Mindmapping Vermont's Energy Planning, a Beginning

Brainstorming Vermont's Energy Planning c.Steve Frey 2011

I missed the VT Energy Plan June 1st workshop and information gathering session held at National Life last week. So I thought I'd contribute a mind map or visual brainstorm of my recent thoughts about the planning effort and areas of focus I see as important to ensuring a sustainable and bright future for generations to come.  Check out a link to Renewable Energy Vermont's recent interview on VPR for other perspectives.  

So often in our overwhelming information overloaded world it's helpful to find ways to distill the issues quickly.  Visual thinking offers a quick pictorial way to lay it all out there and show connections and relationships not easy to make easily in writing or speaking.  Thus I offer these two brainstorming sketches which while inherently incomplete offer a "take" on the issues and opportunities before us in our great state.

We have precious natural resources here in Vermont with first and foremost the bright passionate and well educated people in Vermont.  I wonder if there's a way to crowd source feedback to the public service board in parallel to helpful meetings being held across the state?  By using Twitter and LinkedIn and other social media sites perhaps we can collect together perspectives and ideas not easily obtained otherwise.  Last night on Twitter I started a hashtage called #vermontenergyplan to help track the conversation.  I also used the hashtag #vermont as well.  Put either of these tags into Twitter's search function and you will see this growing conversation!

By tackling this effort with an integrated and systematic planning, public and private partnerships and ultimately actions we take, we can build a more sustainable visionary Vermont. 

Community Energy Guidebook Released for Vermonters

     Earlier this month the Vermont Natural Resources Council released its long awaited Energy Planning Guidebook to help Vermont communities become more sustainable and energy independent.  Whether you live here or elsewhere but care about how your community evolves and fights climate change on a grass-roots level check out this manual and video to learn more.
     Whether involving weatherization, installing more insulation, air-sealing, replacing aging heating and cooling infrastructure in your public buildings, schools, churches and housing this information is a helpful starting point.  Many Vermont towns and cities have Energy Committees working independently of each other yet collaborating together to make a difference state-wide.  There's a statewide organization unifying all of the individual energy committees and large and small stakeholders called VECAN (VT Energy Climate Action Network.  It's an exciting group who has held numerous statewide conferences.
     This document is full of best practices culled for years of experience you and others in your community can learn from and extend forward! The guidebook covers why to do it in the first place, how to generally go about it, engaging the public in energy planning, organizing the plan, assessing community needs and opportunities among other areas.  It also shares the latest information about Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Development focusing on existing programs, planning for energy efficiency and adding renewable energy along with barriers impeding progress.
     Let me know what you think of the guidebook and if it is helpful to you and your community?

Supporting Clean Energy_A Vermont Perspective

Here's a video I posted to the RePower America Wall about supporting Clean Energy. Like I said in the video below I see here in Vermont all around me communities shifting away from dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil to renewable, clean sources.  Shifting towards cleaner sources both benefits our local environment and promotes green jobs in our local communities.  Many Vermont companies now manufacture, install and consult on bringing clean energy, whether solar, wind, geothermal, biomass into Vermont homes, businesses and institutions.  By doing so we ensure a more stable and sustainable way of life for generations to come.

For more information about the impact of renewable energy here in Vermont I urge you to click on this link to the Renewable Energy Vermont website and it's sister entity, Efficiency Vermont, an energy efficiency utility working to bring energy efficiency and conservation deeper into households and businesses around our small state.  Another resource is the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, an organization dedicated to shifting Vermont towards clean energy and green jobs.  

What's great about Vermont is while we may be small, we have big ideas and a track record others can learn from on their journey towards shifting away from fossil fuel dependence towards clean energy and building stronger local communities.  Check us out for best practices on how to do this.  Contact me if you'd  like more information from any of these resources or if you're considering adding renewable energy sources to your building project.  I can help or if not, I will find someone who can.

World 2.0 - Regenerating Our Way Out of the Crisis

Face it. The world changed last September with the dramatic fall of the world economy. Many of us lost jobs and/ or homes and livelihoods in the worst cases, or went on reduced salary, experienced furloughs or other creative attempts at financial triage to keep organizations afloat. It hasn’t been much fun and it isn’t over yet. The building industry and the architecture profession have been hit very hard due to the drying up of traditional credit and financial markets to fund project construction. Clients reconsidered or shelved projects, or put them on long-term hold determined to wait out the current crisis. The ripple effect on our business has been telling and heart breaking. I’ve heard unconfirmed reports at least 30% of architects are out of work in the greater Boston area for example. Closer to home many firms in Vermont have downsized significantly, radically transforming themselves to respond to the economic crisis and continue in business. But there is an upside to this challenging present, it’s believing in the power of regeneration.

Recently a friend of mine, Danny Sagan, a designer with his firm Terra Firm and Associate Professor at Norwich University in Northfield, VT, said, (and I’m paraphrasing) “Finally the gravy days are over where people can make money out of thin. We have returned to a place Americans are good at; dealing with adversity and challenging times. Business people in the near future will earn success the old fashioned way, through hard work, street smarts and perseverance.” I could not agree more. The competition for what work is available is intense with at least triple the usual amount of interested firms actively seeking projects. In order to win work firms must stand out. What does this mean then? Does one give up and close up shop in the face of such adversity? Or rather, rise to the occasion, be innovative and inventive in redefining your message and business offer?

