energy usage

What Our Internal Data Shows About Coronavirus Impacts

Posted on by abrahamwien18

By The Enel X Energy Intelligence Team, Strategy
View the original article here.

As America enters its second month of widespread lockdowns, the effects of these measures are becoming clearer, especially in electricity demand. Data from the largest United States regional transmission operators (RTOs) show grid-wide declines in electricity usage.

However, because this data includes commercial, industrial and residential end users, the true impacts to specific sectors of the economy are largely hidden—increases in residential energy demand partially or entirely offset significant declines seen in commercial demand. Below, Enel X provides an inside look at our internal data to show how the effects of coronavirus are being felt across individual sectors.

The Broader Picture: Energy Demand Is Down

Grid-wide RTO data shows that energy demand is broadly down for the entirety of 2020. In the first two months of 2020, a mild winter led to lower-than-average consumption due to a decline in heating demand. Then, in mid-March, coronavirus shutdowns led to further drops in demand.

Every year will include variations due to temperature fluctuations, but this sustained and ongoing drop has some analysts worried about long-term effects on consumers. A decline of this magnitude, as James Newcomb of the Rocky Mountain Institute told Utility Dive, could severely affect revenue for utilities. To recoup their losses, utilities may have to increase customer rates.

The drop since mid-March is even more noteworthy when controlling for factors like temperature—The New York Times highlighted work by Steve Cicala, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, who has demonstrated that changes in electricity demand closely tracked changes in GDP during the 2008 financial crisis. Currently, Cicala’s adjusted numbers find electricity demand down about 8% from expectations as of April 6th.

Enel X Internal Data: A Drop in Demand Across Sectors, With Notable Exceptions

Grid-wide data does not tell the story of specific industries, though, and the aggregate numbers include residential data. Internal data from our commercial and industrial customers – who represent approximately 2% of demand across USA and Canada—tells a more detailed story. Most commercial and industrial sectors have seen far more significant declines in consumption than the grid-wide data suggests.

The industries at the bottom of the chart are those with the most drastic reductions, and they are largely unsurprising—media and entertainment is considered inessential, flights are restricted, and schools are closed.

Increases show that some businesses – or even entire industries – are now ramping up their efforts and being called upon to work harder than ever.  Manufacturing has seen a moderate decline in average demand, but our numbers show the sector has seen an uptick in peak demand. 

In part, this may be because many individual manufacturers are operating at a higher level than ever before. One customer we spoke to – a manufacturer of household foods – explained just how much has changed this past month. As a result of quarantine orders and increases in grocery demand, they said, their products have been flying off of shelves. Their order volume has gone up significantly as a result, and that’s led to much higher production levels—what is normally a 24/5 plant has become 24/7, and the plant itself is expanding. 

“Even as demand returns to normal,” the customer told us, “our plant will have to work at higher than normal production levels likely until at least the end of the year.”

What Lies Ahead

Professor Cicala notes that the United States’ electricity trend has tracked Europe with a lag, indicating a further drop may be coming. The grid-wide data shows there is room to fall—ERCOT (Texas), for instance, only implemented state-wide lockdowns on April 2.

If widespread shutdowns and work-from-home measures remain in place when warm summer months arrive, consumption could vary greatly from normal patterns. Commercial buildings often have more efficient cooling systems than personal homes, and offices generally have fewer cubic feet per person than a home does.

While it’s too soon to tell what long-term implications the virus will have on the energy sector, the impact has already been felt in the way homes and businesses are using electricity.

Incentives Aim to Green Up New York, Reduce Operating Costs for Building Owners

Posted on by abrahamwien18

By Joshua Ayers, Senior Editor, 5/20/2014
View the original article here

New York—A recent study found that 75 percent of greenhouse gasses in New York City are being generated by buildings, a majority of which are multifamily residential buildings. The alarming figures have prompted an assortment of companies and organizations, ranging from major utility companies to the mayor’s office, to develop programs that incentivize green upgrades in an effort to entice multifamily building owners to curb emissions.

A panel of industry experts explored the fiscal perks of these programs at FirstService Residential’s Third Annual Green Expo & Symposium May 15 in New York, stressing the importance of participating in the programs before they are no longer available.

