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Reference Publication: Fairey, P., "Potential of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Savings To Impact Florida's Projected Energy Use in 2014, " Research Report No. FSEC-RR-58-06, Florida Solar Energy Center, Cocoa, FL, January, 2006.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and are not intended to represent the views and opinions of the Florida Solar Energy Center.

Potential of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Savings
To Impact Florida's Projected Energy Use in 2014

Philip Fairey
Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC)

FSEC-RR-58-06

Introduction

Florida’s 2004 electrical energy use was 233 billion kilowatt-hours.  Over half (51%) of this energy use went to residential building energy.  The state’s current 10-year predictions for electrical energy use in 2014 show a requirement for approximately 308 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, an increase of approximately 75 billion kilowatt-hours.  This study presents an example of how Florida can radically alter its 2014 energy use projection by aggressively pursuing residential building energy efficiency improvements and aggressively increasing its use of proven renewable energy resources.

Methods

This study was conducted using EnergyGauge® USA (v.2.52), a detailed, hourly, building energy simulation software based on the U.S. Department of Energy’s DOE-2.1E (v.120) simulation engine.  EnergyGauge was developed by the Florida Solar Energy Center and has been nationally accredited by the Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET) for use as a home energy rating software tool.1 

Three typical Florida homes, each with 2000 square feet of conditioned floor area and three bedrooms have been evaluated using EnergyGauge to determine the degree to which they could be improved through off-the-shelf energy efficiency and renewable energy technology.  Each home is improved to the point that it will qualify for the new $2,000 federal tax credit for highly efficient new homes.  This tax credit, created by the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005, requires that the heating and cooling energy use for qualifying homes be 50% or less of the heating and cooling energy use of a reference home, as defined by the minimum requirements of Section 404 of the 2004 Supplement to the International Energy Efficiency Code (IECC). 2

The three homes were located in Miami, Tampa and Tallahassee in order to represent the variety of Florida climates.  Each of the homes was configured in three ways:

  1. To represent the current minimum Florida building code standards (2004 baseline home)
  2. To represent a home that would qualify for the 2006 IRS tax credit, which also contained a solar hot water heater (EERE home), and
  3. The same configuration as number 2 with a 2 kW-peak photovoltaic system added (EERE-PV home).

The results from these simulations were then entered in an Excel spreadsheet to perform analysis and expand the results to represent statewide potentials.  In addition, the hourly electric energy demand results for the peak summer and peak winter days for each climate were also downloaded to the spreadsheet to examine the impacts on utility load shape.

Results

Results show that significant electrical energy savings in Florida homes are both possible and practical.  If the IRS tax credits are augmented by State of Florida rebates, electrical energy savings exceeding 40% of total home energy use are cost-effectively achieved (for the consumer) in all three climates zones.

Summary Results

Results from the individual simulations are broadly extrapolated to the entire state by assuming specific installations per year over the 10 years for each of the various renewable energy and energy efficiency strategies evaluated. The annual installations shown in Table 1 were used to extrapolate the individual results to the statewide totals.  It is also important to note that Florida constructs approximately 160,000 new homes each year and has approximately 6.2 million existing homes in place.

Table 1.  Assumed Installations for Aggressive Florida Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy Technologies Program

Measures
Population Base
Installations
High-efficiency new homes 160,000 per year 24,000 per year
Solar hot water (new homes)> 160,000 per year 24,000 per year
Improved existing home efficiency (15%) 6,200,000 62,000 per year
Solar hot water (existing homes) 6,200,000 62,000 per year
Photovoltaic systems (2 kWp) 6,200,000>   9,300 per year

Using the above assumptions for installations that Florida could achieve by providing additional incentives to those that are provided by IRS tax credits, the statewide savings of such a program can be estimated as shown in Table 2 with costs as shown in Table 3.

