Richard Kauffman, Chair of Energy & Finance, for the State of New York, Frank Murray, President & CEO, New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, James Laurito, President & Chief Executive Officer, Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp, Kenneth D. Daly, President, National Grid and Stuart Nachmias, Vice President of Energy Policy & Regulatory Affairs, Consolidated Edison shared their thinking on the ‘Tipping Point for Solar in New York’.

“The success of solar industry development in New York is linked to public and private partnerships to address market segmentation and funding, and overcoming permitting and regulatory barriers,” said Richard Kauffman, Chairman of Energy and Finance for Governor Cuomo. “Through Governor Cuomo’s NY-Sun Initiative, which aims to quadruple by 2013 the amount of customer-sited  solar power installed annually in New York, we are enabling the sustainable development of a robust solar industry, creating clean energy jobs, improving electric reliability and reducing air pollution through stable and dependable funding of $150 million per year for the next ten years.  We look forward to continuing our joint efforts with the City University of New York to undertake this important mission.”

“Our customers are discovering that solar power provides a great way to manage their energy usage and keep our environment clean,” said Stuart Nachmias, Con Edison’s vice president, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs. “Con Edison supports the development of this clean, renewable source, which is becoming an important part of Greater New York’s 21^st century energy portfolio.”

One key technical panel presented on resiliency and the capability of solar to supply power in emergencies such Hurricane Sandy. Solar installations in urban areas are generally ‘grid-tied’ and designed to shut down when the grid fails so as not to feed power onto power lines that are under repair. However, new technology and designs are available that re-route the power captured on our rooftops by solar and other distributed generation, allowing these resources to contribute during emergencies. The development of a policy and programmatic framework to support this capability is part of a substantial new effort by CUNY.

CUNY serves as one of NYC’s prime partners in its coastal storm shelter operations. Where to get power- even enough power to simply charge a phone or a lap top became a prime concern for many in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy,” said Tria Case, University Director of Sustainability. “CUNY formed the Smart Distributed Generation Hub (DG), with Federal, State and City collaboration, working together to once again implement changes that can help utilize not only solar power, but other distributed generation solutions as resilient resources during emergencies. Through this effort, new technologies are now entering the market that can help create a more resilient NYC.”

At the summit, CUNY outlined NYSolar Smart, a detailed plan to reduce the soft costs of installing solar across New York State that is supported in part by NYSERDA and NYPA through Governor Cuomo’s NY-Sun Initiative.  The average cost of installing solar in New York State in 2012 was $5.79 a watt. However, county averages deviate from that average by up to 40% due to in part to the lack of a unified permitting process, financial options, or marketing and data analysis tools across many of the municipalities. NYSolar Smart builds on the NYC successes and aims to reduce stratification with a streamlined permitting process, and analytical and marketing tools like a New York State Solar Map. CUNY led the development and launch in 2010 of the NYC Solar Map, the largest LiDAR based solar map in the world that displays the solar potential for each of NYC’s one million rooftops.

“When Governor Cuomo unveiled his NY-Sun Initiative at the beginning of 2012, he made increasing solar power a major initiative for the state. Since then, we’ve seen more solar installations installed or under development than in the entire prior decade,” said Francis J. Murray Jr., President and CEO, NYSERDA.  “Thanks to a variety of public and private partnerships underway to reduce the costs associated with solar power, we expect to see continued growth and investment in this renewable resource across the state.”

‘Realizing the Value of Solar in the U.S’ was the final discussion of the Summit, with participants Kevin Lynn from the U.S. Department of Energy, Kyle Kimball, Executive Director of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, Robert Lurie, Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning at New York Power Authority and Michael J. Deering, Vice President of Environmental Affairs at Long Island Power Authority.

“Solar energy is not only good for the environment, it is also good for New York City’s economy and its resiliency,” said Kyle Kimball, Executive Director of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. “While the rapid growth of solar energy has already had a significant impact on our city’s economy, there is tremendous opportunity for continued growth. By reducing costs and simplifying solar installation procedures, NYSolar Smart will further incentivize and empower the private sector to choose more resilient energy options.”

