GCC: California targets buildings for GHG reduction

[GRA]

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/0 ... 1-cec.html

Calling for the next frontier of energy planning and policy, the California Energy Commission approved the 2018 Integrated Energy Policy Report. The report highlights California’s past successes but focuses attention on how a state with nearly 40 million people will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2018, renewable energy provided about 34 percent of the electricity used to serve the state. While significant progress has been made, there is more work to be done, especially in light of California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment. It found Californians must prepare for a future punctuated by severe wildfires, rising sea levels and extreme weather.

The policy report highlights the need to decarbonize buildings and double energy efficiency savings.

• In California, building GHG emissions are second only to transportation, when accounting for electricity use, water use, and wastewater treatment. The focus over the past decade has been on advancing zero-net-energy buildings, and this must pivot to zero-emission buildings as the state mobilizes to meet its 2030 and 2050 climate goals. This change from zero-net energy to zero-emission buildings focuses squarely on reducing GHG emissions from the entire building, including from the use of electricity, natural gas, other fuels, as well as cooling systems that typically use highly potent GHGs.
  
  —2018 Integrated Energy Policy Report

The Energy Commission also approved key investments to encourage emerging technologies to help food processing plants work toward a low-carbon future. More than a dozen projects received grant funds in Central Valley towns, such as Kingsburg, Woodland, Livingston and Tulare. The projects will reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions associated with food production.

Link to report here: https://www.energy.ca.gov/2018_energypolicy/documents/

[Oilpan4]

It seems they realize the scale of the problem now.

That's basic power generation.
It's usually always cheaper to save a watt than build a watt worth of generating capacity.
Or if you need heating it's usually cheaper to combust a watt worth of heat rather than power it.

People are often skeptical about the power company wanting to help them save energy. I'm not. The more people they can power up before they need to build another power plant the more money they make.

The easiest thing a food plant can do to save a watt is put most of the pumps and conveyers on frequency drives.
For example the 200hp pumps that feed water to the place where I work are on drives. One motor runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week, the second one kicks on a few times a day for maybe an hour or 3. Just this one motor and drive saves at least several hundred kwh every single day compared to running it full speed and regulating pressure with a valve like they did back in the old days.

I read a DoE report few months ago that said only 4% of industrial motors are on drives.

Ha, where I work about 80% of the motors are on drives. Power bill still comes in around $30,000 per day, I hate to think what it would be with out all those super high efficiency instrument controlled motors on drives.

[GRA]

It seems they realize the scale of the problem now. <snip>

Actually, California has been dealing with the scale of the problem for forty years, as we were the first state to have building energy efficiency standards (Title 24, 1978), back during Jerry Brown's first go-around as Governor (1975-1983): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Energy_Code.

We also implemented appliance energy efficiency standards (Title 20, 1976): https://www.energy.ca.gov/title20/ which ultimately influenced the Federal Government to begin the Energy Star program. Both standards are regularly updated.