• Energy Research
• 11. Sustainability close

This paper provides estimates of household energy consumption in the United States in 2019 by adding passenger transportation to residential consumption. It also separates household energy consumption into two components: standard and optional and shows that the latter accounts for 29 percent of the total.

Zoey Papka interviews her father, Michael Papka, about the energy transformations he has witnessed over his lifetime and through his job at Argonne National Laboratory, sponsored by the US Department of Energy. They discuss the increase in electric gadgets, renewable energy, nuclear power, electric cars, deteriorating infrastructure in the United States, and the contrast between energy and public transportation infrastructures in the United States and Japan, among other themes.

The state of Hawaii is among the most remote places of the world. With a rich abundance of the natural resources they need in order to produce electricity without burning fossil fuels, they are highly dependent on petrol imports from the main land of the United States of America. Contradictorily enough, this also leads to outstandingly high energy prices even though Hawaii has a very low energy use compared to U.S. average energy consumption. This master thesis examines why it is of such importance for the Island State to become energy independent. Whilst doing so, the thesis examines the main implemented renewable energy technologies harvesting solar and wind energy. Furthermore, the measures taken to increase energy efficiency are described. Using landmarking cases and events the thesis estimated the further potential of the technologies investigated. Throughout this detailed investigation of Hawaiis situation, main challenges are identified, and recommendations to further push their goal of becoming independent from oil imports, are given. The thesis concludes that the island state has had a great start departing towards 100% renewable electricity production, coming with the benefits of international attention and the opportunity to become a green energy role model. In order to achieve their goal until 2045 policy makers, the research community, social advocates, and important influencers do not only have to keep up their good work but also still need to increase their effort. The need of a common strategy and raising awareness is evident.

Data and code supporting the paper titled "Estimating the Electric Vehicle Charging Demand of Multi-Unit Dwelling Residents in the United States" by Xi Cheng and Eleftheria Kontou at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The data and the code enable analytics and assessment of multi-unit dwelling residents travel patterns and their electric vehicle charging demand.

Co-operatively owned renewable energy projects in the UK have been praised for their potential to allow communities to take control and benefit directly from clean energy production. The model for energy co-ops has been developing for over twenty years, and some organisations in the sector are questioning where they can go next. This thesis assesses how far there is scope for energy co-ops to develop further, by benefitting communities more widely and doing more to tackle environmental issues. The thesis draws on case study research undertaken at three energy co-op sites, in addition to an online questionnaire sent to 24 energy co-operatives associated with the intermediary Energy4All. By assessing the activity and visions held in these co-operatives it draws out promising areas of innovation. It also highlights the complexity of these groups, and the challenges that they face in retaining engagement and navigating relationships with other public and private organisations. The thesis identifies several key areas where further consideration, or support from intermediary groups, would be helpful to maximise their potential.

This report provides a review of the current state of knowledge on low-carbon retrofit of social housing, and how these retrofits may affect the risk of overheating in social housing properties post-retrofit. Overheating risk assessment is a growing area of concern in built environment research, and the drive for warmer homes in winter, and more energy efficient homes, has led to increasing levels of energy efficiency retrofits in the domestic sector. However, a lesser amount of work has been done to date on how these energy efficiency retrofits could increase the risk of properties overheating in warmer periods. This is particularly relevant considering the potential for warmer summers going forward in a future warming climate. A number of definitions are available at present for what constitutes overheating in a property. Accepted definitions from human thermal comfort research put the comfortable range of temperatures for human domestic occupation at between 19°C and 26°C, but surveys have shown that a number of different property construction types in different locations around the country exceed these temperatures on a semi-regular basis during warm periods. This is due to a wide array of factors, broadly categorised in this report as location-based risks, property-based risks, and occupancy-based risks. Location risks are associated with the physical environment of the property: factors such as local albedo, urban heat island effect and prevalent wind patterns are all location-based risks. Property-based risks involve the built form of the property and its design: the number of fabric elements, overall glazed area and orientation of the property are examples of property-based risks. Finally, occupancy-based risks are associated with how residents use the property: factors such as appliance use, window-opening regimes, the use of blinds and occupancy profiles are all occupancy-based risks. There are a range of technical and non-technical measures available to mitigate the risk of overheating in social housing. Technical measures should follow a hierarchy of passive through active, with focus being placed on zero- or low-energy measures first, then moving to more active solutions if passive solutions are not having sufficient effect. Passive measures include increasing passive heat rejection through window-opening, window tinting to prevent solar gains, and installation of external or internal shading. Active solutions include mechanical heat rejection (such as ventilation systems) or mechanical cooling (such as air conditioning systems). Behavioural measures should focus on how the user operates the home system, and put emphasis on proper methods for through-ventilation for heat rejection, window opening and closing regimes and time-shifting of heat-rejecting appliance use. This report recommends implementing a communications procedure through the Council website where social housing tenants can find advice on overheating and feed back about overheating they experience, and an assessment procedure for use in tenancy gaps and post-retrofit to assess properties for overheating risk.

