factor in both the energy usage of an industrial/commercial building in both the energy the lights draw as well as the cooling needed to offset the heat the lights create. High performance daylighting has always been a solution that not only provides rapid return through energy savings, but provides the highest quality lighting with the lowest heat factor per watt available. The fact is, daylighting not only provides for a reduction in energy, it provides increases to performance and color balance that have been proven to increase productivity, increase sales, and decrease defects for a multitude of industries. There isn’t a single renewable energy product on the market that can provide the same type of monetary as well as productivity returns available on the market today.
I applaud the U.S. Secretary of Energy for adopting incentives for the lowest hanging fruit that is available for building owners and providing a true incentive for the adoption of efficiency programs that will far outweigh renewable energy production in helping kick our nations addiction to fossil fuel usage.
