Here’s what American Banker had to say, when it named WattzOn the Freshest Idea of the show:

“Freshest Idea: WattzOn Personal Energy Management Platform. This software gives consumers a dashboard of their energy expenditures (drawn from their heating bill, type of car and number of miles driven per day, etc.) with suggestions for how they could use less energy and save money. Banks can offer this on their websites as part of initiatives to help consumers manage their finances. It’s different and it could catch on.”  (Best of Finnovate 2012, American Banker)

And one blog post also called WattOn out, ranking it #2 in the show:   “a good resource for consumers for years” and  ”management is smart”.  (A Lazy Man and his Money)

Thanks all!

WattzOn is pleased to partner with the producers of the upcoming PBS mini-series  Earth: The Operators’ Manual.   The program will be airing April 22nd on PBS.   WattzOn is the web technology partner to the show, providing  a personalized energy calculator for individuals and groups.

WattzOn focuses on the win-wins for consumers and the planet. Use our tools to:

** See how much you can save from buying a hybrid or electric car.  We’ll show you your annual fuel savings.

** Is your home right for solar?  We’ll use local electricity rates and your bills to show the cash flows, and the rebates!

**  How much energy is used to make the food we eat?  This is a fun question. Try out different diets and compare results.

**   WattIf you can make the world a better place?  Use our WattIs and WattIf tools to see how much your change matters.

To get started go to www.wattzon.com.

Check the broadcast details for your local showing of Earth: The Operators’ Manual.   Find out about the 5 science museum outreach partners to the show.  Use the coordinated teaching materials.

Congratulations to the show’s producers,  Geoffrey Haines-Stiles and Erna Akuginow, on this important milestone after years of hard work!

Recently WattzOn completed a program review of our Home Efficiency Program in Benicia California.  The results are stellar.

The Benicia Home Efficiency Program (BHEP) is a city-funded program that provides free energy saving coaching visits to residents. WattzOn developed and delivered the program.  During the home visit, a WattzOn Energy Consultant answers the following questions for the resident:

**  Where does my money go?

**   How do I compare?

**   What is going on in my home?

**   Where are my savings opportunities?

**    Which of these  do I want to do?

At the end of the home visit the resident has several printed, personalized reports in hand, including a list of savings opportunities that they think will work with their home and lifestyle.

BHEP is a behavior-change program — no permanent fixes are made.  It is also focuses on electricity and indoor water, with only a light touch on natural gas use.  Electricity comprises 65% of a typical residential utility bill in Benicia.

The results are in, and are based on utility and water bills:

**   More than 70% of the homes we coached saved energ

**   Electricity savings averaged 9% per year (measured against a control group) or 7% per year (year-over-year savings by program participants)

**   Water savings averaged 10% per year.

**   Approximatley one-fourth of the electricity savings came from light bulbs. The remainder came from miscellaneous end-uses.

Here’s the list:

How I Compare? — A handy tool to compare your utility bills against similar homes in your area. Includes data on real homes that are energy efficient, showing the size of savings possible. Based on data and models from DOE and LBNL.

Should I Go Solar? — With rising electricity rates, and falling installation costs, now might be the time to put up system. Enter your zipcode and average electricity bill to get a quick estimate of your options.  Based on data and models from NREL.

What are My Rebates? — Whew! There are a lot of incentives out there. WattzOn updates incentive data monthly. Simply type in your zip code to find what’s available for you at the federal, state, city, and utilty levels.

Should I Get a Hybrid? — Up your miles per gallon with a hybrid. This tool provides personalized calculations of the energy savings.  Based on data from EPA.

How Much Energy Used to Produce My Food? — Food is one of our most frequent purchases. Use this tool to explore the food groups that use a surprising amount of energy.

Want to add one or all of these customizable widgets to your blog?  Want to use our APIs?   Go to the Widget & API page at Wattzon.

Danny Parker, the home’s owner, is a noted energy efficiency researcher at the Florida Solar Energy Center, so this is not your typical house. But the story told by this data is very common, and ignored by policy makers.

To read the graph, note that the green line is a 12-month average, while the red line is the monthly bills. With hot summers, there is an annual spike for air conditioning.