Table 2.  Savings in Energy Use, Costs and CO2 for Statewide Program

  Consumer
Savings		 New Plant
Savings		 Fuel
 Saved		 TRECs
Created		 Total $
Saved		 CO2
Saved
 
(TWh)
($mil)
(MW)
($mil)
($mil)
($mil)
($mil)
(MTons)
10-years
   Efficiency
14.68
$1,468
950
$950
$734
n/a
$3,152
21.16
   Renewables
10.52
$1,052
681
$681
$526
$421
$2,681
15.17
   Total
25.20
$2,520
1,631
$1,631
$1,260
$421
$5,833
36.34
Annual
   Efficiency
2.67
$267
173
$173
$133
n/a
$573>
3.85
   Renewables
1.91
$191
124
$124
$96
$77
$487
2.76
   Total
4.58
$458
297
$297
$229
$77
$1,060
6.61

Table 3.  Apportioned 10-year Costs and Rebates of Example Statewide Program

Individual Components
Costs
Market
IRS
Florida
Consumer
Rebate
($/unit) ($mil) ($mil) ($mil) ($mil) Total (%)
Solar hot water (new)* $3,200 $768        
 Federal tax credits $960   $230      
 Florida Rebate (1) $590     $142    
 Total rebates $1,550       $372 48.4%
Net consumer costs $1,650       $396  
Total units 240,000          
Efficiency - new homes* $7,000 $1,680        
 Federal tax credits $2,000   $480      
 Florida Rebate (1) $1,453     $349    
 Total rebates $3,453       $829 49.3%
Net consumer costs $3,547       $851  
Total units 240,000          
Solar hot water (existing)* $3,600 $2,232        
 Federal tax credits $1,080   $670      
 Florida Rebate (1) $590     $366    
 Total rebates $1,670       $1,035 46.4%
Net consumer costs $1,930       $1,197  
Total units 620,000          
Efficiency - existing homes* $4,000 $2,480        
 Federal tax credits $500   $310      
 Florida Rebate (1) $729     $452    
 Total rebates $1,229       $762 30.7%
Net consumer costs $2,771       $1,718  
Total units 620,000          
Photovoltaic systems* $14,000 $1,302        
 Federal tax credits $2,000   $186      
 Florida Rebate (2) $5,000     $465    
 Total rebates $7,000       $651 50.0%
Net consumer costs $7,000       $651  
Total units 93,000          
  Totals: $8,462 $1,876 $1,631 $4,813 41.4%
Table Notes:
       (1) Rebate = $0.30 per annual kWh saved
       (2) Rebate = $2.50 per peak-watt with minimum installation of 2 kWp
       *  Typical costs are best available estimates

Table 3 above shows a rebate incentive cost to Florida of $1,631 million over 10 years or $163 million per year.  However, such a rebate program cannot be carried out for the cost of the rebates alone.  Estimated total costs to operate the program are as follows:

Consumer rebate incentives:
   $163.1M
Marketing costs @
 7.5% $12.2M
Verification & assessment costs @
 5.0% $8.2M
Administration costs @
 5.0% $8.2M
Total Costs:
   $192M

While this may appear to be a large expenditure, it should be remembered that the electrical savings are quite large at more than 4,580 gigawatt-hours per year and more than $450 million in consumer savings each year.  It should also be remembered that implementation of these measures is being highly leveraged by federal tax credits, which are estimated to add an additional $188 million to the total value of the program.  There are also additional economic benefits that accrue from keeping almost $230 million per year in fuel costs from leaving the state, creating more than $75 million in Tradable Renewable Energy Credits each year and saving almost 7 million tons of CO2 emissions each year.  Based on the market expenditures to achieve these results and a simplified estimate of 15 net new jobs per million in expenditures, this program would also create more than 126,000 jobs over the 10-year period.

It is also important to remember that Florida has authorized other programs for the purpose of saving energy with similar annual costs through the Florida Energy-Efficiency and Conservation Act (FEECA).  The Florida Public Services Commission (PSC) reports that statewide utility demand side management (DSM) programs operated under FEECA recovered $240 million in costs and saved 239 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2004.  A comparison of this program with the example presented here, as shown in Table 4 below, is helpful.