NYSERDA and Con Edison were major sponsors of the seventh annual NYC Solar Summit. A full list of sponsors can be found here: NYC Solar Summit Sponsors  NYC Solar Summit Presentations and Agenda

CUNY convened NYC’s first Resilient Inverter Workshop on June 5th, bringing in  five of the top inverter companies to present to NYC solar installers and stakeholders new- or new to New York- technologies that will ideally help create a more resilient New York City. Resilient Inverter Workshop Presentations

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Since 2006 Sustainable CUNY has led the efforts to integrate multiple U.S. Department of Energy grants in NYC as part of the NYC Solar Partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability and the NYC Economic Development Corporation with significant support by Con Edison, NYSERDA, the NYC Department of Buildings (DOB), the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) and the New York Power Authority. As this nation’s largest urban university, CUNY plays a transformational role in New York City’s sustainable future with an educational footprint that spans 24 academic institutions and over half a million students, faculty and staff. Sustainable CUNY is leading CUNY’s efforts through three key pillars: the CUNY Sustainability Project, state-wide Sustainable Energy projects and CUNY SustainableWorks, a commercialization program for sustainable and clean technology.

The collaboration between these partners and others over the last six years has created a framework to support the growth of PV installations. Specific successes include: NYS incentives through NYSERDA’s ‘Standard Offer’ and the NY-Sun Competitive PV Program for large scale installations, the NYC Property Tax Abatement, the NYC Solar Map, zoning improvements and net metering expansions, the creation of Solar Empowerment Zones, streamlining of technical requirements, the expansion of the NYC Department of Buildings Development Hub to include permitting for solar projects, installer training and NYC Solar Ombudsmen.

With growth comes new challenges. In order for NYC to maintain its current market trajectory and justify continued incentives designed for rapid growth targets, it is essential to continue collaborative efforts. Exploring technical issues such as understanding and managing the impacts (positive or negative) of increased large-scale PV penetration on network grids as well as continued efforts to streamline interconnection and permitting of solar projects will be central to capturing the full value of distributed, renewable electricity generation and ensuring New York City is able to meet its economic and technical solar potential.

Sustainable CUNY is deploying a limited number of data monitoring systems to provide a sample snapshot of critical real-time information on solar generation to Con Edison, allowing them to: evaluate the impact of solar production on grid reliability; integrate solar into their smart grid efforts; and improve their power management applications. This data can also lay the groundwork for Con Edison to be able to reduce the use of expensive and dirty peaking power plants during periods of energy demand that coincide with high solar generation. Hurricane Sandy likewise demonstrated our need for extending our energy grid intelligence so that distributed emergency power can support smart critical relief during prolonged power outages. Using Sustainable CUNY’s solar installations database on the NYC Solar Map, it was found that the neighborhoods with area-wide power outages directly after Sandy could have had solar energy available for emergency power needs if configured for off-grid use (link to Emergency Power & FAQ).

This emergency energy would have come from existing solar systems already built in those communities, representing almost half of the solar installations in the city. CUNY was able to determine from its existing solar energy monitors that these systems collectively could have provided 6,500 kilowatt-hours of critical emergency energy. Real-time energy monitoring of these systems could have supported City and Federal emergency staff in order to target resources to the neighborhoods that were impacted the most.

Sustainable CUNY, using IBM’s Intelligent Operation Center (IOC) platform, has developed the SMART Solution for Solar, the first steps to establishing a central data and analytics center. Data from the monitors CUNY deployed is being collected and CUNY is seeking cooperation from owners and installers to link the data from their various monitors and inverters to the Smart Solutions for Solar. Analytics can then provide a dashboard of information to the City and utility companies to provide a realistic picture of solar production and value, positioning New York City to meet the smarter communications and resiliency components of the electric grid transformation of the 21st century.

The theme for the Contest is:

“The One Degree Difference (on a thermostat)”

Deadline: April 12th, 2013

Winner announced Earth Day, April 22, 2012

VIEW EARLY ENTRIES:
Lehman College 1 Degree 1 World, Make a Difference
Lehman College OneDegree

• Videos should be 2 minutes or less
• Upload the video to You Tube and email the link to sustainable@mail.cuny.edu
• Include your college, contact information, crew and cast (if any) in your email
• Multiple submissions are welcome as is humor, song, dance, flash mobs or just the facts to get the message across.
• Solo submissions or broad collaborations.

