CLEVELAND -- When you read the recent headlines about the nearly 600,000 people working in clean-energy jobs across the Midwest, you probably pictured solar panels and wind turbines.
But the vast majority of those jobs - including more than 81,000 jobs in Ohio alone - are in energy efficiency, forming a largely invisible but powerful workforce that helps keep energy costs low and productivity high.
Jamie Peters is the Director of Client Solutions at EnergySavvy, a software company that aims to transform the way utilities interact with and serve their customers. Peters brings seven years of energy efficiency program experience to EnergySavvy, including launching Illinois’ first statewide Home Performance with Energy Star program, managing large-scale prescriptive and direct install utility programs, and developing tools and training for residential contractors.
Darlene Jackson is a program associate on the Residential team at the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (MEEA). In this role, she provides support in the coordination and implementation of HVAC SAVE and Illinois Home Performance. Before MEEA, she worked as a Policy Analyst for Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity through the graduate public service internship program.
Graduates of the building operator certification program in Michigan have proven to save an average of $10,800 annually on electric bills of the buildings where they implement changes, according to a news release from the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, making trained public building operators valuable partners in meeting Michigan’s new aggressive energy waste reduction goals.
More than 1,000 U.S. companies, including some of the nation's largest manufacturers, are urging Congress to preserve the 25-year-old Energy Star program to promote efficiency in home and business products.
President Donald Trump's proposed budget would eliminate funding for Energy Star, which encourages efficiency in major appliances, office equipment, lighting and home electronics.
By Stacey Paradis, MEEA Executive Director
The presidential “Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth” executive order signed on Tuesday was positioned as a way for the federal government to not be forced to choose between environmental protection and economic development. On Sunday, U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt prefaced the order’s release, saying the order and the policies it promotes would be “pro-jobs and pro-environment.”
Each year, U.S. businesses and consumers spend $450 billion on powering our buildings, with up to 30 percent of that energy and money wasted on inefficiency. In some cities, the poorest performing buildings can consume up to seven times the energy of the highest performing buildings for the exact same use. As a result, improving building energy use should be top of mind for businesses and real estate pros across the country. In many cases, however, it is shocking how little is known about these structures. The U.S.
The Business Council for Sustainable Energy and Bloomberg New Energy Finance recently released its 2017 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook. The data told a compelling story: energy businesses are thriving and growing faster than what many imagined. It also said renewable energy, energy efficiency, and natural gas are - together - dominating today's energy economy.
Across the world, myriad efforts are underway to make energy systems cleaner, smarter, and more efficient. But it’s hard to get a sense of the total size of those efforts, as they are spread across so many different industries and regions. One organization that has given this quite a bit of thought is Advanced Energy Economy(AEE), a national trade association of businesses working on cleaner and smarter energy.
New amendments to St. Louis County building codes, sought by the local construction industry, would weaken existing guidelines for energy efficiency and represent a step backward for homeowners, critics say.