Transcript for March Tribal Energy Webinar Series: Energy Efficiency Projects from Concept to Completion

James:                         Welcome to everyone. I'm James Jensen, today's webinar chair. Sorry for the slightly delayed start. We were having a few technical difficulties but I think we have them under control now. I am a contractor supporting the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs' Tribal Energy Webinar Series. Today's webinar, titled "Energy Efficiency Projects from Concept to Completion," is the second seminar of the 2020 DOE Tribal Energy Webinar Series.

Let's go over some event details. Today's webinar is being recorded and will be made available on DOE's Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs' website in about one week. Copies of today's PowerPoint presentation will be posted to the Web shortly after this webinar. Everyone will receive a post-webinar e-mail with the link to the page where the slides and recording will be located. Because we are recording this webinar all phones have been muted. We will answer your written questions at the end of the final presentation. You can submit a question at any time by clicking on the question button located in the webinar control box on your screen and typing your question.

Let's get started with opening remarks from Lizana Pierce. Ms. Pierce is a Senior Engineer and Deployment Supervisor in the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, duty-stationed in Golden, Colorado. Lizana is responsible for managing technical assistance and education outreach activities on behalf of the office, implementing national funding opportunities, and administrating the resultant tribal energy project grants and agreements. She has 25 years of experience in project development and management and has been assisting tribes in developing their energy resources for over 20 years. She holds a bachelor's of science degree in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University and pursued a master's in business administration through the University of Northern Colorado. Lizana, the virtual floor is yours.

Lizana:                        Thank you, James. And hello, everyone. I join James in welcoming you to the second webinar of the 2020 series and I hope everyone is doing well. As we know, many tribes have declared a state of emergency and are not able to join the webinar today. However, again, as James mentioned, the webinar will be recorded and it will be posted on our website for those who are unable to join today.

This webinar series is sponsored by the Office of the Indian Energy Policy and Programs, otherwise referred to as the Office of Indian Energy. The Office of Indian Energy directs, authors, coordinates, and implements energy planning, education, management, and programs to assist tribes with energy development, capacity building, energy infrastructure, energy costs, and electrification of Indian lands and homes. To provide this assistance, our deployment program works within the Department of Energy, across government agencies, and with Indian tribes and organizations to help Indian tribes and Alaskan native villages overcome the barriers to energy development.

Our deployment program is composed of a three-pronged approach consisting of financial assistance, technical assistance, and education in capacity building. This webinar series is just one example of our education in capacity building efforts. The webinar series is also a part of the Office of Indian Energy's efforts to support fiscally responsible energy, business, and economic development decision-making, and information sharing amongst tribes. It is intended to provide attendees information on tools and resources to develop and implement tribal energy plans, programs, and projects, to highlight tribal energy case studies, and to identify business strategies tribes can use to expand their energy options and develop sustainable local economies.

Today's webinar is intended to build off of last month's energy efficiency basics webinar, where we discussed the importance of energy efficiency and some common types of projects. This webinar is intended to get into more detail on how to execute energy efficiency projects. We hope the webinar and the series as a whole is useful to you. We also welcome your feedback, so please let us know if there are ways we can make the series better.

Before I turn it back to James, I wanted to personally thank the presenters, Jimmy, Tony, and Jack, for giving up their time and preparing for and then presenting today's webinar. Thank you. And with that, the virtual floor is yours, James.

James:                         Thank you, Lizana. Before we get to the presentations I'm going to introduce all of today's presenters. For our first presentation we will hear from Jimmy Salasovich and Tony Jimenez, two engineers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Jimmy has 20 years of engineering experience with a total of 16 years at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. He specializes in energy efficiency and renewable energy analysis. He has been the technical leader for over 100 energy assessments in over 25 states and in 17 countries. He has been working in tribal energy for over 5 years and he feels fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to have worked directly with over 20 tribes.

Jimmy's co-presenter, Tony Jimenez, has been at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory since 1996. He has expertise in performance and economic modeling of wind, photovoltaics, and hybrid system projects; project pre-feasibility analysis; and wind and solar data analysis. His current assignments include coordination of NREL's activities under the DOE Tribal Technical Assistance Program and providing support for various DOD projects. His past work includes leading the small wind regional test center project and renewable energy project pre-feasibility analysis on behalf of a variety of clients. Tony is a retired Army Reserve engineer officer. In his two overseas deployments he has served as project manager with the US Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq as a director of public works and for US Army installations in Kuwait.

After Jimmy and Tony's presentation we will have a presentation from Jack Hébert. Jack is the chief executive officer and founder of the Cold Climate Housing Research Center. He spent his early years in Alaska wintering 60 miles from an Iñupiat community in the mountains of the Northwest Arctic and summers in the old Denali Park. His mentors and teachers were the people that thrived in these environments, the first Alaskans that lived a traditional life and the next Alaskans – homesteaders and pioneers – that brought change to a timeless land. His relationship and commitment to Alaska were born from these deep roots in the country. For the past 36 years Jack has been designing and building homes as a licensed general contractor in interior Alaska through his companies, Taiga Woodcraft and Hébert Homes, LLC. His homes in planned communities have created many high quality, well-designed, environmentally-appropriate, and energy-efficient buildings over a long career.

Thanks to each of our presenters for making the time to join us today. With that, let's get started. And I think – it looks like we'll get started with the NREL presentation. So, Jimmy, if you're able let's get started with you.

Jimmy:                        Okay. That sounds great. Thanks, James. The connection to my GoToWebinar just closed, so I could go off the PowerPoint… Oh, no, I got it. Okay. Cool.

So, I'll be talking about energy efficiency projects, pretty much from the start to completion. And then, Tony Jimenez will be talking about financing options, so kind of a tag team on this presentation. Next slide.

So, here's the agenda. So, first we'll cover the work flow for energy projects in the existing buildings, and then the next item will be the same thing: the work flow for energy projects in new construction buildings. Then we'll have Tony talk about the different financing options for these energy projects. The fourth item, we'll talk about a couple of case studies. One of them is for existing buildings in tribes, and then another is an energy project for a new construction building for tribes. And then, the fifth item is the summary. So, next slide.

So, work flow for existing buildings. So, here I'll show the work flow as kind of a summarized – both for existing buildings and new construction, just so you can compare them. So, for existing buildings, a little bit different of a process because you have existing energy bills and you can look at those bills to help you kind of figure out what the best path is for the energy projects.

I'm having a little bit of an issue with seeing the whole screen, but I'll deal with it.

So, with new construction projects you obviously don't have utility bills. The building isn't built, so again, it's a little bit different process.

So, for existing buildings you use those energy bills to kind of prioritize what buildings should have energy audits done or energy projects. Kind of consider financing options to do those energy projects. One thing I should note is the financing option, I have it here as the fourth item. It can be done – pretty much, you should be thinking about financing options early and often. So, at the beginning of the project, kind of look at things. And then, the final item is implementing the project.

The – for new construction, you look at financing options to pay for the new building. And then, once you have the – an idea for what kind of building you're looking for, whether it's an office building, recreation center, or whatever, you typically hire an architect firm to design the building. And within the design of the building there's this process where you use a combination of building design and energy modeling to kind of come up with the optimal design for that building, which includes looking at different options for heating and air conditioning systems, wall insulation, things like that. Once you have your final design you can go to the construction phase. So, next slide.

                                    So, existing building work flow. So, this is just kind of the same flow diagram, but the three things I'll talk about in the upcoming slides for existing buildings for energy projects are the energy management and tracking, prioritizing the buildings, and doing the energy audit. And then, again, as I mentioned, Tony will talk about financing options in the fourth – or, third section. On to the next slide.

                                    So, the financing option – or, the energy management step. Sorry, I'm trying to get rid of the toolbar; I can't see the whole slide with GoToWebinar, but I'll just deal with it. So, the energy management step is, again, looking at your utility bills for the building and figuring out how does it compare to existing buildings? So, you can kind of track throughout the different months. In certain climates electricity use will be higher in the summer because you have air conditioning. Your natural gas use will be higher in the winter because you have space heating. Things like that. So, you want to kind of track things out over time, typically on a monthly basis, and see what is your energy use? Are there certain months that are anomalies where it's much higher than others?

And then, you can go to this CBECS database, which I have a whole nother slide on, to kind of benchmark how you're doing compared to other buildings of a similar type. So, if you were looking at an office building, you'd go to the CBECS database and kind of look at "All right, what's an office building energy use on a per-square-foot basis? How is mine tracking compared to that? Is it higher? Is it lower?" If it's much higher, it might be a good indicator that there are opportunities to save energy in the building. You could track greenhouse gas emissions. The energy management also lets you as tribes set energy goals for – you might want to, say, implement a certain number of energy efficiency measures, things like that. And then, it lets you inform the next steps of "All right, what buildings should we do energy audits on? And what projects might be financially viable?" So, next step – or, next slide.