There are three potentially energy increasing events in this graph:  the births of two children (Wade and Sarah) and an expansion on the home.  But with Parker’s care, they did not increase energy use.  There are a number of events expected to decrease energy use, starting with installing R-19 insulation in the 1990s.   Not all of the home improvements had a visible impact on the Parker’s energy bill.  The three big wins?  White roof, whole house fan, and adding solar.

Not marked on the graph, but important are the energy saving behaviors the Parkers’ use in everyday living,  and new appliances purchased twice during the twenty years.

Our takeaway?  Every home can get to net-zero electricity.  Take three or four years and do a round of upgrades, including the simple things like appliances, to drive electricity use down. Then close the last gap with solar.   All that is needed is a way to plan ahead, track, and access available rebates.  (Exactly what we do at WattzOn!) No major policy initiatives needed,  just more consumer engagement with the tools we have.

For a different take on the policy implications of this graph, check out this column by Alan Meier of Lawrence Berkeley National Labs.

Four trends are dramatically shifting the landscape for energy and carbon emissions, and set the stage for the consumer market in 2012 and beyond.

First, national security concerns and world oil prices are prompting a growth in oil recovered from Canadian tar sands.  Oil prices remain above $100 per barrel, and the tar sands recovery makes business sense at $60 per barrel and above.  So tar sands are here to stay.  (If the U.S. does not build the XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico to transport the oil, the Canadians will build a pipeline to a west coast port, and ship the oil to China.  Heck — they may do both pipelines. )

The problem?  It takes an enormous amount of energy, and thus emissions, to recover the oil from the tar sands. Currently the average car emits 20 pounds of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) per gallon.  Gasoline from tar sands raises this to about 26 pounds CO2e per gallon.  If an alternate synfuel approach is used to convert oil shale into oil, emissions jump to 34 pounds of CO2e per gallon. (Both technologies are used in Canada.)

So, we have our first tough tradeoff:  National Security and More Emissions?  Or Imported Oil and Less Emissions?

We expect emissions to take a back seat to the strong economic and national security motivations for tar sands.

  Second, recent technology improvements, aka fracking, have opened up a huge natural gas reserve in the U.S.  There may be environmental damage with fracking that raise costs, but experts expect natural gas prices to be stable at current levels for years to come.   Utilities can gradually retire coal plants and replace them with gas-fired generation.  This is a cleaner substitution, but without price increases there is no incentive to save energy.

So the problem with fracking is that it is too good – it keeps natural gas prices at their current modest levels for years to come.  The lack of rising prices makes it more difficult to justify investments for their energy savings.

The second tradeoff:  More Energy and Lower Prices?  Or Higher Prices and Energy Efficiency?

Third, more than 60% of U.S. energy use is for consumption of products and services.  These include the clothes we wear, the computers we use, the tables we sit at and so on. It also includes banking, insurance and other services, but these are not the bulk of energy use.

The problem? With flat oil and natural gas price trajectories, the only way to reduce this energy use is by reducing consumption. Producers don’t have an incentive to do much more than business-as-usual in regard to energy savings.  Our economy is sputtering – with painful joblessness –  due to lack of consumer demand, so asking people to reduce energy use and emissions by reducing consumption has the sound of being un-American.

The third tradeoff: Economic growth with Associated Emisisons?  Or Reduced Consumption to Save Energy and Emissions?

Fourth,  renewable portfolio standards and an aging grid will push up electricity prices.   Industry projections are for a 30% rise in capital spending per year over current levels to maintain infrastructure, leading to rate steep rate hikes. Renewable portfolio standards start biting in this decade, pushing 10 – 20% of most states’ energy to the more expensive cleaner types.

The problem?  Rising costs decreases regulators’ interest in energy saving policies. For most utilities, the only way to make more money is to sell more energy.  Certainly, with rising costs utilities don’t want customers to leave their system or to lower volumes, as either outcome will increase rates sharply for those that remain.  So look for utilities and their regulators to slow down their interest in alternate regulatory schemes, such as those that reward utilities for energy savings.

This map from the Pew Center on Climate Change shows that only 8 states currently have a regulatory scheme in place to break the link between volume and revenue in electricity markets — known as decoupling.  In other words, utilities in 42 states are still have incentives to sell more energy.   Going forward, we expect energy savings to take a backseat to cost recovery.

