Verizon Operations Center Earns LEED Green Building Certification

Verizon recently announced that its operations center in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, has earned the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED® Silver certification for the center's environmentally friendly-design and energy efficiency.

To make the 1.4 million-square-foot facility more energy efficient, Verizon uses temperature sensors and energy-management systems to monitor heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. The company also controls the facility's lighting schedules; tracks maintenance and service requirements; uses air handlers with variable frequency drives for energy-efficient heating and cooling; and has installed energy-efficient light-emitting diode and fluorescent T-5 lights.

"Verizon's LEED certification demonstrates tremendous green building leadership," said Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO and founding chair of the U.S. Green Building Council. "As the newest member of the LEED family of green buildings, the Verizon operations center is an important addition to the growing strength of the green building movement."

Verizon says that is remains committed to finding practical and innovative ways to increase energy efficiency and bolster conservation efforts. The company currently operates the largest fuel cell site of its kind in the nation. Using seven fuel cells, the company's Energy Star Award-winning facility in Garden City, New York, can generate enough electricity per hour to meet the energy needs of 400 single-family homes.

To qualify for the Energy Star rating, the center had to place among the top 25 percent of the most energy-efficient facilities in the U.S. Commercial buildings that earn the Energy Star rating use an average of 40 percent less energy than typical buildings and release 35 percent less CO2.

If you would like to follow Verizon's lead and make your home or office more energy efficient, check out the energy conservation tag of the blog for great resources on how to be greener in the New Year.

The U.S. Green Buildings Council Partners with Girl Scouts to Create Greener Schools and Communities

Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) recently announced that they have joined forces to help girls take action to improve the environment and their communities by promoting green schools.

Local Girl Scouts will participate in Forever Green projects as part of USGBC’s National Green Schools Campaign. Girls will team with USGBC volunteers throughout its extensive chapter network to develop and use their leadership skills to significantly impact the environment by working in schools and throughout their communities to save energy, conserve water, increase green space, improve air quality and reduce waste.

“Through our partnership with the Girl Scouts of the USA, we have the potential to reach and inspire millions of girls – America’s future leaders – to impact the way school buildings are designed, built and operated, enabling a healthier and environmentally responsible built environment for future students and teachers,” said Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO & Founding Chair, USGBC.

To learn more about what Girls Scouts are doing to help better the environment, check out It's Your Planet—Love It! Maybe you'll even find something inspiring to help you make changes in your own community.

PG&E; to Purchase and Operate Major California Wind Energy Project

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E;) recently announced that it plans to purchase and operate a major wind generating plant to be built in Southern California to serve the utility's electric customers.

With a power capacity of up to 246 megawatts, the proposed project would be the first wind project owned by PG&E.; If approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, the project could begin producing wind power by December 2011.

With a projected annual output of up to 670 gigawatt-hours per year, equal to the energy consumed by about 100,000 average homes, the project would contribute significantly to PG&E;'s efforts to meet California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard.

Find PG&E; service available in your area

Tax Credits for Energy Efficiency Home Improvements

It's tax time again! When you are filling out your returns (before April 15, 2010!), don't forget to claim any tax credits relation to energy efficiency home improvements you did in 2009.

For improvements made in 2009 and 2010, you can get an income tax credit of up to $1,500 for installing efficient new windows, insulation, doors, roofs, and heating and cooling equipment in your home. However, efficiency criteria will vary dependent on when these items are installed.

Not sure what counts and what doesn't? The Alliance to Save Energy offers a handy Guide to Energy-Efficiency Home and Vehicle Tax Credits.

American Wind Energy Association Says 2009 a Good Year for Wind Energy

The American Wind Energy Association thinks that 2009 was a pretty good year for wind energy in the United States. The association recently identified the wind industry’s top accomplishments and developments of the year, including:

• Saving Water: The electricity from the entire fleet of turbines installed through 2009 will conserve over 20 billion gallons of water annually, which would otherwise be withdrawn for steam or cooling in conventional power plants.
• Avoiding Carbon: Those same turbines will avoid emitting over 57 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, based on the conventional mix of fuels used for electricity generation. That is equivalent to taking over 9.5 million cars off the road!
• Improving Environmental Health: They will also help avoid annually 200,000 additional metric tons of acid-rain causing sulfur dioxide which would otherwise have to be abated to achieve the national Acid Rain Program goals and 80,000 additional metric tons of smog-causing nitrous oxide which would otherwise have been emitted.

To see all the AWEA's thoughts on wind energy in 2009, check out American Wind Energy Association Notes Wind Industry Highlights of 2009. If you'd like to purchase greener energy in 2010, be sure to visit Green Energy Choice to find the best offers available in your area.

Going Green or Saving Green?

Going green is kind of the big trend as of late - it seems that everyone wants to be doing more of it. While being more environmentally friendly is not all together too hard, there are a few instances where it can cause a bit of sacrifice. I don't mean to make it sound difficult, but sometimes bucking old habits isn't always the easiest thing to do.

This is especially true when it comes to our wallets. There is a pervasive myth out there that green is in general more expensive, but that simply isn't the case one hundred percent of the time. For example, green buildings and normal construction are leveling out these days. Likewise, green electricity plans do not typically cost more than regular electricity plans.

However, there will occasionally be times when going green might cost a little extra. The rationale behind this is often that the extra price provides long term benefits, not only for the environment but also for the checkbook.

This idea really got my brain turning: when it comes to being green, what do people generally care more about? When faced with the choice of helping the environment or saving money, what will people choose? I thought I'd create a poll that posed this very question. Feel free to vote on it and tell us what you would choose or what you think about the topic in the comments!

