S
outh Bay Cities Council of Governments
South Bay Green Business Assist Program
Newsletter
| November 2018
|
Happy Holidays! We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends and are looking forward to a joyous holiday season. This month's newsletter briefly reviews the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® and shares an update on the ENERGY STAR® metrics. Also included are energy saving reminders about preparing your business for winter.
|
|
ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager®
|
As you may already know, the EPA created online ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager
® tool to measure and track energy and water consumption, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Please refer to the December 2017 Green Building Challenge Newsletter for a complete description of the ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager
® and benchmarking. 
Earlier this year, the EPA updated performance metrics for U.S. buildings in the
ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® based on the most recent market data available.
If you benchmark one or more properties in Portfolio Manager, your buildings' 1-100 ENERGY STAR scores and other source energy metrics were updated across all time periods to reflect the latest performance metrics. This update is part of EPA's standard process to keep ENERGY STAR metrics as current as possible, and reflective of current market performance. Please click here for more information.
|
Prepare Your Business/Building for Winter with These Energy Saving Tips!
|
Winter is coming! Consider the following tips to help you prepare for the winter season, save energy, and avoid complaints:
- Have a qualified technician test, clean, and adjust your heating equipment.
- Perform routine maintenance recommended by the manufacturer in your owner's manuals. This typically includes replacing dirty air filters; cleaning blower coils and heat exchanger surfaces; and adjusting belt drives, dampers valves, and linkages.
- Check thermostat accuracy.
- Identify and repair leaky or disconnected ducts.
- Caulk cracks around windows, doors, and other openings.
- Use building data to check if pre-heat is coming on too early (how much time does it take to reach set point?)
- Track weather data as well as climate data to anticipate morning recovery time.
- Open shades and blinds to take advantage of solar heating.
- Use either your Building Automation System (BAS) or individual data loggers to check that thermostat set points meet the room requirements.
- Install occupancy sensors to turn off lights when room is not being used.
- Consider using LED holiday lights only. Be sure to visit the South Bay Environmental Services Center for the annual Holiday Light Exchange on December 3rd and 4th! We encourage your employees who live in the South Bay to bring in an old energy-guzzling strand of incandescent holiday lights and exchange it for a FREE new ENERGY STAR® rated LED holiday light strand. Additionally, if they are SoCalGas customers, they will receive a free energy efficiency kit consisting of a low flow shower head and faucet aerators.
|
|
West Basin Offers FREE Landscape Transformation Classes
|
West Basin Municipal Water District has partnered with the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) to offer homeowners a free class designed to help transform your lawn into a more water-efficient landscape. Three classes have been held in the Fall, with two additional classes offered in January and March 2019.
During the class, residents will learn how to:
- Remove existing grass
- Plan a sustainable garden design
- Prepare a healthy soil for plants
- Incorporate a water-efficient irrigation system
- Plant climate-appropriate plants
- Maintain a new, drought-tolerant landscape
Please share this with your employees. And, for more information, or to register for classes, please click here.
And don't forget...MWD is offering a rebate of $1 per square foot of turf removed from residential and commercial landscapes
|
|
West Basin Municipal Water District
Landscape Transformation Class
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
6:30 P.M. - 8:30 P.M.
El Segundo
For more information on how to register,
click here.
|
|
|
|
The SCE Energy Education Center offers classes, workshops, seminars, demonstrations and technical consultations to help your business find cost-effective and energy-efficient solutions. For more information, visit
SCE Energy Education Center
.
The SoCalGas Energy Resource Center (ERC) offers seminars, demonstrations and consulting services to help your business find cost-effective and energy-efficient solutions. for more information, visit this link.
|
|
|
|
|
|
