Tag Archives: energy savings

EPA Releases New Indoor Air Quality and Energy Efficiency Guidance for Schools

Colorado Springs School District 11 is set to save more than $928,000 on its energy bill every year, thanks to an effort to increase energy efficiency and protect indoor air quality.

This month we released our Energy Savings Plus Health: Indoor Air Quality Guidelines for School Building Upgrades, a guidance document designed to help schools reduce their environmental impact and ensure clean air for their students. Just like School District 11 in Colorado Springs, schools will likely be able to save some money, too.

Our new guidelines highlight best practices for addressing 23 critical indoor air quality topics, including moisture and mold control; hazardous materials such as asbestos and lead; building products and materials; and heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. They also examine how schools can think about improving indoor air quality while doing renovations to improve energy efficiency, and how renovations can achieve both goals.

One in five people across the U.S. are in a school building during school hours. Schools are often used as recreation centers, meeting places, and emergency shelters, too. They are one of the most visited buildings in many communities, so many people are affected when schools know how to operate efficiently while maintaining healthy indoor environments.

School districts across the country will reap the benefits of improved student and staff health, and they will also save precious dollars through reduced operational costs. We know that indoor air quality plays a critical role in health, attendance, and academic performance. Improving energy efficiency can also have significant environmental and economic benefits.

In addition to all the benefits school districts will see right away, focusing in on energy efficiency and indoor air quality together can help schools to shrink their carbon footprints and energy use, and prepare for potential impacts of climate change, including people choosing to spend more time indoors.

Be sure to check out our other publications and resources on good indoor air quality in the design, construction, renovation, maintenance, and operations of school buildings.

 

Editor's Note: The views expressed here are intended to explain EPA policy. They do not change anyone's rights or obligations. You may share this post. However, please do not change the title or the content, or remove EPA’s identity as the author. If you do make substantive changes, please do not attribute the edited title or content to EPA or the author.

EPA's official web site is www.epa.gov. Some links on this page may redirect users from the EPA website to specific content on a non-EPA, third-party site. In doing so, EPA is directing you only to the specific content referenced at the time of publication, not to any other content that may appear on the same webpage or elsewhere on the third-party site, or be added at a later date.

EPA is providing this link for informational purposes only. EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of non-EPA information provided by any third-party sites or any other linked site. EPA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies, internet applications or any policies or information expressed therein.

Cooking and Being Green

By Nora Lopez

Brrrr … It’s cold!  I want to eat things that warm up my belly once I get home from work. But my schedule is pretty hectic. I am lucky, I only work 10 minutes from the office, but when I get home it is around 5:30 pm and I usually cook a real meal every night as we are not into picking up food on the way home… there is nothing like a home cooked meal! However, I do need to be out of the house by 6:30 pm to go to the gym, every night … a commitment I set for myself once the kids were out of the house 🙂  Dinner needs to be ready in one hour….oh and by the way, I just started a Paleo diet this week  (if you do not know what it is Google it… and it will open your eyes to a new way of cooking!).

So  what does my ordeal have anything to do with cooking and being green? Let me introduce you to my solution to the rat race: The CROCKPOT! I just put it on early in the morning, before I leave to go to work, and when I come in I have a meal ready, add a salad and voila! Yummy food 🙂   I am so much into it that I was trying to convince my sister to get one, but she was very hesitant … she lives in Puerto Rico and electricity is extremely expensive there. So she was concerned that having a Crockpot on all day would increase her electric bill.

So the scientist in me was turned on and went digging for information on the energy efficiency of this pot.  What I found was great information that says that it depends on your stove and type of fuel. The following table I found the most helpful because it was simple to understand. Obviously you need to adjust per your watt costs, but it gives you an idea of the energy consumption:

What I also found is that there are so many web sites for people who are concerned about the energy consumption issue; what is better or not; weighing the pros and cons, that it really made me feel good that so many people think about how our behavior can influence how we can save in energy resources.

As for my sister, once she saw all the information I gathered on how she would be saving money in electrical … she ran to the department store and got an energy efficient Crockpot and she invited me over to delicious pulled pork the next time I was in Puerto Rico.

My first convert! …. Anyone else?

About the Author: Nora works out of EPA’s Edison, New Jersey facility, where she manages the Region’s Toxics Release Inventory Program.  After work she can often be found channeling her inner chef.

Editor's Note: The views expressed here are intended to explain EPA policy. They do not change anyone's rights or obligations. You may share this post. However, please do not change the title or the content, or remove EPA’s identity as the author. If you do make substantive changes, please do not attribute the edited title or content to EPA or the author.

