What do you know about switching?
Posted on August 28th, 2010 by alex
Could it be the fear of hassle or unknown complications that make most DMV residents “stagnant” about choices of alternative renewable energy? Besides mere contentment on current situations, everyone should become more educated about the renewable energy options available to them – especially with the likelihood of them benefiting by saving money on their current energy expenses. As we all continue to be more conscious about wasting energy in our homes we should consider and make inquiries about alternative renewable energy resources. Switching to alternative renewable energy resources such as Solar or Wind are available options to the majority of homeowners.
There are affordable solar installers, wind RECs service providers or energy audit technicians that would love to help anyone to streamline their energy accounts and conserve energy in their households. A few minutes of your time to consult reliable providers such as Clean Currents or Kenergy solar on considerations about electricity supply options will help and educate you on making the right choice.
A D.C resident recently made a complete switch to 100% wind RECs as his energy supplier instead of using PEPCO. The following process lead to him switching to a renewable energy provider:
- Examined current billing charges of cents per KWH (pepco, BGE, etc.)
- Inquired and compared rates from renewable energy provider ( Clean Currents)
- Considered the options available within budget from the renewable energy provider (most likely will have lower rates for residents when compared to local utility company)
- Proceeded with switching process ( simple sign up with energy billing documents)
- Confirmation from parties involved about successful transition and other important information
The transition the resident described was simpler than expected – and I believe others would say the same. As we gradually roll into colder season, so does most budgets adjust and you may see an increase in your utility bills due to heating your home. However, on the other hand if you switch to an alternative renewable energy supplier you can have a lower fixed rate no matter the season. It is alarming to know how far-back we are when it comes to this aspect of technology growth – east coast in general. But the numbers are changing; and it should when there are no significant reasons for staying in an “old system”.
Nothing is perfect nor would anything improve without series of hurdles. Solar energy and wind RECs are reliable energy with good causes and incentives – not to mention a good investment. One important notion about going green is living smart. There is no sense in making these changes in your homes when there isn’t any discipline on daily activities concerning energy usage.
An affordable energy audit will do more than tell you what you might already know but it will also give you specific individual assessments for necessary changes while educating you in the process. Making these choices or having inquired about different alternative energy considerations is one step towards smart green living for all DMV residents.
Sobuka would be glad to assist anyone within the area that considers making the switch. Contact us at info@sobuka.com for assistance.
Related posts:
- MoM’s doing it, So can you.
- Going Green & Clean Can Prevent Dirty Mishaps
- China charges on, topping U.S. in Clean energy investments
Tags: Energy Savings, Renewable energy, Residential energy supply switch, Solar Resource, Utility bill audit, Wind RECs providers
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 28th, 2010 at 1:49 am and is filed under Featured Content, Solar Energy, Uncategorized, Wind Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
What do you know about switching? | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing
Free Home Energy Audits for DC Residents | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing
The program promotes energy efficiency assessments for single family homes in the District. Based on a home energy rating system, auditors will suggest specific cost-effective, energy efficient improvements that should be done to reduce the home’s operational costs and improve comfort.
Such improvements and ratings may help you qualify for lower rate mortgages or energy efficiency home mortgages. Your energy rating should also help sellers be more attractive to home buyers.
What is a home energy rating?
The Home Energy Rating is a standard measurement of a home’s energy efficiency. An energy rating allows a homebuyer to easily compare the energy costs for the homes being considered. A homeowner who wants to upgrade the home’s energy efficiency can use the energy rating to evaluate and pinpoint specific cost-effective improvement needs.
Home energy ratings involve an on-site inspection of a home by a residential energy efficiency professional, a home energy rater. DDOE has selected Elysian Energy, LLC to conduct the Home Energy Ratings. As a rule, home energy raters come from either the housing or energy fields. Their backgrounds include experience as home inspectors, appraisers, energy auditors, low-income Weatherization contractors, and energy efficient homebuilders and designers.
The home energy rater inspects the home and measures energy characteristics such as: insulation levels, window efficiency, wall-to-wall ratios, the heating and cooling system efficiency, the solar orientation of the home, and the water heating system. Diagnostic testing, which may include a blower door for air leakage and duct leakage testing, is often part of the rating.
The data gathered by the home energy rater is entered into a computer program and translated into points. The home receives a point score between 1 and 100, depending on its relative efficiency. An estimate of the home’s energy costs is also provided. The home’s energy efficiency is then equated to a STAR rating ranging from 1 STAR for a very inefficient home to a 5 STAR for a highly efficient home. Along with the rating sheet, homeowners receive a report listing cost-effective options for improving the home’s energy rating.