                                    So, the CBECS database. So, again, this is a great database to use to compare your building next to actual – your actual utility bills to similar building types in the US. And it kind of gives you an idea of what – sorry, I'm trying to make it so I can see the slide. Oh, okay. I finally figured it out. So, the link there is for the CBECS database. You can search under the different types of buildings. So, the chart on the left kind of shows you different types of building. You have food service, lodging, office building, a school building. And so, you use these numbers. They're in energy use intensity units, so it's energy per square foot of the building. So, you'd have to use the same units in your building and then compare how well does it match? Is it higher or lower? Again, if it's higher, it might be a good indicator that you can do energy projects to save energy and money at your building. So, just one tool. So, next slide.

                                    So, the next step would be to prioritize the building. So, if you have 10 to 20 or 30 buildings in your portfolio of buildings, then you kind of track all those different energy uses. You can't – typically, you can't work on all the buildings at once, so you kind of have to prioritize which ones are – have the greatest opportunity to save energy. So, once you have that information from the energy management step you can kind of set up your thinking on prioritizing the buildings as far as which ones to do energy projects in first. So, again, a lot of it is involved with just gathering the monthly data, kind of tracking the electricity, natural gas, fuel oil, whatever energy use you have, and try to identify the patterns. Again, is it much higher if you compare it to CBECS? Or even compared to other buildings in your tribe? Is one building much more? Are there seasonal fluctuations? Things like that.

                                    And then, again, prioritize the buildings. Things you might want to consider: That last bullet item is the age and schedule. Buildings that are older typically have more opportunities for retrofits. They might have a lot of older equipment that's inefficient. And then, the schedule, a lot of times you'll want to look at buildings that are used a lot. So, if you have a building that's only used once a month where you go in and have meetings and turn the lights on but otherwise it's not used, typically that's not going to be a great candidate just because it's not using a lot of energy to begin with. So, kind of those things – those are some things to kind of look at. Next slide.

                                    So, here's just a – kind of a graph of the major steps within coming up with a baseline. So, again, the first step would be to compile those utility bills for electricity and natural gas, fuel oil, whatever the heating source may be. And then, kind of develop what the energy use for the building is. So, a lot of times we look at energy units, which is the kBTUs per square foot, which is the square footage of the building, and then over a year. So, you'd take your total energy use for the year, divide it by the square footage of the building, and that kind of gives you the energy use intensity. And so, that would let you go to the CBECS database and, again, kind of compare how you're doing. And then, it also lets you compare your buildings in your portfolio on an even basis because you're doing it on a per-square-foot basis.

                                    The third step would be to group the buildings by type and usage pattern. So, again, the type would be – maybe you put all the office buildings into one category and then all the school buildings into another and kind of look at the different patterns and see if any of the buildings stick out as being high energy users which might be good candidates for energy audits and energy projects. The fourth step, again, is prioritizing those buildings on the usage pattern. So, prioritize to see where do you want to spend the effort to do the energy projects. Next slide.

                                    So, here's a slide just on the different levels – or, the different steps involved in energy auditing. So, a lot of times the high energy buildings, you can pay a firm or have a building expert within your tribe kind of do an audit to see where are the opportunities to reduce energy use and costs in a building. So, that's the main goal of the energy audit, is to identify those opportunities and kind of quantify what would the savings be if you implement them? So, ultimately you want to provide the building owners with recommendations to implement these energy measures. And within the energy audit a lot of – sometimes you'll hear it called an energy assessment – same thing – you have three steps typically: the pre-audit phase, the audit itself, where you actually go to the building, and then the post-audit activity.

                                    So, within the pre-audit a lot of that is that energy management kind of information is gathered. So, this is where you, again, gather the energy data, study the trends. A lot of times bigger buildings might have control systems and so you can kind of look at the trends before going in the buildings. So, pre-audit is kind of all the tasks done before you actually go to the building.

                                    The audit is actually going to the building and collecting as much information as you can about the building. And a big step of this, the audit phase, is also talking to the operators of a building or the people who work in the building to see what might be problem issues within the building. They work in the building on a daily basis, and so they know the building better than the auditor might in terms of being in the building. So, a lot of times it's a collaboration to identify what are potential ways to save energy within that building.

                                    And then, the post-audit phase is all the calculations done with the information you gathered during the audit. So, this might include energy modeling. A lot of times it's spreadsheet calculations to kind of figure out if it's financially viable to do an energy project. And then, within the audit there's usually – within the post-audit you generate a report, and a lot of times the audits will kind of prioritize what are the most financially viable measures to implement down to the less financially viable. So, a lot of times within buildings we'll see lighting measures are pretty financially viable because it's not a high capital cost to install LED lights. Things like changing a boiler might not be as financially viable if it's an operating boiler because boilers cost a lot of money. Capital costs, that first upfront cost. So, the economics might not be as good. So, again, it's important to kind of prioritize the list of energy measures that you can do within a building and then decide from there. So, next slide.

                                    So, here's the ASHRAE audit levels. So, ASHRAE is the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers. So, they kind of are the group that defines what are the different levels of energy audits within buildings. So, level one is kind of the quickest, least detailed audit, up to level three, which is the most detailed audit. So, there are different scales of audits within buildings depending on what is needed. The image on the right there kind of gives you what is involved in the different audits and audit levels. So, level one, a lot of times you hear it called a walk-through audit. So, with this, it's usually done within a few hours. If it's a big building, maybe it takes a full day. But a lot of it is walking through, counting lights to see – or, seeing what kind of lights there are, seeing – is it – measures that are easy to implement and calculate. So, lighting is an easy measure that's usually looked at in walk-through audits. Maybe they're looking at motors too. Scheduling is a big one: Are they turning the lights off when they leave for the day? Those are usually things captured in the level one audit.

                                    The level two audit is definitely a lot more detailed, so you might be spending in a big building multiple days. You'd be looking more at the heating and ventilation, air conditioning systems. So – and a lot of times level two would be creating an energy model for the building to see what the energy savings impacts are.

                                    Level three, the big difference there is a lot of times there's – the level three has a very detailed capital cost analysis, so you kind of have a good sense of whether or not the project is a good, financially viable project to do. Level two,  a lot of times it's – you'll make cost estimates but it won't be – there will be a big margin of safety that's built into your costing, which – whereas level three is a much more detailed analysis of the costs. So, next slide.

                                    This is the second item. It's the work flow for energy projects in new construction buildings. So, again, this is that same graphic. The three items we'll kind of focus on in the upcoming slides, again, are the building design and energy modeling, and then the final design. Again, Tony will be talking about the financing options, which is the first one, and then we will at the end of this kind of second – I'll talk about things to think about with selecting a contractor. I kind of put this at the end because that item kind of was within both existing buildings and new construction, so we'll also talk about selecting contractors. So, the – the next slide.

                                    So, the three steps within a building design. So, a lot of times, when you hire an architecture firm they're coming up with the building design and they start out just with basic things like "All right, what is the building going to be used for? How big does it need to be? What is the site? How do we want to orient the building? What's going to be the flow of traffic and people to the building? What's the drainage on the site going to be?" Things like that. Pretty basic things are being looked at in the schematic design.

                                    And then, you kind of work through with the second level; it's the design development phase, where they're starting – the architecture firm and engineers are starting to put in what types of lighting, what's kind of the wall insulation, are the walls going to be concrete or wood stud, steel stud, what kind of HVAC system is going to be put into the building? So, design development phase, the building is definitely starting to become designed and everything is starting to get fleshed out. Within the schematic design process it can be kind of iterative. So, you kind of work through different design options and come up with the best design. So, again, that's – a lot of that is related to energy modeling, which we'll talk about next.

                                    And then, the final thing produced within building design is the construction documents, and these are basically the drawings and specifications that were used to build the actual building. So, it's what's actually being built. So, next slide.

                                    So, within new construction projects a lot of times energy modeling is important. I made a note there in red at the bottom: It's also – energy modeling, it's also used in existing buildings. It's not exclusive to new construction projects, just maybe a little bit more common in new construction. So, for residential buildings, some residential energy modeling tools that you can use – or if you have consultants using, they might use BEopt, which is the Building Energy Optimization Tool. So, it's a free download. There's a link for it. There's also AkWarm, which is – again, it's a residential and commercial energy modeling tool. Again, a free download. That's more specific to Alaska, the cold climate zone, but it is a great tool for energy modeling in houses. So, the images on the right are the image of a house in Alaska actually that we modeled in BEopt, which is the lower image on the right there. So, next slide.

                                    So, some of the commercial energy modeling tools – and again, this isn't an exhaustive list. It's some common tools, energy modeling tools available. Again, commercial tools can be used in existing buildings, just like the residential tools. So, the first one is EnergyPlus. The second one is eQUEST. And then, the last one is, again, that AkWarm, which is specific to Alaska's cold climate. So, all three downloads all work well for commercial buildings. And – yeah. These tools, I should mention, they're usually used by people who do energy work on a daily basis, the people doing the energy audits and things like that, but it's good to have a foundation of what's involved if your tribe is considering to design a new building. You might want to make sure when you pick a design firm or architecture firm that they do have somebody on staff who can do the energy modeling so that they can make sure that throughout the design process they're analyzing all the options and coming up with the best design. Next slide.

                                    So, within – once – throughout the design process the goal is to come up with the final design, those construction documents. So, here are some of the concepts that we want to look at that we talked about during the last webinar, good design elements that – to think about within new construction. And these also are for existing buildings too a lot of times.