Source: Center for Climate and Energy Solutions

The fourth tradeoff:  Invest in clean fuels and a grid upgrade and keep prices low by spreading the costs out over a larger volume?  Or save energy and face increased electricity prices?

So let’s sum up:

* Increased national security from using Canadian energy resources at the expense of increase emissions.

* Increased natural gas supply and lower prices at the expense of  energy savings.

* Federal and state policies to increase consumption to create jobs at the expense of reducing energy use and emissions

* Increased incentives for utilities to recover rising costs at the expense of energy savings

These are big shifts in our landscape, breaking the alignment between national security and energy savings, and economic development and energy savings.  The green jobs — reduce emissions – save energy agenda faces some touch challenges.

• Green clothing – Contains more earth-friendly content, such as bamboo fibers
• Green detergent – Releases fewer toxins, such as biodegradable detergent
• Green appliances – Uses less energy and water, such as a front-loading washing machine

Does the same method work for airline travel?  Decidedly not.

Airlines buy from only a few manufacturers, so airplane technology is fairly standard across all airlines.  Fuel is the airlines’ biggest expense after labor, so airlines have every incentive to reduce energy use.

So how can one airline be greener than another?  Does one really use less fuel or emit less carbon?   The answer is in the data.

The airline industry measures everything PER SEAT.  Take a look:

• Available seat-miles  [# seats x # miles flown]
• Load factor [# seats sold/seats available]
• Revenue per seat-mile [$/(seats x miles)]

As such, it might seem natural to measure fuel use per seat-mile and carbon emissions per seat-mile too.

With this method, longer flights and larger planes come out “greener,” because they use less fuel per seat-mile.  An airplane flying from LAX to Sydney would be green, but not so with one flying from LAX to Las Vegas.  But is the former really greener? Or is this, in fact,  an apples-to-oranges comparison?

Let’s go one step further.  Typically, data on airline emissions are directed toward an individual consumer, so the emissions for all flights flown in a given year are divided amongst all the passengers and miles flown to create a metric: carbon emissions per passenger mile.  The emissions are an industry average.

But when this calculation is done for each individual airline, the results can become pretty skewed.  For example, compare two flights from LAX to Las Vegas, one very full with passengers and one very empty.  The full flight will be the “greener” one, as fuel use per passenger will be lower.

Recently, Brighter Planet—a San Francisco-based company that specializes in carbon calculations—issued a report ranking airlines from the greenest down to the least green.  Its results illustrate all the problems detailed above.  In other words, a large plane flying a long route with every seat filled is “green.”  Would you choose this product?

Brighter Planet goes on to make recommendations for corporate travel programs, suggesting that emissions can be reduced by selecting the greener airline serving the route.  But, here it confuses the airline’s average with the route specifics.  Airline “X” may fly most of its flights from LAX to Sydney and only one or two flights from LAX to Las Vegas.  However, that does not make it a greener airline on its LAX to Las Vegas route.

As a consumer, it’s your choice.  The best choice you can make for emissions is to stay home.  Don’t drive or fly; just telecommute.

And if you fly and want to be “green”, call the airlines and shop around for the fullest flight.  Your share of the flight’s fuel will be the lowest possible. Get ready for no legroom, and don’t forget to bring along your earplugs.

Do you read your utility bill carefully? What do you learn? “Not very much,” says a study released last week by the American Council on an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE). The authors conclude that there is a missed opportunity to communicate clearly and with focus to residential consumers.

This graph shows what their survey found is presented in monthly bills:

Elements of Utility Bills

(Survey by ACEEE, November 2011)

A nationwide survey shows the most common elmenets and their placement on the utility bill

The utility bill is a monthly opportunity to speak to the consumer. Notice that nearly 25% of bills put current usage on page 2 or page 3. Clearly these bills are not organized for high-impact information presentation! Similarly, rates are not presented on all bills: hard to save when the price is not presented! The authors of the survey have a deeper wish-list: they would like to see peer-to-peer comparisons of energy usage, and useful information about energy efficiency. Both of these factors could help consumers make informed decisions, and cut down on customer service calls.

