Energy guru says energy gap can be bridged

The experts tell us an energy gap looms. Fossil fuels are phasing out, and solar and wind power can’t produce enough electricity to meet the demand in coming decades. But that’s not the thinking of Amory Lovins, the 76-year-old co-founder of RMI, formerly the Rocky Mountain Institute in western Colorado. A Harvard and Oxford dropout who’s been called the “Einstein of Energy Efficiency, Lovins said recently: “If we do the…


Updated Passive House Certification

In an era witnessing a growing global preference for sustainable living, the Passive House concept has emerged as a frontrunner, embodying a profound shift towards healthier and energy-efficient lifestyles. With an impressive count of over 41,600 certified units and a cumulative floor area of 3,866,000 m² adhering to the exacting standards set by the Passive House Institute, the movement is unmistakably on the rise. The Passive House database, a repository…


Predevelopment Financing for Modular Passive House New Construction in East Harlem in the Bronx

NYCEEC provided an approximately $3,000,000 bridge loan to Assembly OSM, an early-stage company that is focused on building highly efficient and sustainable urban new construction through innovative modular processes. NYCEEC’s loan proceeds will bridge design, engineering, and supply chain expenses during the ramp-up period prior to the anticipated construction start date at the end of Q2 2024. The development is located in East Harlem, New York and will qualify for…


Six reasons to be optimistic about the energy transition

Yes, the world is hooked on fossil fuels, but Canary Media’s experts are still hopeful about the rise of clean energy. Here’s why. By Canary Staff, 28 December 2023 The transition away from fossil fuels is a messy, frustrating and frequently uncertain story. Sometimes it seems like major change is just around the corner; other days it feels like we’re moving in the wrong direction. Read More >


Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings

The Building Technologies Office research is helping make buildings become smarter about the amount and timing of energy use and emit less carbon through the Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEB) Initiative. The GEB Initiative works to remake buildings into a clean and flexible energy resources by combining energy efficiency and demand flexibility with smart technologies and communications to inexpensively deliver greater affordability, comfort, productivity, and performance to America’s homes and buildings.…


The Impact of Building Energy Code

Building energy codes represent a significant savings opportunity for U.S. home and business owners. Model energy codes for residential and commercial buildings are projected to save (cumulative 2010-2040): $182 billion energy cost savings 840 MMT of avoided CO2 emissions 16.1 quads of primary energy These savings equate to the annual emissions of: 187 million passenger vehicles 225 coal power plants 106 million homes Learn More >


Discover Clean Energy Careers With Roadtrip Nation

Three New Yorkers Traverse the State to Explore Jobs Fueling the Clean Energy Transition New York’s clean energy investments and ambitious climate goals are creating thousands of new jobs in fields like offshore wind, green buildings, and alternative transportation. A new documentary series, Empowered State , dives into the diverse and rewarding career opportunities within New York’s growing clean energy economy at this pivotal moment in addressing the climate crisis.…


Regenerative Materials, Bruce King, Founder & Director, Ecological Building Network

Bruce King will introduce the Regenerative Materials session at our Symposium on September 22   REGISTER TODAY >   Can the design and construction of new buildings help solve the climate crisis? Authors Bruce King and Chris Magwood reply hopefully, further explaining the science, analytics, and ethics of “carbon-smart architecture.” The authors define this approach as the design of buildings that absorb more greenhouse gases (GHGs) than they emit or…


Why this NYC apartment complex will use a giant underground heat pump

  Construction is underway on the 1 Java Street project in Brooklyn, New York. (David Joshua Ford) BROOKLYN, New York — The 200-by-600-foot property skirting the shoreline in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood is, for the moment, an enormous mud pit. Excavators scoop up whole chunks of earth, making room for concrete piles sprouting rebar strands. All the while, four blue drilling rigs trawl the site on skid-tracked wheels, boring holes into the…


Climate tipping points: The Arctic is a bellwether for irreversible change

by Kimberley R. Miner, Ph.D., opinion contributor - 11/26/21 12:30 PM ET The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill The warship HMS Terror lies at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean in the Northwest passage, lost in 1848 after two grueling years stuck in the Arctic ice. Rescue missions launched to recover the ship in 1851 suffered the same fate, crushed under…


Building energy use comparisons

As part of our IoT development work, MCCI and NY Passive House have been partnering to reduce the cost of monitoring buildings (both high performance buildings and conventional construction). This low-cost study identified eight-fold differences in energy intensity across a variety of buildings. By choosing buildings at the same altitude and in the same microclimate, we are able to focus on differences in construction. We started monitoring electricity use and…


PHPP + Rhino | An Introduction to IDF2PH

 The Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) is a trusted, effective tool and is critical for Passive House Certification. However in many circumstances it can be useful to pair the PHPP with a multi-zone, dynamic tool such as the US Dept. of Energy’s EnergyPlus engine which can output sub-hourly time step results. In the past, if a designer wished to utilize both of these valuable tools, that meant duplicate modeling…