                                    Passive building design. So, again, looking at the building orientation, taking advantage of solar gains during the winter but blocking them out with overhangs in the summer, using operable windows to provide natural ventilation when the conditions are comfortable outside, and then using thermal mass so that the sun heats up that mass during the day but then releases it throughout the night.

                                    The efficient envelope is using roof and wall insulation, high levels of continuous roof and wall insulation, high-performance windows and doors, air sealing everything. Using efficient lighting. So, a big on there, again, is the LED lighting, maybe using occupancy sensors. The efficient plug loads is – the big one there is going to be using EnergyStar appliances and office equipment, things like computers, refrigerators. Pretty much most things with a plug can be EnergyStar, and it's good to purchase those. And then, the last item, which is the most complicated usually, is having an efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system. So, big ones there: picking the most efficient unit, installing programmable thermostats for bigger buildings, have control systems to do the scheduling, using premium efficiency motors, and variable frequency drives. So, next slide.

                                    So, the next few slides are on some – just some tips on selecting a contractor. So, the first one is get – always get several quotes, and make your decision not necessarily on what – who's the lowest cost vendor or contractor. You want to make sure that it's the best value that you're getting for the tribe. Make sure the contractors are licensed and insured. It kind of shows that they're well-established and accountable. Check their credentials – so, make sure they're a certified energy professional. We'll talk about this on the next – following slides. And then, a key one also is the last item: Make sure they're local. So, this kind of shows that the contractor understands the climate that they're working in. And you can also check to see what other projects the contractor has done and see if their work was good. Do you trust them? Is the building owner of that building happy with their work? Were they on time? Were they on budget? Things like that. So, next slide.

                                    So, here is a list of – again, it's not an exhaustive list but it's a pretty good list of the different certifications for energy professionals that you could look for. A lot of times you'll see the acronym after their name, so I kind of put them there: the CEM, CEA, things like that. So, for commercial buildings, the Association of Energy Engineers has a couple of certifications for energy auditors and energy managers. And then, ASHRAE, that same group that puts together the ASHRAE level audits, also kind of has certifications for energy assessment professionals. So, again that would be an energy auditor – so, they have a certification for that – and then an energy modeling professional – so, they have a certification for that. The last bullet is related to residential homes or residential buildings, whether it's a single-family home or a small multi-unit complex. So, there's the Home Energy Professional certification related to that. So, next slide.

                                    So, the next session Tony Jimenez is going to talk about, so I'm going to go on mute and listen to Tony.

Tony:                          All right. Hey. Thanks, Jimmy, and hello, everybody. Financing, I feel like there's going to be less here than people were hoping for. I get the sense that people hoped that they would get the super-secret, large grant sources that only the elect know about. Unfortunately, I don't know those. What I'm really going to talk about is kind of more categories of funding options and how maybe you can piece them together to actually fund a project.

                                    So, what are these categories? First, there's out of pocket. So, if you happen to have money – and I guess I'll say this is going to be skewed probably more towards retrofits than the new construction. New construction is – probably you're not going to be able to pay out of pocket. It's going to be mostly loans and maybe some grants. But there are sources out there that will fund new construction as well. So, again, pay out of pocket. You can get loans – and there's actually lots of varieties of loans. There's energy performance contracting. That's mostly for large commercial retrofit projects. And then, there's everybody's favorites: grants and rebates, the free money. In most cases, a given project will be financed using a combination of the above options. And so, it's kind of like a quilt you're going to have to patch together – a little bit of this, a little bit of that – to get enough money to do the project.

                                    I will talk – whether – say whether it's applicable to commercial or residential. When it says residential, think kind of home owner retrofit type thing, is what I'm really talking about. Probably, when you're doing retrofits, kind of your financial strategy is just probably to shoot for – to be cash flow positive, or at least break even while you're paying back any loan. So, that means the cost of your bill, your energy bill after the project plus the paying back the loan is going to be equal to or less than what you're paying now for the project. And if you can do that, then you're probably in a pretty decent – you've probably put together a pretty decent funding package. And obviously, if it's less, the more it's less, the better. All right. Next slide.

                                    So, the first one is out of pocket. Applicable to anything: You can always pay for something with money you have. So, the advantage is it's simplest and you have total control. The big, obvious disadvantage is that you have – you need to have the funds available. And especially on new construction you're probably not sitting on millions of dollars to fund some big commercial project, and even on homes, almost everybody takes out a mortgage to build a home. However, you'll probably have put at least some out-of-pocket money towards most projects and it's usually – most loans or grants require some other money to – as a condition of getting the loan as a grant. So, most people, you want to try to minimize this, but you usually need some out-of-pocket money to make a go of it. All right. Next slide.

                                    Loans. Applicable, again, to a wide variety of situations, whether it's new construction or retrofits. A wide variety of types of loans, and I'll get into that in the next slide. An advantage is it gives you money to do the project, which you might otherwise need to do. Depending on what energy efficiency measure you do and how you structure the loan and maybe how much grant or out-of-pocket money you put in, you can be cash flow positive while you're paying off the loan. So, that's kind of shown in the figure there. You have your – just to give a simple hypothetical example, before the project you're paying $100.00 a month in energy costs. After the project you're paying maybe $75.00 a month plus $15.00 for the loan, but you're saving $10.00 a month. After you pay off the loan you save $30.00 a month. So, just to give an example.

                                    Disadvantage. You may not be cash flow positive if the loan is – if you're paying it off too soon or it's a big chunk of the project. So – but the idea is to maybe try to be cash flow positive on retrofits. Next slide.

                                    These are the different types. The first one is probably the most interesting: concessional financing. That's basically sort of like a grant, although it's a loan, but it may be that it doesn't require a good credit score or it may be a below market interest rate. I'm not 100 percent sure whether they're available for single residences, and there's probably some paperwork that's pretty complicated. It might be more applicable to commercial or maybe a ______, a tribal housing department that owns a lot of homes and you do kind of a big project. The concessional financing might be available for that or more appropriate for that.

                                    The other ones are just straight commercial – so, you just take out a straight commercial loan to do a retrofit, and applicable in the reservation – in theory you can do it anywhere; in practice you need people with good credit scores and can pay it back. And tribal residents in general are poor and may not have good credit scores, so in practice that may not be a real practical option.

                                    A mortgage. That may be more appropriate to tribal members who live off the reservation and own their own homes. You'd probably get better interest rates but the lender can – the disadvantage of a mortgage is you can get foreclosed on and lose your house.

                                    Some of the more interesting things: There's PACE, which, again, is probably more applicable to off the reservation, and that stands for property-assessed clean energy. And some states offer this, where they basically lend you the money to do the project and then you pay it back on your property taxes – so, a way to do – to be cash flow positive from the get-go. And then, some utilities offer what's called on-bill financing. And so, that's basically the utility lends you the money to do the project and you pay it back on your bill. And so, that may be – where it's available – a way for somebody with otherwise poor credit might be able to finance a residential energy efficiency project. So, this table kind of gives a sense of the options and their characteristics. So, next slide.

                                    These next few slides are energy performance contracting. I haven't heard of a lot of tribes doing this, but it may be an option. And there's kind of a federal version and a non-federal version. This talks mostly about the federal version. We're mostly talking large commercial projects, a minimum of $200,000.00 for one flavor of these and $2 million for the other flavors. This FEMP website gives everything you want to know about performance contracting, and if you're interested, I suggest you check it out.

                                    What are the – why would you want to do it? The energy services contract, or the ESCO, who does these basically funds and executes the project – so, they do it all. And at least on some of these flavors you have guaranteed savings – so, you're cash flow positive from the beginning. So, that's all good.

                                    What are the disadvantages? They require a lot of effort to manage. So, you need some savvy and some staff effort to really – to set it up and then to manage it over the life of the contract, which may be 10, 20 years depending on the package of energy efficiency measures that they do. You don't have total control over the project. So, the way it basically works is you go to the ESCO and say, "I want to make my large commercial building or a group of commercial buildings more energy efficient," and they're the ones who actually come up with the specific measures. Now, you probably should on your end kind of think about what measures you'd like to see, and then if they don't match what – what the ESCO proposes doesn't match what you want, there is some leeway for some negotiation. But you don't have total control, essentially. I mean, it has to work for both of you.

                                    And you pay a premium for going this route. Since the ESCO has to guarantee savings – there's a lot of _____ verification – they're going to take a bigger chunk of the savings than if you pay out of pocket or can get a low-interest loan. But if you've got a large – a lot of stuff needs to be done and it adds up to a lot and you just want somebody to do it, this may be the route for you because you can do it all in kind of one package. Okay. Next slide.

                                    So, this graphic kind of explains how it works. So, basically, you go to the ESCO. The ESCO will borrow money. It'll implement the projects. And then, you pay them – with your bill savings you pay the ESCO back over time. And again, depending on the package they give you that could be 10, 20, 20-plus years depending what it is. But again, it's a way to implement stuff that you may not otherwise be able to afford. Next slide.

                                    And so, just to give you a sense of what's available on the federal side, there's kind of three buckets. One is the energy savings performance contract. This offers guaranteed savings. Any energy conservation measure is good to go. Minimum project size is about $2 million, and I'm not sure whether that's just a practical limit or if it's written in the regulations. And the way it works is basically DOE FEMP has a master contract and you just do a task order under that contract. So, they have pre-vetted vendors and all that stuff, so you just kind of follow the process.