Table 4.  Comparison of Study Results with Florida’s Current DSM Programs

Energy Efficiency Program Annual
Costs
($mil)		 Annual
Savings
(GWh)		 Cost of Saved Energy
(at end of 10th year)
($/kWh)
2004 Florida DSM programs $240   239 $0.1826
Florida EERE study program $379 4,582 $0.0150
Florida rebate subtotals $192   $0.0076
IRS tax credit subtotals $188   $0.0074

Detailed Simulation Results
 
The following pages contain detailed information on the three EERE prototypes and results considered in this study.  All results are as reported by the EnergyGauge USA home energy rating, code compliance and building energy simulation software tool:

  • The detailed improvements that were considered for each of the three EERE prototypes,
  • The calculated energy savings potential for each prototype,
  • The Home Energy Rating3 for each prototype, and
  • The peak summer and winter day load shapes for each prototype.

Table 5.  Miami EERE-PV Home (off-the-shelf technology)

Component Characteristic
Windows Low-e, metal frame, SHGC=0.28 windows
Doors Insulated (R-5)
Ceilings Standard truss; R-30 insulation
Walls Concrete block; R-10 insulation
Floors Slab-on-grade with 50% tile; R-0 insulation
Roof Barrel tile, light colored (solar reflectance = 40%)
Attic Standard vented with radiant barrier system (RBS)
Heating and cooling SEER-15, HSPF-8.2 heat pump
Air distribution system Interior ducts & AHU; leakage <= 0.03 cfm25/ft2
Controls Programmable thermostat
Ventilation Mechanically controlled to minimize infiltration
Lighting 50% fluorescent (or CFL) lighting
Refrigerator Energy Star qualified
Ceiling fans Energy Star qualified
Dishwasher Energy Star qualified
Renewable hot water Open loop solar hot water (30% tax credit)
Renewable power 2.0 kW-peak photovoltaic system  (30% tax credit)

Table 5.a.  EnergyGauge Predicted Energy Use and Savings for Miami Cases

Energy End Uses
2004 baseline
EERE Home
kWh/kW Savings
% Savings
Cooling 6,918 2,732 4,186 60.5%
Heating 42 8 34 81.0%
Hot water 2,238 322 1,916 85.6%
Ceiling fans 651 329 322 49.5%
Dishwasher 145 115 30 20.7%
Dryer 891 891 0 0.0%
Lighting 2,055 1,522 533 25.9%
Miscellaneous 2,671 2,671 0 0.0%
Range 447 447 0 0.0%
Refrigerator 775 650 125 16.1%
Total kWh 16,756 9,683 7,073 42.2%
Summer peak kW 5.08 2.87 2.21 43.5%
Winter peak kW 3.18 2.17 1.01 31.7%
2 kWp PV kWh --- -2,366 9,439 56.3%
CO2 tons/year 17.97 7.61 10.36 57.7%

Miami Building Energy Rating Guide
(Click image to see a larger picture.)

Residential Building Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy (EERE) Savings Potential
Miami Peak Day Plots

Energy usage for Miami in summer Energy usage for Miami in winter
(Click on graph to view a larger image.)

Table 6.  Tampa EERE-PV Home (off-the-shelf technology)

Component
Characteristic
Windows Low-e, vinyl frame, SHGC=0.28 windows
Doors Insulated (R-5)
Ceilings Standard truss; R-30 insulation
Walls Concrete block; R-10 insulation
Floors Slab-on-grade with 50% tile; R-0 insulation
Roof Barrel tile, light colored (solar reflectance = 40%)
Attic Standard vented with radiant barrier system (RBS)
Heating and cooling SEER-15, HSPF-8.2 heat pump
Air distribution system Interior ducts & AHU; leakage <= 0.03 cfm25/ft2
Controls Programmable thermostat
Ventilation Mechanically controlled to minimize infiltration
Lighting 50% fluorescent (or CFL) lighting
Refrigerator Energy Star qualified
Ceiling fans Energy Star qualified
Dishwasher Energy Star qualified
Renewable hot water Open loop solar hot water (30% tax credit)
Renewable power 2.0 kW-peak photovoltaic system  (30% tax credit)