What’s so hard about changing a utility bill? Two things: software and regulations. First, utility billing systems are often quite old and hard to change. They need modernization. Second, a legacy of regulatory decisions adds a long list of fees and taxes to most bills. These must be presented to the consumer (leading to those pages and pages of confusion!). Put the two factors together, and you get a pound of paper and little useful information.

But, as the ACEEE authors point out, life will only get more confusing when smart meters are fully installed. How will consumers understand all that data? How will they understand time-of-day charges? The utility bill is a missed opportunity to smooth the way for these upgrades.

Utilities are also pushing consumers toward online billing, but if this week’s billing upgrade by PG&E is any sign, there is a way to go. PG&E, Northern California’s dominant utility, is requiring holders of online accounts to reconfirm their acceptance of terms and conditions. But, as many customers don’t remember their usernames and passwords, the utility will have to rebuild their online participation rates.

Utility bills—friend or foe? Send us your thoughts.

PS If you sign up for WattzOn’s free service, we’ll send you a consumer-friendly analysis of your utility bill each month. It’s part of our service to help consumers save energy.

For more information, see “The State of the Utility Bill”, November 2011, ACEEE.

The 2010 results on CO₂ emissions are out, and the news is not good. Emissions in 2010 are up, and beyond the levels expected.

Here is a graph from the International Energy Agency that tells the story:

The graph shows that emissions took a dip in 2008–2009 as a result of the global recession, and then growth came roaring back in 2010. The 2010 increase is the largest single-year increase in the data series, which has data back to the 1750s. (The series is available from Oak Ridge National Labs.) Emissions are up by 5% since their 2008 dip.

The colored lines in the graph show various projections from the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the worldwide group of scientists and policy analysts who have developed a coordinated view of our planet’s future. The black line, the data, is bursting through the colored lines, meaning that we are exceeding most projections. Although the projections were made recently (in 2007), we are already on the way to the worst-case scenario envisioned then.

So that’s the grim news about the big picture. Digging one layer deeper, the sources of the increase are revealing:

• In the global emissions downturn of 2008–2009, China’s emissions continued to grow steadily, while Europe’s fell

• In 2010, emissions grew in both China and the U.S., with the two countries accounting for more than 40% of the 2010 increase

• 80% of the emissions increase is coming from permanent infrastructure changes—such as new power plants—meaning it will be hard to make them go away.

So what’s a person to do? Fast-rising emissions can seem daunting. We suggest two things: Personal Action and Policy Changes.

As you already know, WattzOn can help you find ways to save energy at home and in your daily life. We also think that policy changes—such as appliance standards—will nudge consumers toward ever more energy savings. Look for more on both of these topics in the coming months.

While consumer decisions may seem too small to make a difference, we are a world of consumers: that is why we produce things, and that is where the energy is being used. How we consume makes a difference.

While this might seem like a lightweight bit of news, the Queen’s fiscal challenge is a dilemma faced by many households. And the details of her story are also very common:

• The Queen has had smart meters installed, which dropped energy use by 12%. But the gains have been more than erased by higher energy costs. (Of course, one could argue that without the smart meters the situation would be worse, but the point is that the utility bills don’t reveal a clear, quick payback on the investment.)

• If historical price trends continue, the average British household will be in fuel poverty by 2015; no income level is safe. Fuel poverty is not just a low-income issue, and rising energy costs will be a key political issue in the next election.

• The rising costs are driven by infrastructure expense and rising natural gas prices. Although Britain continues to pursue a green investment agenda, it is easy to envision a scenario in which infrastructure spending—a key to using energy more efficiently—is deferred.

• The Queen herself is deferring investment: postponing upgrades to the palace heating systems and buildings due to lack of funds. Apparently, the palace staff plans to do the upgrade in the “next 15 years”, and meanwhile is trying to buy power at wholesale rates to lower costs.

The article reports that the Queen patrols the palace to turn off lights—and we applaud her efforts—but frankly, she needs a home performance contractor with a financing package! She could get the improvements done and pay for them out of energy savings!

Remember HomeStar, a proposed U.S. program to heavily subsidize home upgrades, creating thousands of domestic jobs? This is the perfect antidote to rising energy costs. Did we just say jobs? Fuel poverty may actually be a winning political issue. Long Live the Queen!