Energy Services
These are the things that energy delivers or enables. Examples include:
- Transportation
- Cooling
- Lighting
The challenge is to provide these services with the least carbon pollution and environmental damage possible.
Energy Efficiency
Approaches to energy savings.
- Individual optimization
- Integrative design
- Alternate approaches to get energy service
Energy and Efficiency Metrics
- BTU per square foot
- Cost of Conserved Energy
- Cost of Avoided Carbon
- Simple Payback
- Watts per CFM
- UA value
- Energy per unit of service (mile, lumen, etc.)
- Carbon per unit of service (mile, lumen, etc.)
Indirect Benefits
Energy improvements often create benefits in other areas.
For example improved LED lighting can
- Reduce waste heat, lowering cooling energy
- Improve color rendering in a space
- Improve worker performance
Indirect Benefits Metrics
- Productivity
- Absenteeism
- Health Care
Efficiency Levers
These four “levers” are adapted from RMI Reinventing Fire, Industry.
- Reduce energy for fundamental processes
- Is there a way to reduce the energy needs?
- Is there an alternate way to get the energy service?
- Solar heat, solar electricity, etc.
- Reduce distribution losses
- Improve device efficiency
- Motors, boilers, and others
- Utilize waste energy
- Can you use waste heat from
Other Practices
- Dematerialization
- energy and other costs are often proportional to materials so reducing is an important practice
- example: additive and subtractive manufacturing
- example: silvering mirrors before or after cutting
- Biomimicry
- use of natural biological processes in industry
- Digital process controls
- making full use of automation and digital technology for process contral