Table 6.a.  EnergyGauge Predicted Energy Use and Savings for Tampa Cases

Energy End Uses
2004 baseline
EERE Home
kWh/kW Savings
% Savings
Cooling 5,052 1,877 3,175 62.8%
Heating 559 146 413 73.9%
Hot water 2,417 427 1,990 82.3%
Ceiling fans 651 329 322 49.5%
Dishwasher 145 115 30 20.7%
Dryer 891 891 0 0.0%
Lighting 2,055 1,522 533 25.9%
Miscellaneous 2,671 2,671 0 0.0%
Range 447 447 0 0.0%
Refrigerator 775 650 125 16.1%
Total kWh 15,663 9,075 6,588 42.1%
Summer peak kW 4.53 2.47 2.06 45.5%
Winter peak kW 4.16 2.63 1.53 36.8%
2 kWp PV kWh --- -2,416 9,004 57.5%
CO2 tons/year 16.47 7.04 9.43 57.3%

Tampa Building Energy Rating Guide
(Click image to see a larger picture.)

Residential Building Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy (EERE) Savings Potential
Tampa Peak Day Plots

Energy usage for Miami in summer Energy usage for Miami in winter
(Click on graph to view a larger image.)

Table 7.  Tallahassee EERE-PV Home (off-the-shelf technology)

Component
Characteristic
Windows Low-e, vinyl frame, SHGC=0.40 windows
Doors Insulated (R-5)
Ceilings Standard truss; R-30 insulation
Walls 2x4 frame; R-13 insulation
Floors Slab-on-grade with 50% tile; R-0 insulation
Roof Barrel tile, light colored (solar reflectance = 40%)
Attic Standard vented with radiant barrier system (RBS)
Heating and cooling SEER-15, HSPF-8.2 heat pump
Air distribution system Interior ducts & AHU; leakage <= 0.03 cfm25/ft2
Controls Programmable thermostat
Ventilation Mechanically controlled to minimize infiltration
Lighting 50% fluorescent (or CFL) lighting
Refrigerator Energy Star qualified
Ceiling fans Energy Star qualified
Dishwasher Energy Star qualified
Renewable hot water Open loop solar hot water (30% tax credit)
Renewable power 2.0 kW-peak photovoltaic system  (30% tax credit)

Table 7.a.  EnergyGauge Predicted Energy Use and Savings for Tallahassee Cases

Energy End Uses
2004 baseline
EERE Home
kWh/kW Savings
% Savings
Cooling 3,523 1,389 2,134 60.6%
Heating 2,282 728 1,554 68.1%
Hot water 2,663 669 1,994 74.9%
Ceiling fans 651 329 322 49.5%
Dishwasher 145 115 30 20.7%
Dryer 891 891 0 0.0%
Lighting 2,055 1,522 533 25.9%
Miscellaneous 2,671 2,671 0 0.0%
Range 447 447 0 0.0%
Refrigerator 775 650 125 16.1%
Total kWh 16,103 9,411 6,692 41.6%
Summer peak kW 5.52 3.13 2.39 43.3%
Winter peak kW 9.15 6.15 3.01 32.8%
2 kWp PV kWh --- -2,386 9,078 56.4%
CO2 tons/year 16.95 7.29 9.66 57.0%

Tallahassee Building Energy Rating Guide
(Click image to see a larger picture.)

Residential Building Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy (EERE) Savings Potential
Tallahassee Peak Day Plots

Energy usage for Miami in summer Energy usage for Miami in winter
(Click on graph to view a larger image.)
For a list of RESNET accredited software see http://resnet.us/programs/software/directory.htm

These tax credit qualification criteria are further defined in RESNET Publication 05-001, which may be downloaded at http://www.resnet.us/standards/tax_credits/procedures.pdf

The Florida Building Energy Efficiency Ratings Act of 1993 provides a uniform means for all Florida buildings to be rated for energy efficiency.  The Florida Solar Energy Center is a nationally accredited Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Provider in accordance with the national standards for home energy ratings and the software used here for this purpose, EnergyGauge USA, is a nationally accredited HERS software tool.