Jagan Nemani: What a waste!

This week’s guest post comes from Jagan Nemani, a MBA from Chicago’s Booth School of Business, a former Deloitte consultant and now the leader of a startup called SpeakEnergy.com that is  focused on improving the energy efficiency of individuals by involving them in online communities. Jagan got my attention at a recent GreenBiz event by showing me a website called www.usefulorwaste.com. (It’s inspired by a sexist dating site called hotornot.com in which visitors could rate photos of women.) Useful or waste is a reminder that, despite all the attention devoted to energy efficiency lately, we have a long way to go to eliminate waste. Look, for example, at the photo below of demo TVs at electronics retailer Best Buy–a company with an otherwise admirable sustainability program. Here’s more from Jagan:

Over the last few years. awareness about carbon emissions from U.S. buildings has increase. Buildings are by far the biggest greenhouse gas polluters. Americans consumed about 3.7 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2009, about 72% from buildings. About half came from coal-fired power plants. This accounted for approximately 2.5 billion metric tons of CO2 emission, which is equivalent to the emissions from 400 million cars–many more than the roughly 250 million cars on U.S. roads.

In the book Addicted to Energy,  Elton Sherwin writes:

Over 68% of the energy consumed in power plants is lost. If we could wave a magic wand and eliminate all our lost energy, America would burn no coal and import almost no oil.

While majority of the energy lost is in generation, transmission and distribution, there is still a lot of energy lost as waste heat Waste heat is a result of inefficiencies in our usage of electricity. I have a broad definition of vampire energy, which is the energy used by any device when the intended audience/purpose of the device is not being served.

Unfortunately, there is not much awareness about waste heat and vampire energy.

My company, SpeakEnergy, created www.usefulorwaste.com to increase awareness of energy usage. Users can upload pictures that show energy being used right or energy being wasted and get others to rate these pictures as “Useful” or “Waste”. Here are some examples:

Demo TVs at big electronics retailers: Electronics retailers have a wall of demo TVs that are on all day. It does not matter if anyone is watching; they are part of the ambiance. I think the energy used by these demo TVs when no customer is looking at them is vampire energy as it does not serve its purpose, which is to help customers compare TVs. Big electronics retailers should find ways to turn on TVs only as needed. Users have rated the energy used by these TVs (shown above) as waste.

Lights in vacant office space: This recession has been tough on commercial real estate, leaving office space empty. Even though the buildings are unoccupied some owners have lights on 24 x 7. This serves no purpose. There is about 49 million sq. ft. of vacant office space in the Bay Area alone. Assuming that 20% of this space has lights on 24 x 7, that would use  about 70% of a coal fired power plant’s capacity. The CO2 emissions from these vacant office space would be equivalent to those made by 8000 cars, and this is just in Northern CA region. Not surprisingly, users have rated the 24×7 lights in vacant office buildings as “Waste.”

Bulbs vs. Sunlight I do not think we have invented a bulb yet that can compete against sunlight, but nevertheless we try. Many times in the last few months, I’ve seen ample sunlight in a room but occupants switch on the light bulbs anyway. They’re used to the light bulbs and hence they adhere to their habits. We’d  save energy and reduce CO2 emissions if we could get our eyes accustomed to working in sunlight. The picture below shows that street lights are on even though there is enough sunlight, another “Waste”.

After hours energy usage: A lot of energy is wasted after hours, when retailers, car dealers, grocery chains and other stores leave their lights on throughout the night. Some support this as a theft deterrent and effort to makes a neighborhood safe. But have owners or tenants heard about motion detectors? Stores could install them so that lights would go on when motion is detected. This will make the stores safe while cutting down their energy usage. Here’s a picture of a car dealership, where lights and TV have been left on during off hours. Surely a waste of energy.

Overall, we all waste a lot of energy without realizing it. If all goes well, our site will increase awareness amongst energy users and help lead to targeted campaigns against waste. You’ve heard the saying: A picture is worth 1,000 words. Maybe a few pictures can save a few thousand megawatts.