                                    So, kind of simpler packages – those are what's called ESPC Enable. It offers guaranteed savings, a streamlined process – so, less bureaucratic red tape and brain damage – but you only have specific energy conservation measures. Same thing as an energy efficiency measure. There's no real minimum size in the regulations, but in practice you probably need at least $200,000.00 worth of investment to make this work. And this is under a GSA-area-wide agreement, that, again, you just tee off of that and they have preselected vendors and all that good stuff.

                                    The other item is called a utility energy services contract, a UESC, and this is with a utility. And it doesn't have to be with your utility; it could be any, although it's usually easiest to do with yours if they do this. The regulations are a little bit different. For example, the utility doesn't have to guarantee savings, so you're going to have to really crunch the numbers and see if it makes sense for you. I don't know if there's a minimum project size by regulation, but again, it needs to be kind of a large enough investment to justify the brain damage of going through it.

                                    The advantage – and again, those – there are various – it's GSA-area-wide, so it's various utilities that do this. The advantage of going the federal route is that it's structured, and if you're kind of new to this, you get some protection against being taken advantage of. You can also do straight commercial and use – just do it commercially, which is also done, but then I guess I'll say "buyer beware'" in that case. Next slide.

                                    All right. Everybody's favorite group of – or category: free money. And by this I include grants, rebates, and tax deductions, tax credits for implementing stuff. Applicable all over the board. Most utilities, even the most conservative, rural, electric co-op has some sort of rebate programs to encourage energy efficiency. I mean, it may be as small as a small rebate for energy efficiency appliances. But even the co-ops, I've seen some – and I've been on a lot of websites – a lot of different utilities have some larger programs than you might think, so you certainly want to check out their websites and see what they offer. If you do pay money for doing an energy efficiency project, you may be eligible for a tax deduction. It'll depend on your tax status and all that good stuff.

                                    So, what are the advantages? The big one is free money, with all those exclamation points. Free money is always good and I certainly won't fault anybody for chasing it down. A lot of – some disadvantages, or some caveats. One, not enough grant money to meet all the need for energy efficiency on the reservations, so you've got to apply and all that good stuff. Some grant vehicles, like there's tax credit financing, are pretty complicated and so you need to really know what you're doing on that. There's grant reporting and other requirements that add to the red tape. The grant timeline may not mesh with your – with the project timelines, so you might have to adjust the project to meet the grant timeline. And if you are taking a tax deduction or a tax credit on a project, you need to have the appropriate tax liability. So, kind of – but again, for a lot of projects you really need at least some – you may need some grant money to – just to make it feasible and pencil out. Next slide.

                                    So, where to look? There are lots of grant options out there, so I'm going to send you to three websites and then tell you to check the website of your local utility. DSIRE is the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy. It also has a lot of energy efficiency, and you can search by state. And it has federal, state, and utility. It's the most comprehensive database that I know of. The only downside is they're a little bit – sometimes there's a bit of a lead time before stuff is updated. 

                                    The Office of Indian Energy has – they have kind of two separate – on their website they have two separate pages that have a list of stuff. So, they have one, it's kind of a static list of funding opportunities that they update fairly frequently; they always seem to have the latest stuff on there when I check. And then, there's also a development assistance tool where you can kind of try to narrow your search a little bit and not just have to grind through everything listed. And so, those separate webpages are there on this page. And again, the website of your local utility.

                                    And with that I'm done. I guess as a strategy for – I'm sorry – to look for, try to know what the federal national incentives are. Look at what's available at your regional state. For example, if you're in the Northwest, there's the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. And then, finally, what's the offerings or your local utility? So, with that, back to Jimmy.

Jimmy:                        All right Yeah, thanks, Tony. So, the next section are – I have a couple of case studies. Again, one on – the first one is on existing homes, and then the second case study will be on new construction projects. So, this first case study is looking at single family homes. So, the goal was to – there was a grant available and we wanted to identify easy measures that could be implemented in the homes. And since we were looking at it we also included solar photovoltaics – again, not an energy efficiency measure per se, but the tribe was interested in knowing what the economics would be, so we included it.

                                    So, the things that we looked at that we really wanted to focus on were the following: programmable thermostats; LED lighting in the homes; using air – or, implementing air sealing, so things like caulking around windows and doors and putting in weather seals at the bottoms of doors and things like that; and then, the fourth item that we focused on was putting in blown-in cellulose insulation in the attic – so, to provide an R-60 R-value.

                                    So, the major challenges listed along the right side there of the site – there were very high utility rates. That's a challenge to be able to save money if a lot of your money is going to pay for energy. It's – on the converse side, it can justify implementing these energy measures if you have really high utility rates because the payoff will be – the payback, the energy savings and paybacks will be much quicker.

                                    This site was in rural Alaska, so it's pretty remote. A harsh climate. Very cold winters. There was a limited window – basically, they could only build in the summer months, maybe late spring, early summer months through late summer. And another thing, there were many freezers, so the electricity related to the freezers was relatively high. So, next slide.

                                    So, for this analysis we used BEopt. So, again, this is one of the residential tools that was discussed. So, it's used to model single-family homes or multi-family residences, and what it does is it finds the optimal cost by running through all the different scenarios that you can look at. So, you could tell BEopt to implement LED lights, different types of heating systems – so, you might specify a furnace or a boiler or things like that – different levels of insulation, and it'll run through all the different options and create a chart like on the lower right to show you what would be the minimal cost to build, what group of energy conservation measures would be – make up the minimal cost, optimal design, and then, how can you get your – if you're interested in getting the maximum energy savings?

                                    So, along the bottom of that graph is the energy use, or the energy savings, and then along the right is the cost related to each of the measures. So, each dot is basically an energy simulation for an entire year. That kind of runs through what the energies would do. It looks at all the different things and then kind of figures out what is the best option for that home. So, you can see the images on the left kind of show the home that we looked at, and then the actual model is in the middle there. So, next slide.

                                    So, here's just an example home of the village that we looked at in Alaska. So, with this, we did a quick walk-through audit. So, this would be a level one, ASHRAE level one audit. So, we looked at things like lighting, whether or not they had a programmable thermostat, what their set points were in the home. During the day, maybe when they weren't at home and they were working, what did they set the thermostat to? What was it at night when they were there? We looked at how much insulation was in the homes, what kind of lighting, what kind of appliance. And this was done originally for ten homes. So, the list on the left, that spreadsheet-kind-of-looking checklist is kind of something we put together for the walk-through audit so that we knew what to look for. So, that's a common thing to do, is use kind of checklists as you're going through buildings to make sure you don't forget anything. So, next slide.

                                    So, here's the BEopt results. So, again, you're seeing that same curve. We only looked at the different programmable thermostat options, different levels of LED lighting, air sealing with – by caulking around the windows and doors, air sealing, and then putting in R-60 blown insulation. So, each dot, again, represents a different permutation of those combinations of measures. We also included 5 kW of PV – just, again, the site was interested in that. So, each dot – the first dot might be everything but programmable thermostats, and then the second dot might be everything but LED lighting. So, it kind of marks us through all the different combinations of those measures to come up with this curve. And it kind of tells you, "All right, your lowest cost and lowest – highest energy savings scenario is this option, which would be putting in all measures." Basically, the site has such high electricity costs that all the measures looked financially viable that we looked at. So, next slide.

                                    So, here are – it's just the summary of the ten-homes results. So, all the homes showed that installing programmable thermostats, LED lighting, air sealing, and blown-in insulation was economically viable. Again, the PV was kind of an add-on. The energy savings for just the energy measures themselves saved anywhere from 8 to 13 percent without the PV system, and then with the PV system savings was more, in the 25 to 50 percent range. Because of the cold climate we also recommended reducing space heating by constructing any new buildings with tight construction – windows, door; looking at heat recovery ventilators for the heating units; efficient water heaters; and using EnergyStar appliances, especially for the freezers that they had. Next slide.

                                    So, the second case study is for a new construction project – so, it was a multi-family housing unit for one of the tribes in Maine. So, the big challenge they were having is they wanted to know what the most cost-effective heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system would be for this new building. So, they wanted an energy model created for the – it was a senior housing unit. And they had – when we talked about the design process they already had drawings, so they probably were in the design development phase, that middle phase. So, they already knew how big the building was going to be, where it was going to be located, what the orientation was going to be, how many levels, those kinds of things. So, they wanted to know, again, what was their best heating system for this kind of cold climate in Maine?

                                    So, we looked at three different heating systems for the senior housing. So, the first one was a boiler unit with radiant floors. So, it used fuel oil. The next one was a fuel oil furnace with – again, all the systems had air conditioning also included for the senior home. And then, the third option was looking at an air source heat pump for doing all the heating and cooling. And so, this option is a little bit different, this third option. It uses all electricity to do the heating and cooling, whereas the first two options use fuel oil for heating and then electricity for cooling. So, we set up an energy model to look at these three things. So, next slide.