FIVE STAR + (PLUS) = EXTREMELY EFFICIENT
FIVE STAR = VERY EFFICENT
FOUR STAR + + = EFFICIENT
FOUR STAR = GOOD
THREE STAR + + = ABOVE AVERAGE
THREE STAR = AVERAGE
TWO STAR + + = BELOW AVERAGE
TWO STAR = FAIR
ONE STAR + + = POOR
ONE STAR = EXTREMLY POOROne of the major differences between a home energy rating and an energy audit or Weatherization assessment is that the rating is a recognized tool in the mortgage process. Home energy ratings are valuable to the housing industry and can be utilized in a variety of ways. The information derived from the home energy rating provides important information about a home’s performance and the economic analysis necessary to support lending decisions.
Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing » Blog Archive » Ecobuild America 2010-Washington, DC
Ecobuild is the only industry event bringing the entire construction team together. So many specialized areas of knowledge are needed to create a better built world – one that is safe, healthy, and environmentally responsive. Come discover integrated, proven solutions encompassing:
- Building Information Modeling (BIM)
- green technology
- high performance building
- sustainable design
- energy-efficiency
- smart buildings
- security and more.
Learn how to reduce environmental and energy impacts throughout every phase of the facility lifecycle. At this one unique event, you can also catch up with ever-evolving tech tools to improve workflow and communication.
No matter what your discipline—from architecture, engineering, construction, facility management, to development and more – go beyond events where attendees talk in silos. Come to Ecobuild where real collaboration is advancing our industry’s performance today.
Ecobuild America and its co-located events give you the education and resources you need to build smarter and improve our built environment.
Member meetings: Dec. 6-10
Conference: Dec. 7-9
Exhibits: Dec. 8-9Related posts:
Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing » Blog Archive » Green Festival – Washington, DC 2010
Think of Green Festival® as a walk through a sustainable community. It begins with finding solutions to help make our lives healthier—socially, economically and environmentally. Individuals along with business and community leaders come together to discuss critical issues that impact us at home and abroad. Organizations and businesses showcase programs and products that restore the planet and all that inhabit it. Neighbor-to-neighbor connections are formed, and skills are shared to empower people to create positive change in the world.
This will be a two-day event in Washington DC from 10/23/10 – 10/24/2010
Washington DC Convention Center
October 23-24, 2010
Saturday 10AM – 7PM
Sunday 11AM – 6PMRelated posts:
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
How about dinning in green? | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing
How about dinning in green?
Posted on August 10th, 2010 by alex
Shopping occasionally at organic stores, growing little fruits and vegetables or enjoying more natural provenders are encouraging behaviors that will surely continue to build green-living consciousness to more communities. They would often influence daily practices, improve diets and importantly support eco-living localities. But we sometimes change routine once in a while – enjoying lunches, dinners (healthy of course) in the interest of variety.
Still, do you know if restaurants are beginning to or already disciplined in green behaviors like recycling, eliminating styrofoam and more activities of which some may not ever think of beside the aesthetic appearance or choice on menu of “the” restaurant?
A long existed and successful non-profit organization, Green Restaurant Association (GRA) has lead the efforts to make restaurants go green and maintain a required minimum level of achievements to identify as a Green Restaurant Certified member. Green Restaurant Association is a Massachusetts-based organization helping restaurants with resourceful solutions that aims to reduce baleful environmental impacts and behaviors. Expanding this trend by consumers being informed, pairs with the standards this organization enforces towards their mission – creating an environmentally sustainable industry.
GRA is partnered with various corporations to educate and largely influence the restaurant industry about environmental sustainability and responsibility. Present-day restaurants are assessed for qualification on these categories:
* Water efficiency
* Waste Reduction/Recycling
* Sustainable Food
* Energy efficiency and conservation
* Chemical & Pollution Reduction
* Furnishings and Building Materials
* Green-living educationGreening restaurants is important because as consumers, we play a significant part not only as a vital piece on the economic consumerism, but also a balance on sustainability of the environment. Unbeknownst to many, we as consumers weigh heavily on such matters from fast-food chains to sophisticated restaurants; because the pulse of consumers and behavior is the driving force in their businesses.
This does not mean boycotting any restaurant but perhaps try to impart greening notions towards their activities and encourage those unaware to join their association. It could be one of your easy thoughts and discussion in your next dinning. Grin to a friend about it, this is a green movement.
Related posts:
- University of Maryland is GREEN
- Skip the Bag & Save the River…or Pay the Price
- ‘Plans on dealing your electro-junk for bucks?
Tags: Green Certificate, Green Dinning, Green Restaurant Association, Healthy living, Recycle program and composting, Sustainable Environment
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 3:25 pm and is filed under Environment, Featured Content. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
add "are you green?" to your next dining experience
Saturday, August 7, 2010
NASA shoots for LEED Platinum certification | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing
NASA shoots for LEED Platinum with new building
Posted on August 7th, 2010 by Daniel
As one of the nation’s premier organizations for the advancement of science, NASA really isn’t at the forefront of the latest and greatest in eco-friendly technology. That’s why the agency is making a push to revamp its decades old centers to join the green revolution. The Kennedy Space Center’s (KSC) Propellants North Administrative and Maintenance Facility is being constructed to obtain the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Platinum standard, its highest award for green construction.