Let’s seek the innovative path. If you can’t meet and surpass the clients requirements and establish yourself as a leader with a clear message and value, it will be very hard to keep the doors open. We must work smarter than ever before. Why not ask Nature what she would do? I think she would say think about the concept of regeneration. Biologically speaking regeneration is the restoration of new growth by an organism or organs, tissues etc. lost, removed or injured. To regenerate means to re-create, reconstitute, or make over, especially in a better form or condition. This idea of rebirth, albeit in an improved form, points to a future with promise and optimism.

Looking into Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution and the idea of successful adaptation of some species at the expense of others who diminish into extinction offers a stark message. Survival and success directly relates to the ability to adapt and respond to changing and often puzzling environments. What would nature do in our place? What are the adaptive actions you can take with your business? Why not examine in our case the architects’ traditional roles and activities on one hand and compare that to a pressing short list of societal needs and demands. Does our traditional way of doing things mesh with the new realities before us. What’s out of balance? What are we missing? Find areas needing restoration of balance to the system and you are on to societal need to focus upon for your services offer.

I identify four keys areas; water, energy, atmosphere and increasing organizational effectiveness in this changed world, which are out of balance. The first three are well-documented diminishing natural resources and the last deals with organizational behaviors and interactions. I believe as an architect I can work together with our customers and team member on the first three easily. The fourth is linked to the others but is at the heart of organizational success. The smart design must be able to help their customers create buildings which radically conserve and take care of water, energy and air resources. They must also be able to create designs which naturally allow organizations be the most effective at the work they need to do and nurture employees and key stakeholders along the way. This doesn’t mean using formulaic design approaches but reaching into the well of innovation together. By using integrated and regenerative design approaches to develop unlikely yet effective solutions, the architect and designer can strengthen their value offer. By looking deeply together at the nature of the work at hand, needs of workers and the workplace through this regenerative green lens, valuable design solutions can be developed while also conserving resources such as water, energy and our atmosphere for future generations.

Federal R&D Agenda for Net Zero Green Buildings

I was reading this report recently about the Federal R&D Agenda for Net Zero High Performance Green Buildings published in a variety of online sources in October of 2008. It identifies an achievable forward looking vision for federal buildings over the next generation. It comprehensively surveys the existing landscape of current High Performance Building initiatives throughout Federal Government and private sectors. What's notable is this was done before the current Obama Administration had been elected and likely represents a year or more cross agency collaboration and reflection. Hopefully this report will be updated and re-examined over the next year or so.

With net-zero buildings, buildings which produce equal or greater energy than they use within a given year, there lies hope for significant energy use reduction and potential for positively impacting greenhouse gas emissions. The report corroborates the largest potential for change is in increasing energy efficiency especially of existing buildings through retrofits and renovations rather than new construction.

This agenda in spirit hopefully will continue to drive innovation both in the public and private sectors, including higher education throughout the next 5-10 years and beyond. It identifies major R&D initiatives with various branches of government connected to the building and construction process. It also shares major implementation strategies which are also underway.

Better Buildings 2009, Hope in the Green Valley of Vermont

Yesterday I attended and participated in Efficiency Vermonts Better Buildings Conference 2009 held at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in Burlington, VT.  

And it was a fantastic, heartwarming event.  Here's why.  It was crowded, really crowded.  It was filled with a sense of optimism and people coming together whom are participating in the Green Design Movement in our region.  Like the USGBC's Greenbuild 2008 conference held in Boston last November, it was experiencing another bump in attendance from the already great numbers from last year.

Unlike other conferences held in the last 6 months by more normative, non-green construction related organizations, this one was healthily attended, heavily sponsored with plenty of exhibitors on the trade floor.  

 The plenary speech session was kicked off by Scott Johnstone, executive diretor for Vermont Energy Investment Corporation.  (VEIC).  He set the groundwork for the conference where he shared the results of Efficiency Vermont's efforts in helping change the energy use and efficiency game in Vermont.  Our State is now a leader in the nation with (-1.5%) negative electricity load growth rather than postive which is the norm around the U.S.  Our state is seeing a trend in electrical load decrease due to growing energy efficiency efforts in the residential and business / institutional marketplace.   For example, last year Scott said 780,000 CFL's (compact flourescent light bulbs) replaced old fashioned incadescent bulbs around the State.   By helping lower the costs to Vermonters for purchasing CFL's statewide through retail programs, more bulbs were installed.  Efficiency Vermont's Big Thinking produced Big Results.

Scott said the challenge ahead for our State is to expand or go wider with the penetration of energy efficiency and energy conservation measures and go deepr with more substantial negative load growth in the coming years.  Along with that we must continue the transformation of our fossil fuel based economy transitioning towards heavier use of renewable energy sources. Vermont, while small, has a spirited history of yankee ingenuity and rising to the occasion during tough times.  

 The keynote speaker, Fernando Paige Ruiz also reinforced this notion sharing how he sees how Vermont's innovation stacks up against other states around the nation.  He said Vermonters are amazing that we save almost 2% a year in lowered electricty usage.  Most states claim this is impossible, it can't be done, but we're showing it can be done.  

Fernando discussed his approach of building an affordable house and a practical way of thinking about design and ecology.  He discussed how homeowners want affordable construction and likewise affordable operation in their homes.  Key concerns of a majority of homeowners were energy costs, durability and flexibility of the smaller home he is building.  Building size, shape, simplicity of construction, flexible for future layout changes and a sense of thrift while maintaining quality were all important factors.  He had some very interesting ideas about marketing and for example seeing projects as "demonstration or model project" worth sharing with others along the way during construction to help spread the word about the unique qualities about green building. 

It was another great conference! Look for most posts in the coming days about the conference.