                                    So, here's an image of the energy model on the top, and then the lower image is the actual zoning of the model that we got from the architect. They had drawings, again, so each – you could see each – that kind of floor plan view, you could see the corridors and the different – that center is kind of a kitchen area, and then all the different units within the housing unit. And it was a two-story building. So, we built this energy model in eQUEST – so, again, it was one of the tools, the other options within EnergyPlus. If this was in Alaska, we could have used AkWarm. So, we created the model. It had 24,000 square feet. Two floors. Twenty-four units in each. There was a commercial kitchen or a communal space. And some of the specifications for the design: It had R-30 walls, R-50 roof, and very good windows. That U-value is basically the inverse of the R-value, so very good windows. Next slide.

                                    So, since we were tasked to look at only the – originally, it was to look at the HVAC units, the different HVAC drawings, but since we were looking at the drawing to set up the energy model we went ahead and did a design review just to make sure: Were they putting in adequate levels of insulation? Was the lightning system good? Things like that. So, we looked at all the design drawings from the architect and engineers to determine – it was a really high-performance building that was being designed. They had good levels of insulation in the walls and in the roof, and they were considering higher-performance HVAC systems. LEDs were used in the entire design, so that was good to see, and they were using high-efficiency appliances – so, things like refrigerators, washing machines, these were all incorporated into the design. So, we confirmed that and then went onto looking at the HVAC unit. So, next slide.

                                    So, here's the comparison of the HVAC units. So, this is a summary. So, the first column is that first thing we looked at, which is the boiler with the fuel oil and then air conditioning unit. The next – the middle column is the furnace with the air conditioning unit – so, again, that uses fuel oil. And then, the last column is the air source heat pump, which uses all electricity. So, within this – we used the electric rates that they were paying, so $0.18 per kilowatt-hour, which is pretty high. If you're looking at the nation as a whole, it's higher than average. And then, we also used a fuel oil rate of $2.75 a gallon.

                                    So, the other thing is the design team had to consider first costs when analyzing the tradeoffs for the HVAC options. They had to stay within budget of the building design. So, that was one of the key requirements. And they wanted us to look at what the installed costs were.

                                    So, with these three options we kind of – I kind of highlighted some of the major findings. So, the lowest energy cost system was the boiler unit, kind of that first unit, which is kind of a standard system that uses fuel oil for heating, electricity for cooling. The lowest energy use system was the air source heat pump system, so that had the lowest energy use. And then, you can see the total cost for heating and electricity for the boiler unit was around $58,000.00, $59,000.00, and then for the air source heat pump it was $62,000.00. So, basically, that's showing that higher electric rate is kind of penalizing. Even though it has a lower energy use, the rate for electricity is higher than effectively the fuel oil rate. And so – but it's pretty marginal as far as the fuel – the energy cost throughout the year. And that's one thing I should note, that the total costs aren't the costs for the system; the design engineers were working on that and so they kind of provided that information as far as how much the first costs would be. I was tasked with more like what would the energy costs be on a yearly basis to pay for the fuel to heat the building and cool the building. So, those were the big results from this new construction project case study. Next slide.

                                    So, the final section is just the summary. And so – next slide – there's only one summary slide. So, I kind of – it's the same flowchart that you've seen a few times now. So, again, the top in blue is existing buildings, and then the bottom in purple is new construction projects. So, for the existing buildings, again, you want to track your energy, prioritize, and then based on your building prioritization do an energy audit. So, collect all the data, perform the audits, and then look at financing options. Again, you're going to probably be looking at financing options first thing too. So, again, as Tony mentioned, ESPCs, third party financing, direct purchase, grants, things like that. And then, final step is selecting a contractor – so, a summary there. Similar for new construction, it's get multiple quotes, get a licensed and insured professional. Make sure they're certified and make sure they're local.

                                    For the new construction, some of the things is you want to determine the financing options to pay for the new building, determine is going to be an office building, rec center, or health center, or things like that. The building design, again, it's made up those three design steps – so, schematic design, design development, and then coming up with the construction documents to actually build the building. And then, the energy modeling section is, again, pretty iterative with the design, building design. So, you kind of can use the energy modeling for new construction and existing buildings. You could use it for residential buildings, commercial buildings. And the next step would be the final design. Again, these are the summary of the measures to consider within a building – so, applicable, both existing buildings and new construction. So, things like passive design, the building envelope, which would be wall insulation, roof insulation. Lighting would be LED lighting, lighting accents, sensors, things like that. EnergyStar appliances. And then, efficient HVAC equipment – heating and air conditioning equipment. And as I mentioned, again, selecting the contractors. Similar things as we mentioned above: Get multiple quotes, licensed and insured, certified, and local.

                                    So, the next slide, that's the end of the presentation. And I don't know, it sounds like we might open it up for questions?

James:                        Thanks, Jimmy. Yeah, we will take questions, but at the end of the final presentation. So, we have Jack Hébert next. We did get some good questions come in for you, Jimmy and Tony, so hopefully we'll have a little bit of time at the end. And sorry, Jack, for the – since we started a little bit late you're going to be slightly squeezed for time, but if you give us a 40-minute presentation, we'll have a few minutes for questions.

Jack:                           Great. Great.

James:                        So, go ahead, Jack.

Jack:                           Thank you so much, James. And these two were – Jimmy and Tony, that was a wonderful presentation. And really, it's a good lead-in because the tools that you shared with everyone are the – are our approach on retrofits and new buildings. So, that modeling and follow-up is so important.

                                    But just – I don't know how many of you out there know who we are. We are located in Central Alaska but we are a statewide organization. And in respect for the people that – the first Alaskans, we appreciate the fact that we are on their lands and are in deep partnership with them in finding solutions. Twenty-one years ago members of the Alaska state building community, including our rural housing authorities, put together the Cold Climate Housing Research Center to really find practical answers, really, truly applied research for the problems we were facing in the circumpolar community across Canada into Russia and Scandinavia and all of the north. Inadequate housing particularly in first nations was a tragedy, and we needed to find solutions. We were just borrowing technologies from elsewhere and it was time to be creative. So, next slide. Next slide, please.

                                    This is our building. This building is – we consider shelter within the home, the home being the land and the place in our great state of Alaska and our beautiful Earth. It's really – what we put over our heads is not the home itself. The home is placed – or, the shelter is placed on the land. So, in this case, because we are applied research and felt that if you – you can talk about things all the time, but if you don't do them, if you don't show what's possible, really, what have you accomplished? So, we begin with our facility, and it is the farthest north LEED Platinum building in the world. It's also considered when we built it to be runner-up for the Smartest Building in America. As Alaskans of course and innovators, when we were told we couldn't build a LEED Platinum building at our latitude and a 15,000-degree heating environment with all of the challenges that we have, we wanted to show it could be done. And we did build this at the market value of a typical commercial building in the Fairbanks area. Next, please.

                                    We have several main programs building envelopes and how we construct and retrofit homes and the kinds of materials we use and the science involved in that. And then, the mechanical systems to support that, and that includes both heating, the production of the power that's needed, and as importantly, the indoor air quality and the mechanical ventilation systems. And that is all tied into policy and program development, and we work very closely with the State of Alaska and with the Canadians on the development of policies that drive energy efficiency and more healthy buildings. Next.

                                    We do consider much, very much that we are a part of a global community, the Arctic community primarily because we're in the north, but that we're all moving towards solutions and we can do that much better together. This home you see here in Fairbanks on the right is a full-passive house/home built here with as many local materials as we could as a demonstration of what can be done. And this kind of effort is happening all over the world, of course, and in these times it's particularly critical that we address shelter in a broad and strong way to really find solutions for the challenges that we're facing. Next.

                                    This is really the basis of how we operate, and it really begins with what we call indigenous wisdom. And indigenous wisdom is – surrounds us here in Alaska. The elders and the folks that have lived a sustainable life for a millennium are still a part of our world. And we need to remember these basis needs, and we base our work on those needs: water, food, and shelter. Next.

                                    Among that – among those values are this sustainability, respect, and community. I really love the indigenous values and their perspective. And the indigenous values begin with community, family, and self, self being the last on the list. The health of the community is of paramount importance. Together we're strong; isolated we're not. We take care of our family ahead of ourselves and our needs. And last is ourselves, because if the others are healthy, so are we. And from a European and a colonialist perspective it's, as I think most of you know out there, it's all about "me;" it's not about "we." So, we need to be looking at that. And this particular moment with this virus we're dealing with is certainly a time to reset that value and understand that we are a people, a global community; we are all human beings. Next.

                                    We need to remember this, and that's true of us that are more separated by time from that connection to the Earth, but that we all are indigenous people. When my family came across – or, my family – the people here were coming across the land bridge 20,000 years ago, my people were living in caves in France. And that connection to the Earth is something that the first people that came here and the indigenous people of North America still have a deep connection to. We're much more separated, those of us that have come from Europe, but we need to remember that we all are connected to the land and the health of the land, and how we live on it is essential for the future of our species and who we are. Next.

                                    And here we have great examples here in Alaska – and you do in the lower 48 as well. And the 20,000 years of success really should guide the process. How we live on that land in a symbiotic way, how we deal with shelter, food, and water in connection to the land and in respect for the land, understanding that those are the most important things, that those elements – and without those elements we won't survive. Next.