“What’s packaged inside of this is not only trying to operate your building more efficiently, cleaner, greener, but also as a major opportunity to save money,” said FirstService Residential President Dan Wurtzel as he opened up the discussion. “Ultimately if at the end of the day that’s where we end up then we’re all in a better place. We save money, we’re contributing to a greener environment and probably our property values are going to go up because of the reputation of the building. So it’s a win-win all the way around.”

One of the largest incentive programs currently available to New York building owners is NYSERDA’s flagship program, the Multifamily Performance Program (MPP), which allots building owners $500 to $1000 per unit to help reduce energy usage by 15 percent. To qualify, owners must work with one of about 90 NYSERDA-approved partners, which include engineering firms, energy consultants and non-profit organizations. That chosen partner then assess and recommend improvements that will help them achieve the reduction. Owners become eligible for an additional $300 per-unit bonus if they are able to meet the criteria.

“The good news is that the way that all this is calculated and the way that electricity rates work, 15 percent energy reduction is about a 15 percent cost reduction,” says Michael Colgrove, director of NYSERDA’s New York City office, who directly oversees the multifamily programs. “If you know how much you spend annually on energy usage, you take 15 percent off of that, and that’s about what the program [can do to] assist you.”

Colgrove said that most buildings in the program end up reducing usage by 20 to 25 percent and that there have been some buildings that have cut energy use by as much as 40 percent. In addition to the initial incentives, owners can qualify for an additional $300 per unit if they are able to reduce usage.

But the panelists stressed the importance of taking advantage of these programs, as most of them do have set term limits.

For example, Con Edison has created a new program aimed at curbing peak summer demand energy uses. The program, called the Demand Management Program, provides a certain amount of money for every kilowatt of energy saved via a variety of methods such as lighting upgrades, While owners can potentially save thousands of dollars through these incentives, the program will end promptly in June 2016.

Con Edison also has other programs that reward energy reduction such as the four-year Commercial and Industrial Program, which features components that provides rebates for energy efficient equipment and other incentives that can help fund up to 50 percent of a green capital improvement project.

“Some programs have quadrupled the amount of programs and funding available,” said panelist John Skipper, business development for Energy Efficiency & demand response, Con Edison

While these incentive programs allow for building owners to save thousands of dollars in operating costs and give buildings a greener footprint, proper research in rare cases can lead to an additional source of income.

Panelist William C. Ragals, Jr., board president of The Strand Condominium in Manhattan says his board took advantage of now-expired NYSERDA and Con Edison oil-to-gas conversion incentives to help fund the installation of a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) that has allows the building to produce energy at below Con Edison rates.

“With the money that they gave us and the efficiencies that we received in operating expenses by switching from oil to gas, the balance of our out-of-pocket was recovered by us in about five months,” Ragals said.

Despite all of the available programs, qualifying for incentives does not come without a set of challenges. Ragals says that researching the program and educating board members or property managers is the first step to addressing these challenges.

“I had to educate my board and that is something you have to face,” he says.

Another key step to reeling in incentive money is to identify what upgrades need to made and which ones will have the best effect on operating costs.

This can be determined several ways. One way is to utilize information collected through annual benchmarking reports (a requirement of Local Law 84) to identify how much energy a building uses and how that figure compares to other similar buildings in order to determine whether an upgrade is warranted. The second involves conducting an Energy Efficiency Report, something that is already required every 10 years for larger building thanks in part to Greener, Greater Buildings Plan efforts, specifically Local Law 87, which that mandates such an inspection for “covered buildings” with 50,000 or more gross square feet.

“Basically you have a qualified contractor come in and analyze the system that’s in your building and tell you where you can save energy,” said Jenna Tatum, NYC Carbon Challenge Director, New York City Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability.

Tatum says that the building owners can get credit for the audits up to four years in advance of the 10 year deadline, and that while the audit does cost money, there are no requirements necessary to commit to any projects.
Colgrove clarified, however, that work has to already have started before NYSERDA incentives will be paid out.
“NYSERDA won’t actually give you an incentive until you’ve installed at least 50 percent of that work,” he said, adding that “NYSERDA’s MPP program has a clause in it that says ‘we will recognize any work that a building has done up to a year of applying to the program,’ and that can qualify toward your 15 percent target.”