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The Clinton campaign has spoken about energy policy and the need to address building efficiency and renewable power production. See Clinton Policy here. A new Clinton administration can advance the foundation of positive change set by the Obama administration. One program the incoming administration can build off of is President Obama’s Better Building Initiative. According to the White House, “The President’s Better Buildings Initiative will make commercial buildings 20 percent more energy efficient over the next decade”(https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/02/03/president-obama-s-plan-win-future-making-american-businesses-more-energy).
The Clinton campaign has also spoken about the need to increase US manufacturing for job creation. Since the convention is in Philadelphia this week, GREENandSAVE found a Philadelphia area company that embodies the combination of US manufacturing and clean technology, Independence LED.
Independence LED manufactures energy efficient light emitting diodes for commercial buildings and has installations ranging from US navy Ships to the first Veterans’ Affairs Hospital. Earlier this year the company launched a war on energy waste that includes the following highlights:
“The order of magnitude is tremendous based on data from the General Services Administration (GSA) and LED performance metrics. The military and VA occupy more than 2.2 billion sq. ft. of buildings which is two thirds of the total 3.4 billion sq. ft. of federal government property. At $1 per sq. ft. to retrofit with LEDs, the annual energy savings is typically $.33 per sq. ft. or higher. The government could save over a billion dollars every year just by changing the lights and save more than 10 billion over the decade long life of the LED technology.”
“By launching a War on Energy Waste, the government can go beyond job training to also create opportunities for Veterans to work on many aspects of lighting retrofits. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) there are over 87 billion sq. ft. of commercial real estate in the U.S. With $1 per sq. ft. to retrofit and one new job created for every $150,000 in lighting retrofits, the employment ripple effect is over 580,000 new jobs. The employment includes counting lights to prepare savings analysis, utility rebate administration, installation, project management, engineering, and product production. Many of the jobs involve Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (S.T.E.M.) so the clean-tech work is foundational for 21st century careers. The national energy savings will exceed $287 billion over the next decade and yield over 3.4 trillion lbs of CO2 emissions reduction, the equivalent of taking about 30 million cars off the road.”
For more on the war on energy waste initiative see the full article at: http://independenceled.com/war-on-energy-waste/