                                    And it's fairly simple, these principles. I mean, it's retaining heat, not –  in a cold climate, not producing heat. It doesn't matter how much you eat. That tutu, that caribou up there can – if he didn't have that well-designed exterior, no matter how much food he brought into his body and energy he produced, he wouldn't survive. And that's certainly true of all living things. Next.

                                    Really, it's a good parka in a cold climate, or it's appropriate clothing. That's your first protection against the elements. And we're blessed because we're naked, frail creatures, we're blessed with the intellect to figure out a way. We need good air. This parka reflects that. We need to take conditioned air into our body, not 40-below air. So, in this case you're warming that air up before it enters your lungs. That's very true of a house. We need efficient lighting. We need both natural lighting so we can see and not feel that we are separate from our environment, but we want to be protected by it, and we need artificial lighting that's efficient. So, basically, this dogma sure is showing all the elements that you need, really, to survive in this kind of environment. And of course in every environment on Earth we adapt to the needs of that place. Next.

                                    I'm going to talk a little bit about our Sustainable Northern Communities program, which works statewide. You have to understand – I think many of you are aware of the variety of climates that we have here, and certainly one approach in Heidelberg, in a temperate – cold but temperate rain forest in Southeast Alaska, is going to be different than it's going to be in Utquiagvik. I haven't changed the name of Barrow up there at the top of the world yet, but our farthest north community of Barrow, where you have 20,000 heating degree days, design temperatures of minus 60, with ambient temperatures with wind chill approaching not unusually minus 100, as opposed to Heidelberg, that gets 200 inches, 180 to 200 inches of rain a year, and has a fairly temperate climate. Very different people, very different cultures. A very different place and way of living. Next. Next, please.

                                    We've done a lot of very interesting work throughout the communities in Alaska in designing and building new homes with remarkable performance. These are just some of the examples of those kinds of homes. Now, by "we" I'm not saying the Housing Research Center; I'm saying we with the people, with the people of these communities to design and build new homes in this case. New homes that reflect their lifestyle, and the lifestyle being in not unusually 80 percent of the food coming from the land, so a deep subsistence lifestyle, to the variation of the climate that you find in each of these places. So, it's a matter of working with the people that know that best. And that has just not been done. Next.

                                    It begins with listening. No one has asked the first people of the western hemisphere what their needs are and reflecting those needs. In over 40 years of designing and building homes for clients in Alaska, I have never told them what they were going to live in. I ask and I listen. And that's the first approach, to have respect for the people that are living in those places. Those folks that are living in Indian country in the lower 48 know more about that place than those of us from outside ever will. So, it's time to listen. Listen to the form. Listen to the needs. Look at the climate. Talk to the elders about the direction the wind blows and how the climate may be changing. There's a resource there that is not being listened to, and that needs to start happening. Next. Next, please.

                                    That house that you saw in the last drawing, this is the kind of performance we're seeing from new construction, designing with the people. The reduction of energy use by 80 and 90 percent of what it was before. Good indoor air quality. People involved in building their own homes. A sense of ownership from concept to walking through the front door. So, that's new construction. So, building it right the first time is the best thing we can do. But that's not the case for most of our housing. Next.

                                    This is what we have now. So, how do we work with what we have? While we look for ways to provide more appropriate new housing that's affordable, that's healthy, that's durable, that reflects the lifestyle of the people that are living in it, while we're doing that we're going to have to deal with what we have. And what we have is a real mess. This picture is very typical of our rural Alaskan communities. And it is a legacy that has been put on this generation from the colonization of people that have come to these places, of people who had a healthy life, very, very – a very full and rich spiritual life, a deep community life, taking things from the land to create shelter in their home, in the place that they live. A balance. A respect. And that has been replaced by toxic buildings, high energy costs, and many, many changes. Now, some change is good and some change not so good. Back to that analogy of the cave: I don't want to go back to living in a cave. Folks don't want to go back to living in sod houses and skin tents necessarily. But the principles of that need to be embraced, and then 21st centuries adapted to that.

                                    And that's what's exciting about this particular time that we're in, that we can look at these 21st century technologies that are developing, we can work together on applying those technologies to our built environment, while at the same time understanding what our needs are in that built environment, that it reflects who we are and how we live, not necessarily what we want from a materialistic sense but what we need from a spiritual sense and from a sustaining sense. Next. Next, please.

                                    These are the tragedies I see all the time that break my heart. This little girl on the lower right-hand corner, when we went in her home – and I can say in this particular community 30 percent of the homes were at catastrophic structural failure – this is what under her mattress looked like. In the wintertime, literally, if you roll over in bed – and my family has expressed this to me – and your hair is on the wall, it's going to freeze to the wall during the night, the structures are so bad. On the left-hand picture there, as I said, in this community 30 percent of the homes are at catastrophic structural failure, primarily from the environment and bad building science. You could take a number two pencil and shove it right through that gray beam. And that was mismanagement of bulk water. It was condensing in the walls. It was the inability of the house to breathe. And it was not only structurally toxic but it was toxic to the human beings that are living in these homes. Next.

                                    So, we have to think about – and this is something that's embedded in what we do here in the North, is this holistic approach. You can't separate the shelter from the people that are going to be in it, from the land, from the resources that are there. We have to look at it broadly. So, a holistic approach is necessary in everything we do, whether it's just going in and doing some weatherization. It needs to be holistic in understanding with what that weatherization is going to do to the house. We may think we're doing something good, but if we tighten the house up too much and think – we're just focused at saving energy, it may be at the expense of the health of the people living in the house. And is this house really functioning as it was designed to? Or, if it wasn't designed to function well, how can it be modified to do that? So, we have to look at that – and again, the human element driving our decisions. What effect does what we do have to the people of the community, of the family, and of the individuals that are in these homes? Next.

                                    So, as I mentioned, Jimmy and Tony covered some great programs. In Alaska we have our parochial programs. We had a wonderful program a few years ago that was a home energy rebate program that would – it was Alaska-specific, but it gave rebates of up to $10,000.00 for retrofits. Unfortunately, it was mostly used in our urban areas, and in particular an area that didn't have the stresses that our rural areas do. But it did very clearly provide a great benefit and a reduction of energy in those homes.

                                    The weatherization program, however, reaches out into the most – the highest needs regions of our state, and that affects the people that are under the greatest challenges of high energy costs, a severe environment, high transportation costs. And it, again, can be very effective if it's done correctly. Next.

                                    The AkWarm program was mentioned by Jimmy and Tony and it is very, very user-friendly. Those of you that live in zone four and five in the northern tier, you should go ahead and download it and play with it a bit. It's just very intuitive. It really gives you a good idea of the kinds of things that you can do to a structure to improve its energy efficiency while also addressing the critical needs of ventilation. Next.

                                    So, this is just a bit of the – there's a few slides here that are going to show the effect of these two different programs. We've got the rebate program in the green, which was that $10,000.00 rebate that was given to individuals that applied for it in Alaska, and the purple is the ongoing weatherization program. So, just looking at how much has been saved in the way of energy costs in those homes by the families that live in those homes from the investment that the State of Alaska made.

                                    And this does not show if it is done correctly the improvement in health. Alaska has the highest incidence of upper respiratory distress of elders and children in the nation. This is not something to be proud of. Just a medevac from a rural village can cost $20,000.00 to $30,000.00 for an elder with upper respiratory problems. What if the cause of those problems were addressed in a careful retrofit, energy efficiency retrofit, and indoor air quality response to that home? That $30,000.00 spent on that home would get rid of the toxic environment. It would lower the energy cost by 60, 70, 80 percent, taking that burden off the folks that are living in that house. And now the state and the federal government has avoided the cost of those medevacs. And in some cases we've seen families that will have three medevacs a year. Next.

                                    We're in a cold climate. Sixty-five percent of the time that we've seen people spend in their home, in their shelter. Indoor pollutants are harmful. High moisture is harmful. Overcrowding is harmful. These are all things that we – the challenges that we're having to address as we move forward here. The improvement is very, very clear. In the energy efficiency side we had 26,000 homes – almost 26,500 homes participated. They went from two to four star, meaning in our rating system they used half the energy after the retrofit that they used before the retrofit. And not only does – in the weatherization side the improved efficiency has done the same kind of thing to a broader number of people, particularly those that are in the most need. And indoor air quality, once again, is part of that. So, it's a more intangible savings – not savings, but benefit to the people, and savings to the State of Alaska and the federal government. Next. Next, please.

                                    We do the housing needs assessment for the State of Alaska and we also track these programs and what the benefit, the broad benefit of these programs has been. Again, trying to make an argument to the state and federal governments that the investment in the kinds of programs that involve weatherization and energy efficiency and better new construction, the kind of benefits over time that – and almost immediately – can give to the folks that are funding these projects. The average payback on the investment of energy efficiency in Alaska in reduction of just fuel usage is between five and seven years. So, every dollar that you put in is repaid back in that short a period of time, and from then on the structure is a lower cost for the folks that are living in it, which of course is great for the lower economy and great for the family. Next.