Energy efficiency measures provide tremendous opportunities for achieving effective and cost‐friendly reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases. In the absence of more comprehensive legislative efforts, proponents of energy efficiency projects can look to existing environmental laws for tools to promote and encourage energy efficiency and conservation. One such law is the federal Clean Air Act (“CAA”), which empowers the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) to use a variety of mechanisms to address air pollution and protect the public health. Although the statute and its accompanying regulations are complex, the CAA provides a number of important avenues for advocates of energy efficiency programs. This White Paper aims to provide guidance on ways in which the CAA can be used to promote energy efficiency, by describing how advocates can participate in various actions under the CAA, as well as challenge final agency decisions that reflect insufficient consideration of the issue of energy efficiency and conservation. Proponents of energy efficiency projects who wish to take full advantage of the opportunities presented by the CAA also must pay close attention to state and federal environmental agency notices to ensure that they are aware of CAA developments that could provide these openings.

In an effort to make the social dimensions of energy conversion and use more visible, this article investigates the cultural barriers to energy efficiency technologies and devices and renewable power generators in the United States. To discover the cultural impediments to these technologies, the author conducted 181 formal, semi-structured interviews at more than 82 institutions (including electric utilities, regulatory agencies, interest groups, energy systems manufacturers, nonprofit organizations, consulting firms, universities, national laboratories, and state institutions) from 2005 to 2008. These interviews were supplemented with an extensive literature review. The study finds that the apparent disconnect between how electricity is made and how it is socially perceived perpetuates public apathy and misinformation about it; also that deeply held values related to consumption, abundance, trust, control, and freedom shape American attitudes toward energy. As a result, wind farms and solar panels (along with other renewable power systems) are often opposed not because they are a poor alternative to fossil fuels, but because people simply do not comprehend why such technologies may be needed.

This research was conducted in support of two branches of the EPA ENERGY STAR program, whose overall goal is to reduce, through voluntary market-based means, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the U.S. The primary objective was to collect data for the ENERGY STAR Office Equipment program on the after-hours power state of computers, monitors, printers, copiers, scanners, fax machines, and multi-function devices. We also collected data for the ENERGY STAR Commercial Buildings branch on the types and amounts of miscellaneous plug-load equipment, a significant and growing end use that is not usually accounted for by building energy managers. For most types of miscellaneous equipment, we also estimated typical unit energy consumption in order to estimate total energy consumption of the miscellaneous devices within our sample. This data set is the first of its kind that we know of, and is an important first step in characterizing miscellaneous plug loads in commercial buildings. The main purpose of this study is to supplement and update previous data we collected on the extent to which electronic office equipment is turned off or automatically enters a low power state when not in active use. In addition, it provides data on numbers and types of office equipment, and helps identify trends in office equipment usage patterns. These data improve our estimates of typical unit energy consumption and savings for each equipment type, and enables the ENERGY STAR Office Equipment program to focus future effort on products with the highest energy savings potential. This study expands our previous sample of office buildings in California and Washington DC to include education and health care facilities, and buildings in other states. We report data from sixteen commercial buildings in California, Georgia, and Pennsylvania: four education buildings, two medical buildings, two large offices (> 500 employees each), three medium offices (50-500 employees each), and five small business offices (< 50 employees each). Two buildings are in the San Francisco Bay are a of California, nine (including the five small businesses) are in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and five are in Atlanta, Georgia.