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Just In!

Just In! features three or more fresh news item summaries on our home page every Monday, with the ability to comment via the blog link in each summary.

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1. NYS Guidance on Essential Businesses
2. Urgent Need to Spur Renewables
3. California Utility Prioritizes Carbon Metric
4. Career Corner

1. NYS Guidance on Essential Businesses

This Empire State Development website describes which businesses can continue to function within the coronavirus pandemic as of March 28, 2020. The construction section is most relevant to geothermal installers:

9. Construction

All non-essential construction must shut down except emergency construction, (e.g. a project necessary to protect health and safety of the occupants, or to continue a project if it would be unsafe to allow to remain undone until it is safe to shut the site).

Essential construction may continue and includes roads, bridges, transit facilities, utilities, hospitals or health care facilities, affordable housing, and homeless shelters. At every site, if essential or emergency non-essential construction, this includes maintaining social distance, including for purposes of elevators/meals/entry and exit. Sites that cannot maintain distance and safety best practices must close and enforcement will be provided by the state in coordination with the city/local governments. This will include fines of up to $10,000 per violation.

For purposes of this section construction work does not include a single worker, who is the sole employee/worker on a job site.

You can comment here.

2. Urgent Need to Spur Renewables

Green Energy Times (2020 03 21) summarizes a Utility Dive report (2020 03 20):

Unemployment Poised To Skyrocket, Creating Urgent Need To Spur Renewables: Obama Veteran Of 2008 Financial Crisis.

Power sector leaders are pushing Congress to address hits to the industry in its stimulus package. A former Obama transition team member pointed out that clean energy buildouts could be the first to hire.

You can comment here.

Please renew your NY-GEO membership if you haven't already.

See our Facebook page, @NewYorkGEOHP, for other updates.

Summaries and FB page are maintained by Billii Roberti of Green Choices Consulting.

For Our Readers

NEW! See the new Heat Pump Incentive Table here.

NOTE: LIPA/PSEG-LI rebates are not included in this table, but can be found here, under the section "Higher Rebates."

NY-GEO offers its readers this Summary of January 16, 2020 Public Service Commission Energy Efficiency Order as it relates to heat pumps to help you understand and plan for the changes ahead.

NYSERDA Ground Source Heat Pump video

More Just In!

3. California Utility Prioritizes Carbon Metric

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has begun using an innovative carbon based accounting approach. It says, in part:

Currently, 65 percent of customers in the United States are served by a utility with a carbon or emission reduction goal, according to the SEPA [Smart Electric Power Alliance] Carbon Reduction Tracker.

...SMUD is leading the way in not only committing to zero-carbon but also aligning internal goals directly with avoided carbon as the key metric. Moving to a carbon-based accounting approach is critical for utilities like SMUD to meet their greenhouse gas goals, especially as they electrify all residential energy use.

Slides regarding this initiative can be found here.

A few editorial observations:

This may be a good example of public ownership providing a quicker route to positive climate action.

From looking at the materials, it also looks like yet one more example of a building decarbonization strategy that discovers the problem of peak electric demand resulting from the use of air source heat pumps without examining geothermal heat pumps as the solution to that problem.
The Sacramento approach looks similar to Beneficial Electrification Earning Adjustment Mechanisms that have become a standard part of NY utility rate cases, opening some space for possible collaboration and cross pollination.

Thanks to NY-GEO member Joe Parsons for this tip.

You can comment here.

4. Career Corner

NOTE: International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHPA) Accredited Installer (AI) Certification is necessary for companies wishing to participate in the NYSERDA geothermal rebate program.

Online IGSHPA AI Training

IGSHPA Trainer Garen Ewbank CEM, CGD, CRM, CEA, CBEP, CSDP will be teaching the 3-day IGSHPA Accredited Installer geothermal course online due to NYS on PAUSE on April 21-23, 2020. PSEG Long Island funding will allow New York workers to attend this course for half price.

This workshop offers 24 Professional Development Hours (PDHs) for Professional Engineers and Architects or equivalent Professional Development Elective (PDE) hours may be obtained for Code Professional Officials.

Click here for information about the training. To register, see Farmingdale Renewable Energy & Sustainability Center.