The OurEnergyLibrary aggregates and indexes publicly available fact sheets, journal articles, reports, studies, and other publications on U.S. energy topics. It is updated every week to include the most recent energy resources from academia, government, industry, non-profits, think tanks, and trade associations. Suggest a resource by emailing us at info@ourenergypolicy.org.
Resource Library
101 to 110 of 343 item(s) were returned.
… View Full Resource
… View Full Resource
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Building Technologies Program has adopted
the goal of making zero-energy commercial buildings (ZEBs) marketable by 2025. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) conducted an assessment of the entire commercial sector to evaluate the technical potential for meeting this goal with technology available in 2005 and projected forward to possible technology improvements for 2025. The analysis looked at the technical feasibility of ZEBs, limitations in market penetration and utility grid structures notwithstanding.
The core of the evaluation was based on creating 15-minute, annual simulations based on 5,375 buildings in the 1999 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption …
View Full ResourceReal estate actors across the United States are at the precipice of a major climate opportunity. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the increased focus by investors, lenders, regulators, and policymakers on building decarbonization, positions the sector to take meaningful action.
To inform this opportunity, RMI conducted a bottom-up carbon analysis of the US building stock to determine the relative operational emissions for each segment. To the knowledge of RMI, this is the most detailed US buildings emissions model created to date. This report provides a breakdown of US building carbon emissions by segment, subsegment, and building size …
View Full ResourceIn this report, we review the energy and financial outcomes for households participating in several programs based on successive versions of the Pay As You Save® (PAYS®) system. PAYS® programs offer non-debt financing for energy efficiency (and sometimes other technologies) in residential buildings and collect repayment through a tariff attached to the home’s utility meter that is designed to be offset by project savings.
We collected and analyzed project financial data from five PAYS® programs and analyzed the electricity and gas usage impacts of one program (Midwest Energy) using weather-normalized methods applied to metered energy consumption data. We also calculated …
View Full ResourceIn 2019, Marriott International (Marriott) launched the Marriott Infrastructure Resilience and Adaptation (MIRA) program to evaluate climate-related risks across its global portfolio of nearly 8,600 properties spanning 139 countries and territories. Through this comprehensive program, Marriott identified current and future climate risks to its portfolio and has a strategy in place to manage potential impacts, improve resiliency and mitigate losses to stakeholders.…
View Full ResourceA broad suite of performance metrics is required to provide a holistic picture of how energy efficiency (EE) and distributed energy resource (DER) upgrades affect each stakeholder, and how their value varies by home. This report quantifies the relative and combined value of EE and DER investments within the residential, single-family home sector. The new workflow developed combines multiple tools from both the buildings and the solar plus storage domain to enable this analysis from the perspective of multiple stakeholders. This allows simulations to be performed for residential buildings to be modeled anywhere in the country with any efficiency features, …
View Full ResourceAs the adoption of solar plus storage technology is rapidly increasing, there is a need for a more wholistic view of homes adopting them. In homes, both energy efficiency (EE) upgrades and DERs provide value not just to the homeowner, but to utilities and even society at large through emissions. Traditionally, EE and DERs are separate sectors, which makes it difficult to understand the co-benefits of their adoption. To address this, we created a novel workflow of tools that allows for a complete analysis of both efficiency and DERs. We also looked at a suite of metrics designed to capture …
View Full ResourceWith growing concerns about climate change, resilience, and housing affordability, the urgency to decarbonize US residential buildings is more pressing than ever. This challenge also presents an unparalleled opportunity for innovation and market expansion in the construction industry.
This report is targeted towards product manufacturers, fabricators, contractors, installers, design professionals, owners, and real estate developers. It provides essential technical insights and cost guidance for scalable zero-carbon-aligned (ZCA) new construction methods and retrofit solutions across various US climate regions.…
As the U.S. works to meet emissions reduction goals and modernize power sector operations, residential buildings – which account for 21% of the total U.S. electricity consumption – will play a key role. Residential buildings with energy efficiency and distributed energy resources are able to provide value to multiple stakeholders, including the occupant, utility, and society at large. To account for this, multiple metrics that capture the value each stakeholder gets are required. This report contains analysis of a unique solar plus storage community in Vermont, including the calculation of multiple metrics and a unique “score card” that succinctly captures …
View Full Resource