How Philadelphia is leading in energy innovation

The Philadelphia region is poised to become one of the nation’s leaders in fostering a more energy-efficient building stock. While President Barack Obama's comments in last month's State of the Union speech highlighted the administration’s commitment to energy efficiency as an important strategy to mitigate climate change, public and private stakeholders in Philadelphia have already joined together to contribute scalable solutions and provide leadership for this challenging problem.

Philadelphia's emergence as a sustainability leader began with the election of Mayor Michael A. Nutter in 2008. During his campaign, Nutter pledged to make Philadelphia the "Greenest City in America," and he followed through with his commitment by creating the city’s first Office of Sustainability and releasing Greenworks Philadelphia, the city’s first sustainability plan, during his first year in office.

Greenworks contains targets and metrics in 14 major areas including two very important energy efficiency goals: one to reduce the city’s own energy consumption by 30 percent by 2015 and one to reduce energy consumption in all buildings within the city by 10 percent by 2015. Now led by a small but highly capable staff managed by the mayor’s sustainability director, Katherine Gajewski, the Greenworks framework galvanized interest and support from business leaders, neighborhood organizations and city residents and provided the momentum necessary to foster a true partnership approach to measuring progress and success.

随着Greenworks奠定了基础战略为整个城市和区域的举措，费城准备从能源部的最新可用的刺激资金竞争。该地区是成功的，在我们的节能未来确保两个关键投资。首先是颁发给大都会核心小组，由纳特从五大县东南部建立民选官员的合作改造财政资金的$ 25万池 - 雄鹿，切斯特，特拉华州，蒙哥马利和费城。这个奖项使该地区加速之间的商业和住宅建筑存量改型活动。第二个主要的投资是颁发给PECO，该地区的电力公司，即融资升级关键系统的基础设施，以及安装的智能电表让消费者可以更好地了解如何管理他们的能源使用一枚200万$的智能电网拨款。

This successful network of partners and supporters that had already come together to participate and support Greenworks, EnergyWorks and PECO’s Smart Grid award were already established and therefore ready to participate in the region’s most ambitious energy efficiency opportunity to date — the creation and successful launch of the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub.

宾州州立大学领导的公私合作伙伴关系versity, the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster — now EEB Hub — came together to successfully compete for the nation’s first Energy Regional innovation Cluster, a $125 million federal grant opportunity with the dual purpose of accelerating the adoption of energy-efficient building technology and fostering economic development opportunities and job growth through the creation of a new sector and industry in greater Philadelphia. Established at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and launched in February 2011, the EEB Hub is leveraging the region’s previous energy efficiency activities and investments by pursuing scalable market solutions for the retrofit of average size commercial and multifamily buildings in Greater Philadelphia.

其中一个最重要的市场举措加速了建筑节能中心的机会来了，成功促进是在2012年10月费城的依法作出费城第六大U * .S标杆和信息披露立法的通过。城市采用其商业楼宇50000平方英尺或更大的能量标杆和披露条例。

Mayor Nutter's signing of the legislation which was passed unanimously by the Philadelphia City Council is the latest indicator that benchmarking and disclosure laws are gaining popularity fast with cities that are seeking to create additional momentum or jump-start energy-efficient building initiatives. One major reason for increased interest among policymakers is the premise that the legislation is providingconsumer transparencyfor the first time publicly about a building’s energy footprint, which could galvanize market demand for more efficient commercial space.

要求业主to comply with the law and enabling consumers to choose commercial space based on energy efficiency attributes are key market drivers that can catalyze interest in energy-efficient building technologies and retrofit activities.

标杆是朝着提高建筑物的能源性能的意识，并推动提高能源效率的重要的第一步。According to the Institute for Market Transformation, an organization dedicated to fostering the growth of benchmarking policies across the U.S., a number of recent studies have indicated that the practice of benchmarking leads to energy savings, including a Building Operations Management survey of hundreds of facility managers who used Portfolio Manager. The survey found that 70 percent used Energy Star to guide energy efficiency upgrade plans and 67 percent used Energy Star to help justify an energy efficiency project.

Philadelphia’s legislation amends the "Energy Conservation" portion of The Philadelphia Code to require large commercial buildings to benchmark and report energy and water usage data. According to the city, the bill’s purpose is “not only to make organizations aware of their energy use, but also identify opportunities for improvement and assist in establishing energy consumption baselines that will help set future goals.” The mayor’s Office of Sustainability will issue regulations this spring, and building owners will need to benchmark their buildings using Energy Start Portfolio Manager and report the results to the city beginning in October. The following year, the city will make this information available to the public.

The Energy Efficient Buildings Hub served as a technical partner for the mayor’s Office of Sustainability during the process to pass the legislation in Philadelphia and will now serve as a key implementation partner. Creating a partnership with the city’s utilities, especially PECO, was a critical step to fostering high compliance rates among building owners.

In order to catalyze a partnership, the EEB Hub created a Regional Utility Data Access Working Group that convened major stakeholders including the mayor, CEOs of major real estate firms, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, service providers and policymakers to explore the connection between easy data access for building owners and energy efficiency knowledge and investment.

宾夕法尼亚州公用事业委员会主席罗布Powelson致力于他的时间和参与的工作组，并阐述了他强有力的支持费城的基准方案，无论是关键因素在信令PECO和其他实用程序，支持实施是对佣金很重要的。其结果是，PECO于2012年10月公布的第二次工作组会议上表示，他们将寻求新的服务（通过率，立案），将自动转建设工具使用的数据为投资组合经理，节省时间，提高准确性楼宇业主。

Moving forward, the EEB Hub will serve as a marketing, education and data analysis partner for the city with their benchmarking initiatives. The hub will analyze the submitted data and create a database for analysis and reporting such as tracking the rate of building energy use and reduction over time as a result of the law. The hub will also promote the adoption of advanced retrofit technology, pursue opportunities to engage tenants and owners in behavior-oriented energy conservation measures, and support the growth of new building technology companies in the Greater Philadelphia market.

市长纳特的可持续发展和能源效率与建筑节能中心与可持续发展办竞彩足球app怎么下载公室合作联合承诺建立在通过建设技术和创造一个更加高效，活力和竞争力建筑存量改造战略的全球领导者一个独特的机会，位置费城。

These efforts would not have been successful without the strong partnerships that have been formed between the Hub and local organizations such as the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce and the Delaware Valley Green Building Council, real estate leaders such as Liberty Property Trust and Brandywine Realty Trust, the Office of Sustainability, the PUC, PECO, and the participation and support from key national organizations such as IMT, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Office of Environmental Quality.

Philadelphia City Hall buildingprovided bySeanPavonePhotovia Shutterstock