                                    So, this is what this looks like when we run the numbers. And again, this isn't talking about improved health. This is just numbers. So, the state in direct funds put in – actually put in $386 million in the program that saved the folks indirect and direct money in reduced impacts of $863 million. So, that was almost two and a half times to one. And our estimate on the health and safety impacts was $319 million. So, these numbers are really clear and they really show the benefits of these efforts. I'd encourage all of you to go to our website, to go ahead and look at the home energy rebate and weatherization impacts at that URL it shows there. And our Alaska housing assessment, which I'll show you a few slides on, which is sort of a snapshot of the conditions that we have in the state of Alaska and the things that we need to prioritize. Next. Next, please. Yeah.

                                    So, this is one technique that we developed and it works very well in both new construction and in retrofits. We call it REMOTE. It's actually a system that was modified from what the Canadians call PERSIST. REMOTE is "residential exterior outside insulation technique." It's basically wrapping the building in a new parka. Next slide, please.

                                    The real piece of this is to bring the wall system that is vulnerable, the organic members of the wall in a wood frame structure, back into a conditioned space, so that in the case of the REMOTE wall system the relative humidity and temperature of the organic members of the wall are the same relative humidity and temperature of the furniture in the home. So, there's no condensing events that occur in this wall. The wall is able to dry toward the inside. Of course, it creates a very, very tight envelope, meaning you've got to ventilate and keep those moisture levels down or your humidity levels will get very high. But in the case of a properly applied REMOTE system you do not get condensing in that wall because there's no cold surface in that wall for the condensing to occur. So, you avoid the mold issues that we – that are so endemic in Alaska.

                                    It doesn't require a new construction of vapor barrier at all or rely on that interior vapor barrier in the wall system to protect the wall. The wall can breathe toward the inside. Now, if you have a vapor barrier and you put an adequate amount of insulation on the exterior, you still don't have a problem because you don't get a condensing vent in the wall. I'd encourage you – we have manuals and videos on our website to go and see that one. The next slide shows a little more.

                                    So, this is just kind of a cutoff view of how this system addresses thermal bridging. A lot – and in new construction it's wonderful because a lot of the detailing that has to go on with an interior vapor barrier and detailing on the rim joists to keep them warm and not have air infiltration is taken care of because  you have this complete thermal envelope. Again, back to the analogy of the parka: If you've got a broken zipper or you've got a baffle that – or, a tear in your parka, it doesn't matter how thick the rest of the parka is; it's not going to be warm. So, an emphasis on a complete thermal envelope is key. And along with that, understanding that you have got to ventilate that home. You have to do a ventilation strategy with any kind of tightening up of the house envelope. Next.

                                    This, again, is just a detail of a foundation and how we approach it in new construction, but also on retrofits. If you're doing a deep retrofit of a home, this thermal bridging issue – and, again, a holistic approach. Think about how that's going to affect the rest of the structure. No matter what you do to it, it's going to affect the rest of the structure and it will affect folks that live in that structure, so we've got to think through the implications of every step we make in a retrofit process or in a new construction process. That human element: How is it going to affect the humans that live in it over time? Next.

                                    So, the benefits are clear of retrofits. You're reducing heat loss. You're reducing that condensation potential. You're not having the air leakage. And these new – these retrofit homes, we'll go from – at 50 pascals – 5 or 6 ACH, air changes per hour, to under 1. So, it's a very, very tight envelope and it keeps that air filtration down. Now, we have to – again, I can't overemphasize ventilation. We talk about "build tight, ventilate right" in Alaska, and that is extremely important. Next.

                                    We've done a lot of studies on how retrofits and how much insulation is enough. We can do computer models and we can see where the condensing will occur in a particular environment. Here in Alaska the recommended amount on the exterior is six inches of EPS. It's a two-thirds/one-third rule. If you've got an R-19 in the wall, you need an R-20 on the outside of that wall not to have a condensing event. Now, AkWarm will show you that and it will give you a warning of those problems. But what really happens and what can we get away with when we're stressing the environment, both outside and inside? We have a mobile test lab that we can move around the state. Originally, we put it in Southeast Alaska, which is an environment that is considered to have zero drying degree days, to see what the best wall system might be for that region of Alaska, that wet, humid, cold region. We can test nine different wall sections at a time in this mobile test lab to see what happens. What happens when you run the relative humidity up inside and put a positive pressure driving that moisture into the wall? What will it do? Again, those studies are available on our website and you can go into some detail with that. And we're always happy to communicate and answer questions. Next.

                                    So, again, just some more detail – I know we're getting short on time – of different runs of nine different wall sections and different issues related to those wall sections that we've run in our mobile test lab. Some very interesting results, and showing again and reinforcing the problems that we're seeing in rural and urban Alaska with poor – with a poor approach to building science on retrofits. Next.

                                    This is what we don't want to see happen – again, that picture from the community of Quinhagak. In this case they went in to weatherize, and in a wonderful attempt to lower energy bills they put an inch of Thermax outside of these old Butler homes and then re-sided. Didn't pay a good attention to flashing, so bulk water and wind-driven rain were intruding. The condensing events in those walls were catastrophic. Literally, the wall filled with ice in the wintertime. Now the wall couldn't dry either to the inside or the outside because the outside, we created a double vapor barrier with the Thermax being put over the structural sheathing, and on the inside you had a polyethylene vapor barrier, so any water that got in there, whether it was from wind and rain or whether it was from a condensing event, simply couldn't dry. So, it would look – the mold would start and the rot would start, and this is the condition of so much of our rural homes and urban homes. Next.

                                    There's some really wonderful new products and new technologies that we're working on that we want to share with you over the years. We're doing a program that's just recently been funded – and it's in its first stages – by DOE that we call the New Iglu. And it's a whole new way of building. This illustration doesn't really show it, but keep in touch with us on our website on this. What we're really looking for is a very affordable light building that can be transported easily or going online and ordering the pieces and parts and can be assembled together. These VIPs are phenomenal – those of you that aren't familiar with it, "vacuum-insulated panels" is what VIPs are. One-inch – this one-inch VIP you see in the wall cavity here has an R-60. And the cost, the project cost of that vacuum-insulated panel is not much more than the siding. So, very, very cheap, about $2.00 a square foot in the projections. It's easily manufactured. Of course, it's also vulnerable to getting compromised, so we're working on these issues. So, keep your eyes on that. But that's part of this philosophy of indigenous wisdom – the warm parka – and 21st century technologies. Let's make this parka out of materials that are going to give us a high R-value, have all kinds of benefits to the people and the families living in those homes, and high performance. Next.

                                    This is another wall approach that we've used a lot. This wall actually is able to absorb and release a bit of moisture. It's something we call the Arctic wall. That passive house you saw in the beginning uses this kind of wall system. Lots of steps. Not simple. But obviously a very good parka. Next.

                                    Just a little bit on paybacks. This is just – we were just running a run on paybacks in oil per gallon by – on a retrofit – putting in more insulation and where that payback is the highest return and the lowest return. So, the more insulation you put in, obviously the better it is. But at what point is it too much, if we look at the difference between the R-117 value there with 292 gallons of oil for this house, as opposed to an R-76 with 318? And what's the payback on the investment of that insulation over time, increasing it that much?

                                    Same thing with windows. In this case, windows – 77 gallons of fuel for just adding a triple pane rather than a double pane. We don't build up here except in our areas with cheap energy like Anchorage – no one considers building a house without a triple pane window. And in fact, we have a quad pane as well. Now, what's the payback on the cost of a quad pane? You start to get into little payback issues related to that. But triple is a no-brainer. Next.

                                    And air sealing, of course, is the cheapest thing you can do. It doesn't cost much to do a case of caulk. And if you can find where those air leaks are, air sealing is the first and lowest hanging fruit to reduce your energy costs. You need to watch that relative humidity in the house, though. You seal it up, you're going to start seeing humidity in the house and you're going to have to start thinking about how you're going to bring some fresh air in to make it healthy. Next.

                                    Roof insulation. Again, very, very easy thing to add to. That's low hanging fruit. AkWarm will show you the lowest hanging fruit and the payback cost of adding just a little bit of this and a little bit of that and how much that can help, how much time it will take to get that payback. Next.

                                    Heat recovery is a big piece of things here. We really – especially in any home that is larger than about 1000 square feet, heat recovery ventilation is critical. You want to have that cold air getting preheated as it comes in and cleaned.

                                    Now, the next slide – please – the next slide shows a system that incorporates – well, this is – I'm sorry, it's the one after this, but we'll talk about this one first. So, this is just looking back in – looking back at hot water efficiency and the different things that you can do to save money and get paybacks quickly. So, the choices in the paybacks, we need to look at what we do and how it improves the home itself and the home's performance but how quickly it can be paid back, because those are the arguments we can make to making these investments. Next.

                                    We need to – this is part of the policy priorities. Now, we have done a housing needs assessment for the State of Alaska. We know how many homes in our state – and we only have 600,000 people here, but almost 100,000 of those homes are a cost burden, meaning it costs a third of a family's income just to live in the house and keep a roof over their head. And that is primarily the cost of the mortgage, of course, but energy use. So, if you can reduce that, if you can – if we can develop loans and policies that the savings in energy from doing retrofits pays off in the savings on the mortgage itself and the cost of living in the house. So, we've got a lot of challenges here, and we've looked regionally at how those challenges can be prioritized. Next slide.