EPA's official web site is www.epa.gov. Some links on this page may redirect users from the EPA website to specific content on a non-EPA, third-party site. In doing so, EPA is directing you only to the specific content referenced at the time of publication, not to any other content that may appear on the same webpage or elsewhere on the third-party site, or be added at a later date.

EPA is providing this link for informational purposes only. EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of non-EPA information provided by any third-party sites or any other linked site. EPA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies, internet applications or any policies or information expressed therein.

Energy Efficient Improvements to the Metropolitan Transit Authority

By Larry Siegel

I’ve long been interested in keeping abreast of news pertaining to developments in the area of energy efficiency, wind power, solar power and other forms of renewable energy. Towards that end I subscribe to various newsletters put out by organizations such as the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the Rocky Mountain Institute (which recently published a fascinating peer reviewed book “Reinventing Fire: Bold Solutions for the New Energy Era” that maps out a plan for running a 158%-bigger U.S. economy by 2050 without needing fossil fuels or nuclear power plants) and Greenjobs.com which reports on developments in the areas of solar, wind, alternative fuel sources such as biofuels, hydrogen and fuel cells.

Pursuing my interest in these areas I contacted the Metropolitan Transit Authority headquarters in New York to see what, if any, energy efficient improvements they are pursuing. I was pleasantly surprised to learn there is quite a lot going on – more than I can cover in one blog post. Here are some items worth noting:

  • Heating, cooling and ventilation upgrades to the equipment in Grand Central Station will save $3 million a year and reduce Metro-North Railroad’s annual carbon emissions by 10,000 tons.
  • Replacing incandescent bulbs with advanced technology light-emitting diodes (LEDs) will reduce electricity consumption by at least 1.04 megawatts per year, saving at least $500,000 annually.
  • Replacing vapor necklace lights on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, the Throgs Neck Bridge and the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge with high efficiency LEDs will reduce electricity costs by 73%. 832 lights at the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel were replaced with high-efficiency lighting, saving 500,000 kilowatts a year or $55,000 annually.
  • The Long Island Railroad is completing a train car wash facility in Babylon that will filter, recondition and reuse more than 70% of its wash water. In addition, solar power energy panels for the facility will save an estimated $6,700 a year on utility costs.

About the Author: Larry Siegel has worked as a writer of corporate policies and procedures and as a technical writer. He currently works as a Pesticide Community Outreach Specialist for the Pesticide and Toxic Substances Branch in Edison, NJ

Editor's Note: The views expressed here are intended to explain EPA policy. They do not change anyone's rights or obligations. You may share this post. However, please do not change the title or the content, or remove EPA’s identity as the author. If you do make substantive changes, please do not attribute the edited title or content to EPA or the author.

EPA's official web site is www.epa.gov. Some links on this page may redirect users from the EPA website to specific content on a non-EPA, third-party site. In doing so, EPA is directing you only to the specific content referenced at the time of publication, not to any other content that may appear on the same webpage or elsewhere on the third-party site, or be added at a later date.

EPA is providing this link for informational purposes only. EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of non-EPA information provided by any third-party sites or any other linked site. EPA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies, internet applications or any policies or information expressed therein.

Overheated NYC Apartments Can be Prevented!

By Juan G. Gutierrez

May 31st marks the end of the “Heat Season,” for building owners in New York City to provide heat to tenants until October 1st.  This should also mark the period to begin repairing, tuning up, or replacing boilers and radiators in the multifamily buildings throughout the city.  One of NYC tenants’ major complaint, beside very little heat in a city apartment, is an overheated apartment!  Some apartments are so hot that it kills house plants and tenants resort to desert plants! New Yorkers’ solution to overheated apartments for years has been to open up their windows, to release some of the heat trapped in their apartments.  Many of these buildings are overheated simply because they have a hard time ensuring that every apartment is heated.  So some apartments in the same building might be overheating while other apartments might just have enough heat to comply with the City Housing Maintenance Code and State Multiple Dwelling Law.

There are solutions for these old apartment buildings that have problems with overheating by their water or steam radiators.  One consideration could be the installation of thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) on every radiator in the building.  Most TRVs do not require electricity, are easy to install by almost any handy person, and can cost as little as $40 to $50 each.  TRVs have a built-in sensor that opens and closes the radiator according to the temperature in the room, providing an individualized comfort control to any room.

TRV is a proven technology that has been around since the mid 1940’s.  TRV has been put to test in a demonstration project in 1995 here in NYC, by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) Report No. 95-14, Titled: Thermostatic Radiator Valve (TRV) Demonstration Project Reference No. PB96-198163.  The report concluded that “overheated apartments achieved energy savings through the installation of TRVs.”    Since the report was written in 1995, the savings associated with fuel cost might be even greater today making the simple payback period even shorter.

