Join ENPULSE at the GOEXPO Sustainability Festival!

Join ENPULSE Energy Conservation at the GOExpo Sustainability Festival at the Benton Convention Center on Saturday, September 25th from 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. at Booth #47.

Admission is FREE!

The inaugural GoExpo is the Triad’s biggest-ever sustainability festival to help families, kids, businesses and building professionals learn how to “go green.”

The Expo will feature information and presentations on green trends for homes, businesses, neighborhoods, schools, transportation, gardens and more.

“We’ve really tried to cover all the different aspects of people’s lives,” Co-Chair Anne Tambling describes. “Whether it’s the schools their children attend, the transportation they use, the food they eat, the houses they live in, the neighborhoods they live in – there are sustainable aspects to all these areas. Most expos are vendor-based – you find lots of opportunities to buy things, ours is about information. We want people to learn about the tremendous advantages that come when you follow sustainable practices– not just environmentally, but financially for your home or business.”

Special guests include Sarah Susanka, architect and author of the best-selling “Not So Big House” series of books; and Sophie Lambert, the director of LEED for Neighborhood Development at the U.S. Green Building Council.

The GoExpo is being organized by the Community Sustainability Program Committee, an advisory body formed by the Winston-Salem City Council in 2008 to spearhead efforts to make Winston-Salem a more sustainable community. Jason Frichner, the chairman of the committee, says the GoExpo is intended to raise awareness of sustainability and the advantages it offers to residents and business owners alike. “We want to introduce the concept to people who may not understand it or have not bought into the benefits of sustainability, and show how it can change their lives for the better,” he said.

GoExpoHighlights include:

•Test drives of hybrid and fuel-efficient cars, courtesy of Modern Automotive Group, the presenting sponsor for the GoExpo

•Separate themed areas focusing on sustainability in homes, offices, gardens, schools, neighborhoods, transportation and construction.

•A GoKids area with hands-on activities for kids and learning opportunities for parents.

•Special workshops, seminars and exhibits for builders, architects and engineers, including classes that fulfill U.S. Green Building Council certification requirements.

•Four “green-themed” movies presented by A/perture Cinema, including two in the afternoon at the convention center.

•Free door-side “bike valet” service for bike riders who pedal to the GoExpo.

•Walk-through mock-ups of a “green” home and a “green” office.

•Exhibits of sustainable products and services for builders and homeowners.

For more information, visit http://www.goexpows.com/ .

ENPULSE's EARP Program Featured in the News & Record

GREENSBORO — While LaDonna Alston plugged a new programmable thermostat into the wall, Travon Garrett donned a blue jumpsuit and headed into a crawl space on Charles Harshaw Drive.

By the end of the day, the two-person crew from Enpulse Energy Conservation had provided homeowner Andrea Bullard with ways to cut her energy costs.

The energy audit was one of 50 that will be performed by the company using 2009 federal stimulus money.

The stimulus bill, signed by President Barack Obama in February 2009, has brought $38.4 million into the Greensboro area.

For the $23.2 million that went directly to the city, the equivalent of about 451/2 full-time jobs have been created so far, according to the city of Greensboro.

That includes the three new full-time employees that Enpulse hired for its energy-efficiency project.

The $104,000 project began earlier this summer. The goal has been to show homeowners and renters how to save money and energy by changing their habits.

The crews have found things such as air conditioners running while the windows are open.

“The good thing about behavior is it doesn’t cost anything to change,” said Derrick Giles, president and senior energy manager of Enpulse. “Every house we leave, we hope to leave them something to think about.”

The crews install programmable thermostats and up to 20 compact fluorescent light bulbs — two easy, inexpensive and proven ways to lower utility bills.

The crews also check the condition of the homes and appliances, looking for defects or areas for improvement.

In one home, Giles said, crews found that the heating and air-conditioning system was in such poor shape that the homeowner was paying more than $600 a month in utility bills.

To qualify for the program, homeowners or renters had to earn below the median household income for Greensboro.

The program targets low-income communities, where research shows households spend a higher percentage of income on utilities.

It’s those communities that may be the last to learn about the positive effect of energy efficiency and sustainability, Giles said.

“In the big picture, we want to create more of a cultural awareness,” Giles said.

After the last homes are audited, which could happen in the next few weeks, Enpulse will continue to track residents’ progress by reviewing their energy bills.

“The post-audits are where we are going to find the most information,” said Michael Blair, grant planner for the city of Greensboro.

“We are going to get real data back in what kind of cost savings and real house savings we get.”

That information will be provided to Carnegie Mellon University and N.C. A&T for research.

The energy audit program will be the first of many like it because the city was awarded a $5 million Department of Energy grant to support similar efforts.

Job training and other activities funded with that money will start later this year.

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 373-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.com.

This article reprint comes courtesy of the News & Record.

Energy - Let's Save It!

One family's adventure in their efforts to make a difference by saving energy.

The Real Power of Energy: New York Times Special Report

What's the difference between energy efficiency and energy conservation? According to a recent special report by The New York Times, energy conservation is when one turns out a light upon leaving a room and energy efficiency is changing out a incandesenct light bulb for a compact flourescent light (CFL) bulb.

An exerpt from the article is as follows:

In transportation, “we could double fuel economy for light-duty vehicles by 2035 without changing the size or acceleration of vehicles,” said Lester B. Lave, an economics and engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the chairman of a 2010 report on efficiency potential from the National Academy of Sciences.

He said buildings could use nearly 60 percent less electricity by 2030 by installing existing technologies, like compact fluorescents or LEDs, insulation, double- or triple-paned windows, and on-demand or solar hot water heaters. Tuning up and optimizing settings on climate controls would also contribute.

Experts say that economy-wide efficiency improvements could have a head-turning effect on the U.S. energy mix, helping to halt climate change, reduce energy insecurity and fix the economy. Yet in the vociferous debate about how to get off fossil fuels, efficiency has taken a back seat — partly because of the difficulty of talking about it concretely.

“It’s harder to talk about something that doesn’t exist, that you don’t produce,” said Cathy Zoi, the assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy at the U.S. Energy Department.

Highlighting this blind spot is a recent book, “Invisible Energy: Strategies to Rescue the Economy and Save the Planet,” by David Goldstein, a physicist who won the MacArthur genius award in 2002 and works as energy program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group.

Mr. Goldstein argues that the United States could reduce its projected energy consumption 88 percent by 2050, and that a 30 percent reduction is possible by 2020.

For more, visit the New York Times.