Southern Energy Management’s Building Performance Team recently hit a major milestone: at the start of 2012, we qualified our 10,000th ENERGY STAR home in the Carolinas. It’s a huge number, and a testament to the great work our builders are doing. To better put this accomplishment into perspective, 10,000 ENERGY STAR homes has the equivalent effect of removing emissions from 4,900 vehicles on the road, saving 29.6 million pounds of coal, planting 8,100 acres of trees, or saving homeowners an estimated $4.5 million on their utility bills.[1] That is no small feat! (more…)
Archive for the ‘High Performance Buildings’ Category
10K ENERGY STAR Homes And Counting…
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012Thirteen Henderson County School Buildings Earn ENERGY STAR Label
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
This has been a busy semester for more than a dozen schools in Henderson County. They have put a priority on building performance — by having 13 different buildings qualify for the Energy Star label. It’s always seems to mean a little more for the SEM team when we get to do work like this. Meghan McDermott, the building science engineer who did most of the work for us, said it well: “We’re not just teaching students the importance of sustainability, we’re showing them how to achieve it.” (more…)
An Intro To The ECO Home
Thursday, November 17th, 2011
Whether you think about it much or not, everybody seems to at least have a vague idea that their home could be more energy efficient. You probably think about it most often around the time your energy bills show up each month or when you hear about energy prices continuing to rise. Figuring out what to do to improve efficiency can be complicated, so it’s often just put off until later. As a company that specializes in energy efficiency we can help! (more…)
We’re Number 1! No, Seriously…
Thursday, August 18th, 2011SEM leads the nation in NGBC Program certifications.
When we help builders, our top goal is to help them build high-quality new homes that are more energy efficient and have a smaller carbon footprint. Period. For a lot of builders, one of the incentives to build that type home is the certification that arrives at the end of construction. That piece of paper verifies to potential buyers that the home is as green as it claims to be, and has all the energy efficiency, water efficiency, durability, air quality and environmental benefits that are built into it. (more…)
China: New Perspectives
Thursday, June 30th, 2011I recently returned from a 3-week trip to Hong Kong and China, and nothing I saw or read before I left adequately prepared me for the experience. I was there with 30 other students for a study-abroad program through the MBA I’m pursuing at Eastern Carolina University, along with another group from the University of Alabama. As someone who’s made a living out of energy efficient building practices, I had a unique perspective about what they’re doing differently than the US, what’s similar and everything in between. As you might imagine, I believe they’re doing some things right but have a lot of room for improvement with (more…)
Jobs: What We Need Now.
Thursday, June 16th, 2011
Earlier this week, North Carolina was in the national spotlight as President Barack Obama visited the Triangle to talk about strategies to accelerate job growth (with a heavy dose of clean energy!). I was honored to be part of the President’s Jobs Council roundtable on the energy sector Monday morning, which was comprised of a group of about 40 business leaders who gathered at NC State to share their experience and make recommendations that were passed along to Obama. It was a lively atmosphere with some heavy hitters in the room, including GE’s Jeffrey Immelt, US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, Senator Kay Hagan, Duke Energy’s Jim Rogers and Red Hat’s Micheal Tiemann, among others (more…)
Harvesting Energy From Our Existing Buildings Stock
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
There is a promising and massive source of energy right at our fingertips — but, so far, this resource remains largely untapped. I’m not talking about methane deposits from coal shale or a new solar power technology. This energy resource is available today in every city and town, requires neither mining, nor costly power plants and cannot harm any endangered plant or animal species. In fact, it even creates jobs and provides many other side benefits as well.
Harnessing the energy that is normally wasted in buildings offers more potential for cost-effective energy savings and greenhouse gas emission reductions than any other strategy. Study after study reaffirms that technologies already available today can (more…)
A Growing Trend: Energy Efficiency & Multifamily Housing
Thursday, May 26th, 2011
Admit it. When you think of energy efficient construction or building to green standards, you usually think of businesses or single-family homes. It’s OK, I’m used to it. The reality, though, is that multifamily housing is quickly becoming a much bigger player when it comes to building performance. That should make sense, because those large residential buildings offer (more…)
It’s Here! Energy Star 2.5 Officially Taking Effect.
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
Builders taking advantage of the Energy Star label have had this week circled on their calendars for a long time. The program is going through a series of changes designed to make Energy Star labeled homes more efficient. April 1st is one of the most significant dates, signaling the start of “Energy Star 2.5” for all new homes permitted through the end of the year. This is essentially an 8-month long transition period designed to ease builders into “Energy Star 3.0;” all of the new rules take full effect on January 1, 2012.
We’ve held several workshops for builders over the last few months, and in November we put together a video blog about the process for verifying a house with the new Energy Star 2.5 standards. Now we’re ready to (more…)
Bottom Line: Certifications Sell
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
Since Southern Energy Management started working with builders back in 2001, we have encouraged them to educate homebuyers about the advantages of homes with enhanced energy efficient design and construction practices. The benefits to homeowners are many. Homes earning the Energy Star label tend to be