Other maintenance tips that apartment building owners and management can do to their boiler heating systems are:

  • Clean boilers and radiators
  • Tune boilers
  • Replace leaking radiator vents and steam main vents
  • Insulate bare piping
  • Reduce domestic hot water at a constant minimum temperature of 120º degrees Fahrenheit to prevent scalds and save energy (check local codes for specific temperatures)
  • TRV temperature should be set at 70º degrees Fahrenheit

The best thing about TRVs is that the investment made to control radiator heat pays for itself in the long run through energy cost savings.  It also provides a comfortable apartment temperature.

About the Author:  Juan is an Environmental Protection Specialist with EPA Region 2.  He is currently the region’s ENERGY STAR coordinator.  He grew up in Corona Queens, NY, and is a former US Marine Corps Sergeant.  He graduated from SUNY Stony Brook with a Bachelor’s Degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics and received a Masters in Public Administration from CUNY Baruch College.  Juan currently resides in Corona Queens where you can usually find him riding a bicycle.

Editor's Note: The views expressed here are intended to explain EPA policy. They do not change anyone's rights or obligations. You may share this post. However, please do not change the title or the content, or remove EPA’s identity as the author. If you do make substantive changes, please do not attribute the edited title or content to EPA or the author.

EPA's official web site is www.epa.gov. Some links on this page may redirect users from the EPA website to specific content on a non-EPA, third-party site. In doing so, EPA is directing you only to the specific content referenced at the time of publication, not to any other content that may appear on the same webpage or elsewhere on the third-party site, or be added at a later date.

EPA is providing this link for informational purposes only. EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of non-EPA information provided by any third-party sites or any other linked site. EPA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies, internet applications or any policies or information expressed therein.

Spring into Energy Savings

By Brittney Gordon

These past two weeks has brought unusually high temperatures to the D.C. area and I am taking full advantage of the sunny weather. I am always excited about the coming of spring and this early start motivates me to shake up my normal routine and start to do some of the things that I have been putting off. For me that includes some energy saving moves that will save my family money and help protect our environment from climate change.

If you are feeling inspired to do the same, here are a few easy tips:

  • Change to More Efficient Light Bulbs: I still have a couple of incandescent bulbs hanging around the house and it is high time that I change them to Energy Star qualified models. Energy Star qualified lighting not only uses less energy, but also produces approximately 75 percent less heat than incandescent lighting, so your cooling bills will be reduced, too.
  • Find the Best Thermostat Settings: If you have a programmable thermostat, program it to work around your family’s spring schedule—set it a few degrees higher when no one is home, so your cooling system isn’t cooling an empty house.
  • Use Ceiling Fans: Run your ceiling fan to create a cool breeze. If you raise your thermostat by only two degrees and use your ceiling fan, you can lower cooling costs by up to 14 percent. Remember that ceiling fans cool you, not the room, so when you leave the room make sure to turn off the fan.
  • Maximize Shade: Pull the curtains and shades closed before you leave your home to keep the sun’s rays from overheating the interior of your home. If you can, move container trees and plants in front of sun-exposed windows to serve as shade.
  • Check Air Conditioner Filters: Check your cooling system’s air filter every month. If the filter looks dirty, change it. A good rule is to change the filter at least every three months. A dirty filter will slow air flow and make the system work harder to keep you cool—wasting energy. Also, remember to have your system serviced annually to ensure it’s running at optimum efficiency for money and energy savings.

For more information on how you can save energy this spring, check out Energy Star’s website for lots of great tips.

About the author: Brittney Gordon works on the communications team for EPA’s ENERGY STAR program. She began working for EPA in 2010 after a career in broadcast journalism.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

Editor's Note: The views expressed here are intended to explain EPA policy. They do not change anyone's rights or obligations. You may share this post. However, please do not change the title or the content, or remove EPA’s identity as the author. If you do make substantive changes, please do not attribute the edited title or content to EPA or the author.

EPA's official web site is www.epa.gov. Some links on this page may redirect users from the EPA website to specific content on a non-EPA, third-party site. In doing so, EPA is directing you only to the specific content referenced at the time of publication, not to any other content that may appear on the same webpage or elsewhere on the third-party site, or be added at a later date.

EPA is providing this link for informational purposes only. EPA cannot attest to the accuracy of non-EPA information provided by any third-party sites or any other linked site. EPA does not endorse any non-government websites, companies, internet applications or any policies or information expressed therein.