 Contestants are encouraged to promote their video using social media to increase viewership

Sustainable CUNY is leading a transformational change on CUNY campuses through the CUNY Sustainability Project. Campus Sustainability plans developed over the last several years on CUNY’s 19 campuses have identified over 800 specific actions in key areas. The Campus Sustainability plans now serve as a blueprint for Sustainable CUNY Conserves, a University wide effort to reduce energy consumption, spend less money on utilities and use the savings to support other campus efforts. Sustainable CUNY is helping the campuses to meet this challenge by providing a platform for shared ideas on best practices, training, software assistance, and a two million dollar investment fund in addition to providing assistance on implementing the Campus Sustainability Plans. Installing comprehensive building management systems, new chillers or lighting controls require investments in order to meet energy budgets. However, some changes, such as adjusting cooling or heating temperatures one degree, require no investments and could save CUNY and your college over a million dollars a year. Simple adjustments like these require educating those affected and changing expectations.

]]> http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/sustainable-news/2013/04/09/sustainable-cuny-video-contest/feed/ 0 http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/sustainable-news/2013/03/25/grant-funding-available-for-rocket-composter/ http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/sustainable-news/2013/03/25/grant-funding-available-for-rocket-composter/#comments Mon, 25 Mar 2013 21:28:49 +0000 lreilly http://www1.cuny.edu/mu/sustainable-news/?p=290 New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation has highlighted a grant funding opportunity to purchase a ‘Rocket’ composter for your campus. Funding of up to $100,000 is available through State Farm Insurance’s ‘Service Learning Grant’.

Lehman College has operated a Rocket composter since 2010. The Rocket transforms organic material (food and yard waste) into useable compost in 2 weeks, is self-contained and if operated correctly, presents no odor or pest problems. The Rocket requires approximately 30 minutes of labor per day and operating costs are minimal electrical power and wood chips if yard waste or other ‘browns’ are not available to break down with food waste. The Rocket comes in several sizes – note it is important to understand how much food and/or yard waste you typically generate in a week in order to purchase the correct size composter.

The grant applications, due May 3^rd, 2013, are also open to other forms of service learning that advance sustainability and environmental responsibility. Please review the ‘Grant Supplemental Outline‘ link for further details of the funding criteria.

The Sustainable Living survey was administered to 200 students and measured 1) the frequency of their sustainable practices, 2) their level of concern for sustainable issues, and 3) their level of satisfaction with the school’s indoor environment and the college’s implementation of sustainability policies. The findings show that the majority of students personally implement energy conservation, waste management, and water conservation measures sometimes; however these same students, in the aggregate, rated sustainability issues as a public concern of great importance. Thus, it appears, as correlation analysis demonstrates, that students do not personally act on their concerns.

Regarding the school’s environment, students were very aware of the campus’ green purchasing procedures and landscaping practices, and this may have contributed, as linear regression analysis suggests, to student satisfaction with the number of sustainability opportunities available to them. The implication of this study is that educational institutions may serve an important role in facilitating the adoption of sustainability behaviors by students through modeling these practices on campus and by providing opportunities for student involvement. Such opportunities should enable practical applications of sustainability, such as how to workshops, so that students can more easily act on their concerns. The findings from this study were presented at the 9^th  International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic, and Social Sustainability  conference in Hiroshima, Japan on January 23, 2013.

The winning projects, selected on criteria that included a short-payback period (5-years or less) and the ability for rapid implementation, range from lighting and lighting control upgrades to steam trap maintenance, to pilot programs testing newer technologies with wider potential application at CUNY. Each college is making a contribution of approximately 30% toward the costs of their projects, either through matching funds or in-house labor for installation.

Five of the projects address lighting, including the introduction of LED technology at key locations at Baruch College and John Jay College. Queens College intends to install motion sensor lighting controls throughout its Queens Hall building to cut down on unnecessary use of lighting, and City College will replace light fixtures in the gym and Great Hall, cutting the energy use by 50% in these spaces.

The maintenance of steam traps has been shown to be an effective method of saving energy at CUNY and elsewhere and two further projects at Baruch College and Queens College will receive funding to inspect, repair or replace those steam traps that are found to be defective. Malfunctioning steam traps use significant amounts of energy in building heating systems.

An innovative project to inject permafrost into the compressor coils of one of the chillers at Baruch College will determine whether this technology can impact energy use by improving refrigerant flows, in turn heat transfer and the energy use of the cooling system.

Hunter College is also undertaking a pilot project, inserting a timer device which overrides the thermostat on water fountains to ensure the fountain does not chill drinking water at nights, weekends and other extended times when the fountain is not in use. Most water fountains respond to thermostat water temperature readings, chilling water for drinking regardless of time of day or use. CUNY has hundreds of fountains where this application, if impactful, could be implemented.