Cyber Monday 50 Times More Green than Black Friday

Earlier this year, we told you all about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, two of the biggest shopping days of the year. Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving where brick-and-mortar retailers offer deep discounts, while Cyber Monday is the following Monday when online retailers slash prices. While both offer unique benefits, which one is more eco-friendly?

Shopping online is a generally considered a greener way to shop, as you don’t have to drive around all day looking for gifts. In fact, a new report by MindClick SGM and GigaOm claims that shopping at stores on Black Friday is on average 50 times more carbon intensive than buying presents online Cyber Monday. Besides all the driving, the rest of the difference comes mainly from the huge overhead of the stores (heating, lighting, employees etc.).

Those infrastructure-related emissions are so heavy that the study found that even a consumer walking to a store to buy their gifts would have a larger carbon footprint that one that shopped online. Shopping online does involve lots of packaging and transportation (think big trucks and planes), but economies of scale come in to play to mitigate the amount of carbon emitted per gift.

So next year, do some research to see if you will be able to shop exclusively online—the planet will thank you.

10 Easy Tips for a Green Christmas

Christmastime is generally one of the least eco-friendly parts of the year—but it doesn’t have to be. Stay off of Santa’s naughty list this year with these simple green tips.

• Buy LED lights – LED Christmas lights use up to 90 percent less electricity than incandescent.
• Shop online – Driving across town all day buying gifts really racks up the carbon emissions. Instead, plan ahead and buy your gifts online.
• Use real plates and cutlery – It’s no secret, people love to eat around the holidays. This year, make sure you aren’t generating trash and wasting resources by serving everything on real plates and silverware.
• Put up less lights – Many times, people keep putting up lights just because they have more to put up. Make sure you’re only putting up lights you really want to put up—less can be more.
• Buy a sustainable and/or potted tree – Plastic trees are not eco-friendly at all, but cutting down a tree every year isn’t either. Look for trees that have been raised sustainability or ones that are potted. Potted trees can be reused for years and eventually re-planted.
• Reduce, reuse and recycle wrapping – Americans generate countless tons of waste each year just in Christmas gift wrapping. Instead of adding to the pile, look for ways to cut down on the amount you use, reuse gift bags and ribbon and recycle paper.
• Organic and local foods – For your Christmas feast, try to buy as much organic and locally raised foods as possible. Bonus: your food will probably end up tasting better!
• Send e-cards – Instead of paper cards, send out virtual cards this year. They may not have the full effect of a real card, but they cut down on lots of waste and carbon emissions.
• Recycle your tree – If you end up with a real tree that isn’t potted, don’t just feed it to the landfill. Instead, find a recycler that can chip it up for use in gardening.
• Turn off lights – Lights are great at turning up the holiday spirit, but only have them on when you are around to enjoy them. Leaving lights on while you are out of the house is just a waste.

Color Changing Roof Tiles Could Save Hundreds in Cooling Costs

It’s a concept we all learn in grade school science—dark things absorb heat while light things reflect it. Because of that principle, black roof tiles are terrific at absorbing heat during the winter, but reduce energy efficiency and make it harder to keep your house cool in summer.

To address this problem, experts such as US Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu recommend that homeowners in warm climates paint their roofs white. While that may be a clever move for some (providing their homeowners’ association approves), it doesn’t fully address the problem. In a perfect world, we would all have black roofs during cold times and white ones when it’s hot. Enter a team of recent MIT graduates and Thermeleon, their new green roofing concept.

Thermeleon is a roof tile filled with a “phase-change polymer gel” that changes color based on temperature. On hot days, the tile appears white and reflects roughly 80 percent of sunlight. But on warmer days, the tile turns black and reflects only 30 percent of sunlight. All of that translates into a roughly 20 percent reduction on cooling costs, which could translate into hundreds of dollars in lower utility bills per year.

The team is currently working on translating the method Thermeleon uses to change its color into a spray that can be applied to existing roofs, which makes it much more practical. No specific plans have been made to commercialize the concept yet, but the team does plan on working to bring the concept to reality. Here’s hoping it all works out.

Image via MIT

Powering Up with Microsoft Hohm

We've written a few times in the past about the myriad of energy tracking tools available on the Web for consumers looking to beef up on their energy efficiency.There's Google PowerMeter of course, as well as EnergyCircle, a tool that helps parents show their kids about conservation. One of the newer entries into the bunch happens to be from software giant Microsoft.

Microsoft Hohm is a service that allows you to monitor your energy usage for the purpose of saving money.As someone that's interested in that, I thought I'd sign up and give it a whirl.

I think one of the more interesting features of Hohm is just how thorough it is when evaluating your home energy situation. It asks for information about your house, including the year it was built, the structure, what kind of insulation you have, the surface area of the windows, etc. The information is organized in a way that's easy to use and surprisingly fun to fill out.

Once you're done with that, you move on to your heating/cooling and lighting, where you input the amount of light fixtures in your house and the kinds of bulbs you use. It's actually kind of eye opening to think about each room and where you could be saving money by just swapping a few bulbs or by leaving the lights off more.

After all of that, there is even a field for you to share your electricity info, including the amount of kWh you use per month, and the rate you're paying. With all of this information, Hohm constructs a chart of your average utility costs, and what you can do immediately to make your home more energy efficient and save money.

All in all, I would definitely recommend checking out Hohm if you have been thinking about ways to lower your utility costs or how to upgrade your home. It's in beta right now, and you'll need a Windows Live ID but I'd say it's worth it to give Hohm a trial run.

Do you have any energy monitors that you use for your home? Which ones are your favorites?