EE Global: Final Executive Dialogue Sessions Round Out EE Education

Brussels, Belgium; April 14, 2011 — Executive Dialogue sessions four and five brought the educational aspect of EE Global to the forefront of Wednesday's schedule. Chances are, even if you were here, you weren't able to be two places at once. But fear not, the Alliance staff has you covered! We sent our writers out to sessions on the intersection of government and industry, zero-energy buildings, and innovative financing mechanisms, among others.

4A: Creating Flexible and Workable Public Policy: Bringing Government and Industry Together

U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria James Warlick opened the morning’s discussion by highlighting the U.S. Embassy in Bulgaria – the first building in Bulgaria to achieve LEED status certification.

Delving into the ability for government and industry to work together, Dr. Kieren Mayers, Head of Technical Compliance at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited, detailed the EU’s Eco-Design Initiative and the necessity for early involvement by industry in creating voluntary agreements to pave the way for constructive engagement by government.

A key component of a workable public policy, as addressed by Barry Lynham, Head of Public Affairs Europe & CIS at Knauf Insulation, is business bringing financing options to the table and government providing the capacity building within countries so that energy efficient products and services are not just housed within the enabling business.

Concluding the morning’s dialogue, Amit Bando, Executive Director or the International Partnership for Energy Efficiency Cooperation (IPEEC), explained that general regulations are not conducive to energy efficiency in the marketplace, but through specific regulation there can be a move to neutral and then positive market infiltration.

4B: Getting to Zero Energy Buildings: Energy Efficiency as the Bedrock

Ken Mentzer from eepolicy group moderated this Executive Dialogue session, which focused on the importance of zero-energy homes (ZEHs) and buildings (ZEBs) for solving current energy and climate issues, and discussed the challenges that need to be addressed to facilitate their adoption worldwide.

The panel presented examples of zero-energy homes and communities that are already being built using existing technologies in Canada (Rob Smith, Minto Group), Mexico (Odón de Buen, ENTE), and Brazil (Roberto Lamberts, Federal University of Santa Catarina). Anthony Watanabe of Innovolve highlighted global collaborations that are underway to promote the scaling up of ZEBs globally.

The panelists identified a number of key factors for moving toward ZEHs and ZEBs, including stakeholder engagement along the value chain, mandated efficiency improvements through building codes (and enforcement!), financing (both commercial investment and mortgages), integrated design, and consistent measurement practices. Speaker Manlio Valdés from Ingersoll Rand added that the financial case for building high performance buildings needs to be linked to companies’ business strategies in order for these buildings to be fully supported by the private sector.

4D: Creating Sustainable Financing Streams: A Look at Innovative Mechanisms Driving Global Investments in Energy Efficiency

Session 4D highlighted the challenges and opportunities of financing energy efficiency globally and detailed a number of innovative finance mechanisms that are working today. Vincent Berrutto (European Commission) discussed the Intelligent Energy Europe financing program, which received funding of 730 million euros over a seven-year period, and the European Investment Bank Technical Facility (ELENA) that supports public investments in energy efficiency and requires 20 Euros of outside investment for every 1 euro invested through the fund.

Peter Sweatman (Climate Strategy) discussed a major study by his organization, Financing Energy Efficiency Building Retrofits, and the resulting hybrid aggregated business model which better meets stakeholder interests and addresses the challenges in the residential and SME sector of the market. Nigel Jollands (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) spoke of the tremendous strides the bank has made in lending on energy efficiency, noting it has lent out 6.6 billion euros in four years. EE lending now makes up 24% of the Bank’s volume.

A key theme of the session, noted by Nigel, was well expressed by the Rolling Stones in a song they covered in 1964 – Money – and the key verse “Money can’t buy everything, it’s true, but what money can’t buy, I can’t use." Today, however, money can buy the energy efficiency we all can use!

5A: Driving the 21st Century Smart Grid Through Public Policy

Energy efficiency was again called the "elephant in the room," but the smart grid at times seemed like the elephant we are feeling around for, each perceiving something different, even though all the panelists were at the consuming end of the beast. In general the smart grid was seen as the uneasy meeting of the power sector and the information technologies sector, for while the current power grid would still be recognizable to Thomas Edison, IT has moved from Alexander Graham Bell to the iPhone.

Floyd DesChamps of the Alliance to Save Energy emphasized the role of consumers, and the need to address their concerns from privacy to demonstrating the actual savings of their efficiency investments. Jean-Yves Blanc of Schneider Electric pointed out that without smart buildings there is no smart grid, and especially emphasized the tremendous potential of Building Automation and Control Systems (BACS) to achieve even 50% energy savings at low cost. Tom Catania of Whirlpool said we need to expand our understanding of energy efficiency to encompass the whole system (perhaps the whole elephant), and talked about the ability of smart appliances and other dispatchable efficiency mechanisms to make the grid more efficient and more able to incorporate episodic renewables.

In response to the need for stable policy frameworks, panelists pointed to the need for standards, labeling and clear building metrics and other consumer information, spur ring manufacture of smart appliances by encompassing smart capabilities in standards and labels, and price signals in order to make the pain bigger.

5B: Racing to Become the Most Energy Efficient Economy: Innovations and Practices Making the World’s Industrial Economies More Efficient

This session showcased energy-efficient innovations and policies with the potential to improve the efficiency of industrialized economies’ GDPs. Areas addressed included PC power management, the smart grid and industrial energy efficiency. It was chaired by Dr. Richard Bradley of the International Energy Association (IEA).

Sumir Karayi, 1E CEO, explained how IT can become more energy efficient through better utilization of PCs and servers. He referenced some of the wastage within organizations; for example, 40% of PCs are left on overnight. Bob Dixon (Siemens) outlined how to ride the green wave, highlighting how the LEED system is a great example of a global standard and best practice. He also stated that there’s too much discussion on generation and distribution, not enough on consumption. Finally, Balawant Joshi, of the ABPS Infrastructure Advisory, outlined market mechanisms for industrial energy efficiency. He stated the need to focus on the 4Es – energy, efficiency, equity and environment.