Freiburg is known as an ecocity. The newly built neighbourhoods of Vauban and Rieselfeld were developed and built according to the idea of sustainability. The citizens of Freiburg are known in Germany for their love of cycling and recycling.

This past December, as climate talks in Copenhagen commenced, I sat in talks in Istanbul listening to local government representatives, building professionals and academics discuss concrete actions that can and have been taken to reduce greenhouse gases in cities around the world. The 8th annual Ecocity World Summit posed a compelling alternative to the fights and frustrations that mired the climate talks of Copenhagen in conflict. Cities represent about 75% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and the birth of the “eoocity” concept a few decades ago may have marked the beginning of our most tangible solution yet. From recycling, wastewater treatment and green building to smart urban planning, public transit and renewable energy generation, ecocity plans and ideas have emerged with a list of seemingly “no-brainer” action items to pursue.

While in theory, the “ecocity” may seem like a very straightforward concept, in practice the challenges prove tough to transcend. The urban and suburban sprawl that plagues regions in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand may seem like an almost insurmountable barrier to reducing carbon emissions. However, in Istanbul, a city of 13 million and growing, sprawl is compounded by the fact that much of the development is unplanned. This is also true for other mega-cities like Rio de Janeiro where families often add stories to their own homes, creating unsound structures that may collapse during natural disasters. Such unplanned settlements also make it difficult to create underground tunnels for a metro system, as there may be no record of where gas and electricity lines run underground. Traffic and a lack of environmental practices like wastewater treatment are also a major issue for such megacities.

Historical considerations also present challenges, as the rich cultural heritage of ancient cities demands a certain authenticity of design. Moreover, as cities like Istanbul go to dig tunnels for eco-features like an underground metro, they may discover archeological treasures that force them to stop digging.

In modern cities of intense density like Hong Kong, Tei Pei, and Singapore, a lack of space to erect renewable power generation and urban farming operations create challenges to meeting energy and food demands without importing food and energy. In many developing nations, a lack of laws to regulate pollution and a lack of enforcement for existing environmental laws also create little incentive to move towards renewable energy. Some regions lack the resources to produce renewable energy, forcing them to make a decision between a local energy economy and a clean energy economy.

Approaches to creating an ecocity to solve these problems vary. According to Elizabeth Rapoport of the University College of London, there are three main categories of ecocities. Ecovillages, such as Cerro Gordo in the U.S. are small pastoral communities. Masterplanned ecocities such as Tianjin, China and Masdar, Abu Dabi, are new cities that incorporate ecological principles from day one. Models in already retrofitted ecocities like Curitiba, Brazil and Freiburg, Germany have the greatest potential to transform the already developed world, where builders and planners will have to make improvements on the existing infrastructure and building stock. Taking lessons from other more advanced cities will be an important step in the process if cities want to avoid reinventing the wheel. Conversely, avoiding some of the mistakes that more established cities have made will be crucial for nascent cities in the developing world.

The term “ecocity,” like other trendy terms including “green” and “sustainable” will likely be the subject of abuse over the coming years and decades. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution for the cities of the world, the sooner the international community comes together to define an ecocity that really does live up to the name, the more clear direction and success cities will have in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and pollution while improving the quality of life for their residents. Hopefully the local governments involved in redesigning our cities can learn to work together more effectively than did the participants in Copenhagen. Unfortunately, that’s a low bar.

In an ideal smart grid system, energy users have a “smart meter” that tracks their energy consumption (and how much it’s costing them) in real time and allows them to make adjustments accordingly.  In addition, ample renewable power is available on the grid, and renewable power producers can sell their excess power back to the grid easily through “net metering.”  As smart grids slowly emerge across the globe with a patchwork of features, we discover some exciting new projects and programs, as well as some generous room for improvement.

The Southeast Asian island city-state of Singapore recently announced that its Energy Market Authority (EMA) is launching a three-year pilot project aimed at helping households and businesses save more on electricity bills.  EMA’s “Intelligent Energy System” project will develop smart electric grid solutions including the deployment of more smart meters that provide households with real-time information on electricity usage. Such information can help residents shift demand away from peak periods. The smart grid also will ensure reliability in electricity supply, using renewable energy sources, and will allow electric cars to be used as an energy storage system to feed power back to the grid during peak periods, also known as V2G (Vehicle-to-Grid).

As far as generation of renewable energy goes, according to AsiaIsGreen.com, Singapore has been putting in much effort to attract renewable energy companies to Singapore, yet the local adoption of renewable energy has been lackluster. There are no renewable energy targets specified by the government and the lack of subsidies for the technology means that renewable energy is still not price competitive with conventional forms.  The government prefers to have local adoption of renewable energy (as opposed to piping it in) because they believe it is an investment for the future, ensures energy security and retains talent, creating jobs.  Perhaps one of the key hurdles in Singapore is the intense urban density of the city, which offers few viable places to erect solar panels and wind turbines.

Meanwhile, American cities are making their own strides toward a smart grid.  As far as smart metering goes, as of January in 2009, smart meters represented 4.7% of installed meters in the U.S., up from 1% in 2006, according to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) report on demand response and advanced metering programs.  In February of 2007, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the largest municipal utility in the U.S. with close to 1.5 million customers, announced that it would expand its advanced metering infrastructure serving its commercial and industrial customers. LADWP had already purchased 9,000 smart meters as part of an earlier deployment initiative completed in 2004.  The utility awarded the new contract to SmartSynch, a provider of wireless smart meters, who will supply 6,000 such meters to the utility, to operate on AT&T’s wireless data network.

