ASHRAE President Sees A Busy Year Ahead For The Industry, Part 1
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 | Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, Energy Saving Tips, HVAC Regulations and Standards
2009 was not a fun year. So we at Just Venting are resisting the temptation to look back and see where we were and what happened. Rather, we choose to look forward to the coming year. What does 2010 hold in store? What are the trends and issues that will shape how we will do business next year, in five years and even further into the future?
To get a sense of what is to come, we had a chance to talk with Gordon Holness, 2009-2010 President of ASHRAE, (the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers). In a wide-ranging discussion, he spoke with us about the trends and events that will affect the industry for years to come.
Holness referred throughout our conversation to the fact that in America, “40% of our country’s primary energy is consumed by buildings, and 75-80 percent of the buildings that exist in this country today will still be here in 2030.” So if we are to reduce our energy use in a meaningful way, we will need to pay more attention to retrofitting existing buildings to make them more energy efficient.
“EPAC in 2005, EISA in 2007 and ACES in 2009 — while they are important pieces of legislation, they primarily deal with new buildings and energy efficiency. While ARRA (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) did address older buildings a little, there needs to be more emphasis on retrofitting existing buildings.” He noted that while politically you cannot force people to renovate, you can incentivize them.”
Holness mentioned a recent McKinsey and Company report that showed we could achieve a 23% reduction in building energy use with capital expenditures of around $170 billion, yielding a return on investment of 17% on that money. He went on to say that increasing energy efficiency of existing building stocks is a more productive use of dollars than investing in renewable energy.
“If you want to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy, then improving energy efficiency of buildings already in existence is three times more effective than using alternative energy sources such as solar or wind,” he says. Solar and wind power are still not as economical as energy efficiency measures and are inconsistent as dependable sources of power, he notes, stating that the first step toward achieving the twin goals of reducing energy use and reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be to improve the energy efficiency of our existing buildings.
Another area worth a closer look, Holness believes, is groundsource heat pumps – what we call geothermal energy here in the U.S. “In Europe, they consider groundsource heat pumps to be a source of renewable energy, even though they do consume some energy. In the U.S., we have adopted a more purist philosophy that to be renewable, it can’t consume any energy, but under EISA, geothermal is now considered a renewable resource.” Holness added that in Europe, a heat pump must produce at least 2.7 watts of energy for every watt it consumes, and some produce at a ratio as high as four or five to 1.
Watch for Part 2 of this thought-provoking interview with Gordon Holness to be published over the next few days.
Rich Silverman
Goodway Blogging Team