What’s LEED? An acronym for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design,” LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system. It verifies a building’s or community’s design and construction used strategies that improved performance in energy savings, water efficiency, and CO2 emissions reduction. It also verifies improved indoor environmental quality, and ensures resources were used in an eco-conscious manner, minimizing their impact on the environment.
One of the stringent requirements is to use materials and resources within a 500-mile radius from the construction site. To help it meet this requirement, the construction reused waste concrete from KSC’s demolition projects for its foundation, incorporated the old glazing and framing from the iconic Launch Control Center’s firing room, and added the crushed crawlerway rocks into its landscape.
Scheduled to open in late December, the 10,703-square-foot facility is designed to be 52% more efficient than traditional commercial buildings. It will have an underground rainwater collection system for irrigation and bathrooms, high-efficiency roofing, windows and walls, air conditioning with energy recovery technology, smart lighting controls, water-conserving bathroom fixtures and high-velocity hand dryers. Natural daylight will be incorporated with high windows at the right solar orientation, and the facility will use polished concrete and laminated bamboo for flooring.
Approximately 95% of all the waste generated during construction has been diverted from landfills. So far, they’ve recycled 475 tons of concrete, 163 pounds of crushed bottles and aluminum cans, 2.16 tons of cardboard, 164 pounds of white paper, 2.3 tons of wood and 3.5 tons of steel. These numbers will only increase as the project nears completion.
Our hats off to NASA.
At Sobuka, we help homeowners and businesses go green by connecting them to contractors for solar, wind RECs, energy efficiency audits, and any other green remodeling. An energy efficiency audit is the first step you should take to go green. Perform a zipc0de search on our homepage and request a FREE quote from one of our qualified energy efficiency auditors. Be part of the solution to the environment!
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Tags: Kennedy Spaceflight Center, LEED Platinum, NASA, USGBC
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 7th, 2010 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Featured Content, Green Construction and Remodeling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
i wonder if a silver snoopy award can be given for creating a healthy work environment
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
University of Maryland going GREEN | Sobuka Blog | Clean Energy and Green Tech News & Events | Solar Installations | Wind Energy RECs | Energy Audits | Green Remodeling | Green Financing
University of Maryland is GREEN
Posted on August 4th, 2010 by Daniel
As former students of UMD, we’re not trying to toot our horn (Go Terps!), but we’d like to share with you some fabulous news about universities going green. The University of Maryland got a perfect score on the Princeton Review “Green Rating Honor Roll.”
The Green Rating looks into the school’s initiatives and performance on environmental awareness and responsibility. The key areas examined are 1) whether students’ campus life is sustainable and healthy; 2) how prepared graduates are for work in the clean energy industry, and the quality of their citizenship towards environmental challenges; and 3) how eco-friendly the school’s policies are. The study was conducted in partnership with ecoAmerica.
The remaining schools on the Green Rating honor roll are:
- Arizona State University (Tempe)
- College of the Atlantic (Bar Harbor ME)
- The Evergreen State College (Olympia WA)
- Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta)
- Harvard College (Cambridge MA)
- Northeastern University (Boston MA)
- Northland College (Ashland WI)
- State University of New York — Binghamton University
- Unity College (Unity ME)
- University of California — Berkeley
- University of California — Santa Barbara
- University of California — Santa Cruz
- University of Georgia (Athens)
- University of Maine (Orono)
- Warren Wilson College (Asheville NC)
- West Virginia University (Morgantown)
- Yale University (New Haven CT)
Here are a few examples of UMD going green: the university recently installed solar hot water heaters, pictured above, that will generate about a third of the hot water used at one of its dining halls. This investment is scheduled to save $1.7M annually! And although we’re not big fans of the metered parking costs (a bit too pricey for our liking), UMD’s parking meter booths run on sun-tracking solar panels, now that’s cool!
For more info about what UMD’s green initiatives, check out their sustainability page. In conclusion, GO TERPS!
(via UM Newsdesk)
As always, if you are interested in being part of the solution to the environment, feel free to conduct a zipcode search to find green contractors near you. We recommend an energy efficiency audit as the first step towards going green. Find out how efficient you home or business is doing by requesting a FREE quote through the zipcode search on our homepage.
Related posts:
- Solar Car Wash in College Park, MD
- Clean Cities Program
- 4th of July – Independence with Green Fireworks
- Using solar for desalination
Tags: green schools, princeton review, university of maryland
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 at 3:43 pm and is filed under Environment, Featured Content. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
GO TERPS!