• Number 450  |
• October 19, 2015

NREL helps federal agencies reach new efficiency targets

When it comes to energy use, what the federal government wants is more of less. That means fewer greenhouse gases, fewer buildings powered solely by electricity generated from fossil fuels, and fewer gas-guzzling fleets on the road.

An executive order issued by the White House in March puts greater emphasis on work done at DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to help government agencies meet their goals. NREL has long been a resource for federal agencies on energy efficiency efforts and renewable energy technology. The newest executive order calls for tougher goals and spurs agencies to do more than what they've done already.

Under a goal established by Executive Order 13693, titled "Planning for Federal Sustainability in the Next Decade," federal agencies have until 2025 to get at least 30% of their electricity via renewable sources. That trumps the 20% target established in a 2009 presidential memorandum.

The new executive order requires that agencies do the following by 2025:

• Identify a percentage of buildings (larger than 5,000 gross square feet) that are intended to be energy, water, or waste net-zero, and what measures are needed to meet that target.

• Have half of their new passenger vehicles be either zero emission or plug-in hybrids.

• Curb the emission of indirect greenhouse gases in absolute terms compared to a 2008 benchmark.

Overall, 8.8% of electricity used by the federal government comes from renewable sources, according to the Energy Department. On a per-agency basis, this amount fluctuates wildly, from as little as 0.2% at the Postal Service to as much as 105% at the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Energy Department’s Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) provides project development assistance to allow NREL staff to write specifications for a request for proposals (RFP), evaluate bids, and, once a renewable energy project is installed, ensure it's operating properly.

"It's this narrowing pipeline," said Kate Anderson, manager of NREL's Integrated Applications Center's (IAC) Engineering and Modeling Group. Her group earlier this year completed a FEMP-backed analysis of the 400 sites that represent a combined 75% of the federal government's energy use. From that initial study, Anderson's group will embark on a deeper analysis of energy use at three agencies with large campuses: the Department of Veterans Affairs, the General Services Administration (GSA), and the Air Force.

How well federal agencies are progressing toward their goals is measured and reported annually to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The most recent report, covering fiscal year 2013, found a dozen agencies had trimmed their energy use by at least 24%, as measured by a reduction in Btu per gross square foot. Overall, the government's energy use was down about 20% from the 2003 benchmark.

Anderson said every agency wants to reach the goals, "but they also recognize that it has to be done cost effectively. It can't cost them any more than it would to purchase utility power. In some cases they can't quite get to the goal given today's utility rates and today's renewable energy prices. In those cases, they look at a 10-year or 20-year plan when utility prices might be higher or renewable prices might be lower."

The Navy, which intended to have half of its onshore energy needs met by alternative sources by 2020, moved up its target and will procure or produce a gigawatt of renewable energy by the end of this year. The Navy last year created the Renewable Energy Program Office (REPO) to identify cost-effective renewable energy offices.

With NREL's assistance, the Department of the Interior (DOI)—parent to the National Park Service—has managed to reduce the amount of energy it uses by about 34% from 10 years earlier. DOI also has increased its use of renewable energy sources by 10.1% since 2008.

"The Park Service has many remote locations that are burning diesel fuel for power," said Scott Haase, NREL's Lab Program Manager for DOI. "It's obviously not ideal when you're in a pristine environment to have diesel running in the background. We're trying to identify ways to mix more solar into those systems."

Although the addition of solar panels is part of what NREL recommended for the National Park Service, that's not what the laboratory automatically suggests for any site.

"We always preach efficiency first," said NREL Senior Engineer Alicen Kandt , who provides FEMP-funded work for the National Park Service. "It's the most cost effective. I think that sometimes people get a little more excited about renewables. It's a lot more visible. Sometimes people approach us about renewables and we ask them, ‘Have you done anything about efficiency?'"

Using energy more efficiently can be as simple as replacing incandescent light bulbs with light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

"We try very hard to be technologically agnostic," said Marguerite Kelly, manager of the IAC's Market Partnerships and Tools Group. "In other words, not to tell an agency it should use wind and not solar. We try to say, ‘OK, here's how you make that decision. Here are some factors you should consider.'"

Executive Order 13693 also mandates that all new federal buildings with planning beginning in 2020 or later be designed to reach net-zero status by 2030. A net-zero building produces as much energy as it uses over the course of a year.

"It's easiest to design aggressive energy-efficiency features into a new structure," Kelly said. "It's much easier to do that than to retrofit an old structure." But with better natural lighting and the addition of solar panels, she said: "You can usually cut the energy use of a building substantially."

The Department of Defense (DOD) uses far more energy than any other federal agency and also relies on renewables the most. About 1.5 million megawatt-hours of the DOD's energy came from renewables in Fiscal Year 2013, but that accounted for 6.2% of the 30 million megawatt-hours the agency used that year.

An influx of additional funds didn't accompany the executive order. Instead, agencies can tap into private-sector financing options such as power purchase agreements (PPAs). A PPA puts the financial onus onto the developer of a solar project, for example. But after paying the upfront cost of the project, the developer reaps the benefits from any tax rebates or incentives offered by state or local governments. The federal agency is able to buy power at a cost lower than what a utility would charge.

That's the idea behind the Capital Solar Challenge, said Andy Walker, a principal engineer at NREL. He and seven others from NREL went to Washington last year to look into the feasibility of installing solar panels on 44 federal buildings. The technoeconomic analysis revealed adding the panels makes financial sense, but not on every building.

The GSA issued an RFP that asks a developer to sign a PPA to install the solar panels on the 18 buildings that remain under consideration, including such notable structures as the Museum of American History and the Hubert H. Humphrey Building. The Capital Solar Challenge comes after a push by the District for utilities to generate more electricity from renewable sources. The target is 20% by 2020, and 2.5% must come via solar by 2023.

Walker's work in Washington gave him a bird's-eye view on the goings-on in the capital. From the roof of the five-story Treasury Building, he could see the White House lawn directly to the west. "When I was up on the Treasury roof, Michelle Obama was setting up for pumpkin carving on the lawn," Walker said.

—by Wayne Hicks

Learn more about how NREL is helping federal agencies.

[Heather Lammers, 303.275.4084,
heather.lammers@nrel.gov]