                                    The policy research team is looking broadly in Alaska at the energy cost savings for single-family homes by region and what energy efficiency can do and the economic driver that it can have for those regions by doing energy efficiency improvements on the housing stock that we have. Next slide.

                                    Each region – this is Calista – there's 6000 – this is the Yukon, or the Kuskokwim Delta region. We have some really nasty challenges in Alaska – again, on the holistic approach. Is it just energy use that's the problem. Not really. Forty percent of the houses are considered to be crowded, with two or more people per room. We see 800-square foot houses here that have 10 or 12 people living in them. So, what does that do to the indoor air quality and the health of the folks living in those homes? We still in this region – you can see a third of the homes in this region don't have indoor plumbing. They're still using honey buckets. Again, the risk to health and the safety of those folks is – it can be more of a priority than the cost of energy in retrofitting those homes. So, we have to look at how everything relates to the other and decide what's the best approach for that community? And the challenges are big, and the resources for addressing those challenges are finite. Next.

                                    This is in the Cook Inlet region. This is the region around Anchorage. Now, much better homes. Not the problem with overcrowding. Lots of retrofits have been done in that area to reduce the cost of energy. But in tightening up those homes and doing those retrofits and lowering the cost of energy from – for those homes, what about the indoor air quality? And what about the ventilation to address that indoor air quality? So, there's the problem in Cook Inlet. Next.

                                    So, again, back once again to the holistic approach. We've got to look at the house as a system, that the human element is variable, that the natural environment and the challenges that we face region by region, community by community vary, that these basic needs of clean water and adequate food and a healthy shelter that doesn't require a tremendous burden on the family are things we have to keep in mind, and how it all relates. Next slide.

                                    We have a system we've developed here that we call BrHEAThe. It's heat recovery and heat for the house itself. So, it's heat recovery ventilation. So, you've got a ventilation system and you have heat in the same unit. So, in Indian country down there in the colder regions, when you tighten a house up and you've done your energy modeling and you look at what the house's heating needs are, please consider this system, because not only are you putting in a new heating unit, but you're putting in a heating unit that is coupled with good indoor air quality. That's why we call it BrHEAThe. That's why we wrote it the way it is. So, it's good air and it's heat. You can't have one without the other.

                                    Next slide shows a diagram of that. So, this is the system. And this has been – this system has been put all over the North Slope and our coldest region in the state, all over the west. Here in Fairbanks. Our prototype homes, the biggest problem we had with our prototype new homes was finding a heating unit that was small enough. The early ones that we did could be heated with a long haul truck rig heater and an 18,000 heating degree environment – a four-bedroom house. You still needed to ventilate, but you could heat that with a long haul truck rig heater. So, the issue was what happens if they turn off the ventilation in a house like that? What happens is problems. In the case of the BrHEAThe system, now it's all integrated together. So, clean air, warm air, a comfortable, healthy environment. Next.

                                    Sanitation. We can't forget. This is another system we've worked on with Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and other partners. We call it PASS: portable alternative sanitation system. This system is being put in those homes without bathrooms that have honey buckets. This is a huge sea change for them. You've got a drying toilet – it's called a separate. It separates the fluids from the solids. It dries the solids so they're very benign. You have a gray water system cistern that those fluids go into, as well as gray water for washing your hands. It's ventilated, so it creates ventilation for those houses as well, a constant ventilation pulling air out of the house. And it has a water system that's delivered – or, delivered water. It has a filtration system built into that delivered water system. So, you can take the water out of the river and you can filter that water and have healthy, good water for washing hands and for cooking and for drinking, and at the same time you're meeting the needs of wastewater and human waste. Next.

                                    So, it really gets down to this. I mean, it really gets down to it, and I think this moment in time when we're dealing with this virus and understanding the commonality of our humanity, that we're all peoples of this Earth and that we have to have a healthy land for healthy people. And without a healthy land and healthy people and a healthy spirit and an understanding that it's all connected, with the number of folks that are on the world now and the problems that we've brought onto this planet, it's not a cheerful picture. Next. Next, please.

                                    And here's some indigenous wisdom to think about. And really, how blessed we are to still have indigenous people that we can communicate with and listen to. Those indigenous values and those indigenous truths and all of you that are – that work in Indian country are surrounded by those indigenous values and those indigenous truths, we need to embrace those. There is a relationship to this Earth and the way we live that many of us have lost. And the disconnect that – the indigenous people with those truths is very, very small. And in many cases there's no disconnect at all. We need to listen to them. We need to work together. It may be our greatest hope. Next.

                                    Here's a community where my family is: Kotzebue. You can see its relation to the Earth. You can see in your heart that there has to be a relationship to the land and the place, and the people of that community on the land in the place in their home. This holistic approach is something to please remember. Everything is connected. We're all connected as human beings. The houses and the structures we build are for human beings. They're connected to life. Lifestyle. They're connected to the health and the core of the family, the community. Thoughts to think about while we're all squirreled away in our isolation here at this particular time: our vulnerability on this planet and the job all of us have to do that are in the shelter industry. We have to take it seriously. We're an important piece of it. So, last slide.

                                    So, Quyana – that's a picture of some of my family, of my 11 grandkids. It's all about them. So, bless you all.

James:                        Thanks so much for that wonderful presentation. Some really interesting stuff in there. And good stories and pictures.

                                    We do have – well, we are over the top of the hour, but let's try to just answer a couple of questions quickly, and then we'll have to wrap it up. So, Jimmy and Tony, if you're still available, a couple questions for you – and Jack, you're welcome to chime in on these as well. What kind of energy tracking technologies are out there that are working well for building monitoring, I guess is probably the focus there?

Jimmy:                        Yeah. So, this is Jimmy. A lot of buildings I've gone to, they still have – if it's a campus or things like that, they'll have people inputting their monthly bills into Excel spreadsheets that they developed. I'm sure there's tools out there, but maybe Jack or Tony have actual software in mind. Excel is usually the tool I see, but I'm sure there's got to be other tools out there.

Jack:                           I can refer anyone that gets ahold of us to our folks that really have developed software for tracking all of that. Again, we have handled the whole retrofit program throughout our state and the housing needs assessment. So, we have some resources for you, but I would defer that to the folks that work with me here that are a lot brighter on that side. But just reach out to us, please.

James:                        Thanks. As far as the on-bill financing goes from a utility perspective, can that be structured such that the on-bill financing remains at the property even after it's sold? Or if it is sold?

Tony:                          Yeah, that actually – when I was researching that a little bit, it depends on the exact program, which depends on the utility that's offering it. And not all utilities offer it, so you have to look and see. Either – if you sell the house, you need to either pay off the loan or in some cases you're – it's allowed to kind of carry over to the next person if they're willing to keep doing the payments. So, that's – it's really been thought about and it will be dealt with differently depending on which utility you're dealing with.

James:                        Okay. Thanks.

Jack:                           In Alaska those loans can be rolled into the next mortgage too and paid off in – depending on the appraisal of the property, if it adds value to the property, then the property is worth more, so when the sale occurs in a transfer of title that note can be paid off in that transfer.

James:                        Got you. Jack, question for you. Who manufactures that BrHEAThe HVAC system?

Jack:                           It's just off-the-shelf parts. We can – again, if you reach out, we can send you the plans. But there is no manufacturer doing a BrHEAThe system. The only piece that is not off the shelf, because you can use a number of different kinds of heating appliances and heat recovery ventilators. The only piece is they – is the box that transfers heat. It's like a unit heater with a filtration system. And I believe that one is starting to be manufactured now. We have it built locally now but there's someone that's starting to manufacture those. And if whoever is asking that question reaches out to me, I will get you that connection.

James:                        Great. All right. One last question here. We aren't going to get to all of them but we've got to wrap it up here. Can – how does – so, this is unfortunately an Alaska-specific question again, but how is the Power Cost Equalization program impacted by any of these energy efficiency efforts in rural housing? Is it like a negative influence, I guess? Kind of a dis-incentive, I guess, is one way of –?

Jack:                           I didn't hear the very start of your – of the question.

James:                        How are cost – Power Cost Equalizations in Alaska – does that provide some sort of dis-incentive for energy efficiency work in rural Alaska.

Jack:                           Not at all. Not at all. The Power Cost Equalization program is just trying to level the playing field a bit for rural residences to not pay quite so much on their homes. But it's still very expensive, so it's not a dis-incentive. Without the Power Cost Equalization, literally, people couldn't afford to run their electricity at all.

James:                        Yeah. Understood. Thanks, everybody. We'll have to leave the remaining questions. I'll send them out to the individual presenters, and if they're able, they'll respond directly to you via e-mail if they're able. With that, we just have our remaining slides here on the rest of the series. The next webinar is – this last one's in April, the 29th, "Developing Your Energy Vision: What Do You Want Your Tribe's Energy Future To Be?" We would appreciate it if you would attend that webinar and the other webinars shown here.

                                    I want to give a big thank you to all of our presenters today. Excellent work, and thank you for your time. And I appreciate our audience's participation and patience. And everybody stay healthy out there and we'll talk next month. Thanks, everybody.

Lizana:                        Thank you.

[End of Audio]