Energy News
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
On December 1, building owners, contractors, and local elected official gathered at the Howard Apartment Building in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood to learn about the Energy Savers program, one of the most effective energy efficiency programs in the country. Energy Savers is a project of CNT Energy and the Community Investment Corporation (CIC). The program offers a one-stop shop that helps building owners navigate the complexities of investing in energy efficiency. Read more »
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Monday, October 18th, 2010
The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) has selected CNT Energy to coordinate the implementation of a $25 million dollar federal grant that will fund more than 8,000 energy efficiency retrofits, leverage more than $500 million in local investments, and create more than 2,000 jobs.
The program, known as the Chicago Region Retrofit Ramp-up (CR3), is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). CNT Energy leads a team that includes the Chicago Jobs Council (CJC), Shaw Group, Delta Institute and Renewable Funding. The team will put its nationally recognized planning, researching and retrofitting capabilities to work removing barriers that prevent large-scale participation in the retrofit marketplace. Read more »
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Friday, July 16th, 2010
As more companies like GE and Siemens delve deeply into the technological opportunities to be gained from a smart grid, CNT and other advocates stress that a smart grid will not be economically viable unless customer benefits are included as fundamental components.
As it stands, most discussions of infrastructure investment do not include customer benefits anywhere near the beginning of the discussion. Because many smart grid investments need to rely on consumer benefits as well as system benefits for a strong business case, lack of a robust consumer-oriented strategy weakens the argument for smart grid investments. Read more »
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Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
Congratulations to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) and its partners, City of Chicago and City of Rockford, for receipt of a $25 million Department of Energy (DOE) “Retrofit Ramp-Up” award. This award recognizes the work that is being done in the Chicago area and will help expand implementation of energy efficiency programs across the region.
“This grant represents unprecedented new opportunities for the Chicago region to accelerate efforts for high performing energy efficiency initiatives,” said Scott Bernstein, President of CNT, who attended today’s announcement at the White House. “This award will help organizations around the region to expand existing initiatives and create new ones that save real money for households and building owners while also reducing our region’s carbon footprint.”
Read more »
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Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
The Preservation Compact announced that CNT Energy’s innovative energy efficiency program, Cook County Energy Savers, is proving that residential energy retrofits can scale-up quickly, reaching thousands of residents and delivering cost-effective, large-scale benefits.
In just 18 months, Energy Savers has retrofitted 3,500 apartments and other rental units in Chicago and neighboring communities, typically cutting energy consumption by 30 percent. The program has more than 2,500 units in construction and is on track to complete more than 8,500 retrofits by the end of this year, making it one of the country’s largest and most successful programs for retrofitting existing multi-family, rental housing. Read more »
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Friday, January 22nd, 2010
The U.S. Green Building Council –Chicago Chapter and its partners are recruiting up to 25 more projects for analysis in year 2 of the Regional Green Building Case Study Project. If interested in enrolling an Illinois LEED project in this multi-year study, please visit the project recruitment web site then submit a completed authorization form.
During the project’s first year the U.S. Green Building Council—Chicago Chapter and its partners collected and analyzed data from 25 projects across the state. With the generous support of the Grand Victoria Foundation and the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation, we will re-engage the initial 25 projects while adding 25 more projects, for a total sample size of 50. This is one of a few post-occupancy studies with such a broad scope of metrics and is among the first to collect multiple years of data and provide ongoing analysis to participants.
Click here to learn more about year 2 of the Regional Green Building Case Study, including eligibility requirements.
Click here to learn more about CNT’s work on the year 1 of the Regional Green Building Case Study.
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Monday, October 26th, 2009
Today the U.S. Green Building Council – Chicago Chapter released a year-one report of the post-occupancy performance of LEED buildings in Illinois. CNT is one of five project partners and performed the project’s data collection and analysis.
The report analyzes how 25 LEED commercial building projects in Illinois perform post-occupancy over multiple years in areas including energy and water use, greenhouse gas emissions, operating costs, commute transportation and occupant comfort. The research is funded for a second year, which will kick off later this fall, and will include up to 50 new and returning projects.
Read more »
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Friday, October 23rd, 2009
In September, CNT conducted the first of three workshops kicking off the Municipal Energy Profile Program (MEPP) for the 7-county Chicago region. There a forum was created for technical questions and best practices on how different communities are planning to spend their Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program federal money, and received input on how CNT can best help municipalities. The workshop helped set the stage for developing a regional partnership to address energy efficiency and participate in the competitive round of federal funding.
With funding from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation, CNT is working with municipalities around the region to assess and analyze their resident’s energy and emissions usage. Each profile includes aggregates of annual natural gas consumption and electricity consumption from account-level data; aggregate annual electricity consumption from account-level data; annual greenhouse gas emissions inventory; and annual transportation by vehicle miles traveled, provided by the natural gas and electricity utilities serving Northern Illinois—ComEd, Nicor, Peoples and North Shore Gas.
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Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
In 2005, CNT received a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment) Platinum designation from the U.S. Green Building Council for its renovation of its headquarters in Chicago. Today McGraw Hill Construction released a new market research study, Green Building Retrofit & Renovation: Rapidly Expanding Market Opportunities through Existing Buildings, which features CNT as a case study.
This report examines the economic impact of green retrofits. CNT’s LEED Platinum office building saves nearly $18,000 in energy costs annually and was built at a cost comparable to a standard renovation. Our building serves as a demonstration that energy efficient retrofits are a good investment. The recently released McGraw Hill report suggests that green building is more than just a trend and that existing buildings are the fastest growing market for green buildings. Read more »
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Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Yesterday CNT Energy Director, Anne Evens, was at the White House for Vice President Joe Biden’s press conference on expanding a program to retrofit homes. CNT Energy wrote about this exciting step toward using energy more efficiently, at the Power Smart Pricing blog.
The goal of the “Recovery Through Retrofit” plan is to expand home energy retrofit programs and energy efficiency. The report sites the barriers that have prevented the field from expanding and reaching more of the 130 million homes in the United State that could use a boost in efficiency. The key to the new initiative is to overcome these barriers to help homeowners make cost effective investments in their homes.
Read more »
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