While American utilities are beginning to track energy use and are expanding renewable energy production, overall rates of net metering adoption (allowing solar panel owners to sell energy back to the grid) leave something to be desired.  A new report from the Network for New Energy Choices highlights net metering standards for various U.S. states. “Freeing the Grid 2009” (pdf, 2.4 MB) shows that 27 U.S. states received A or B grades in net metering standards, up from 13 in 2007. While Oregon was lauded in the report for its best practices in net-metering, eight states – Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas – still have no net-metering program at all and 15 states received a failing grade.  That means nearly half of all U.S. states fail to provide adequate net metering programs, according to the report.

Clearly if U.S. communities hope to reduce carbon emissions, the utilities will have to adopt policies that encourage the installation of solar and wind technologies (net metering).  They will also have to invest in tools that actually measure how much electricity is being used.  Nearly 95% of all U.S. utilities currently employ energy management practices akin to trying to manage weight without owning a scale. Perhaps by looking to cities like Singapore as a model, American cities can learn how to generate tax revenue via smart metering investments, while Singapore may have to consider renewable energy goals like LA’s, even if it means importing solar power.

A new study finds that Asia’s rising “clean technology tigers” – China, Japan, and South Korea – have already passed the U.S. in the production of virtually all clean energy technologies

Local economies that wish to harvest tax revenues from the burgeoning clean energy sector must turn to federal governments to support policies that encourage investments in clean energy. Upon examining countries that have the potential to bring in significant revenue from new clean energy technologies, it becomes clear which local communities are likely to benefit from the influx of dollars earned through selling solar, wind and other renewable energy technologies.

A major new report released today by the Breakthrough Institute and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, is the first to comprehensively benchmark the competitiveness positions of the United States and key Asian challengers in the global clean energy race. The report – “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant” (pdf, 5.1 MB) – examines the competitive position of each nation in key clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, and nuclear power, carbon capture and storage, advanced vehicles and batteries, and high-speed rail, as well as the government strategies each nation hopes will strengthen their position in the competitive global clean technology sector. The study finds that Asia’s rising “clean technology tigers” – China, Japan, and South Korea – have already passed the United States in the production of virtually all clean energy technologies, and over the next five years, the governments of these nations will out-invest the United States three-to-one in these sectors. These Asian nations will attract a large share of private sector investments in clean energy technology, estimated to total in the trillions of dollars over the next decade.

While some U.S. firms will benefit from the establishment of joint clean tech ventures overseas, jobs and tax revenues generated by these investments will flow primarily to these Asian countries, enriching their communities and stimulating even more economic growth. The U.S. may eventually wean itself off of Middle Eastern oil, but if the country doesn’t start investing in clean energy technologies more aggressively, the U.S. may find itself addicted to clean technologies imported from Asia.

The Solar Expansion Project is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. In March, the Forest was given $400,000 to add 250 additional solar panels to a facility that already had 50 previously installed. D.J. Group from Beverly, Ohio was awarded the contract. Photo by Alex Snyder

According to the New York Times, the Indian government approved a plan last week that aims to increase energy production from solar technology to 20 gigawatts (20 million kilowatts) by 2022, up from six megawatts (6,000 kilowatts) today.  Compare that with 530,000 kilowatts of direct current solar (kWdc) connected to the grid in California and you begin to understand where India stands in the world and where it wants to go.  The Indian government will spend about 43 billion rupees ($922 million) in the first of three phases of the program, and the total cost for all three phases could approach $20 billion.  Moreover, India isn’t just setting goals, but taking action on the ground.  As I wrote in a previous post, Indian cities are partnering with U.S. cities to bring more solar power online.

While all of this seems to point to major progress in solar adoption, government officials in India estimate that they will fall 20% short of their target for new power capacity for the five years that end in 2012, according to the New York Times.  Much of the country does not have an electrical grid, so one of the first applications of solar power has been for water pumping, to begin replacing India’s four to five million diesel powered water pumps, each consuming about 3.5 kilowatts, and off-grid lighting. Some large projects have been proposed, and a 35,000 km² area of the Thar Desert has been set aside for solar power projects, enough to generate 700 to 2,100 gigawatts.  However, Indian policy makers are adamant that they will not agree to any mandated reductions in emissions.

So what determines if countries and regions will be able to meet their goals for renewable energy?

According to a new report (pdf, 4.2 MB) from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S. states with strong renewable energy portfolio standards or goals tend to outperform other states in adding solar, wind, biomass and other renewable energy production facilities.

Some statistics from Environmental Leader:

• Standards: To date, 36 U.S. states have renewable energy portfolio standards or goals, and 43 have net-metering laws.
• Solar: California has close to 530,000 kilowatts of direct current solar (kWdc) connected to the grid, followed by New Jersey (70,000 kWdc), Colorado (35,000 kWdc), and Nevada (34,000 kWdc).  All these states have renewable energy portfolio standards goals of at least 20% renewables by 2021.
• Non-hydro Renewables: Excluding hydroelectric renewable energy, California leads at 24 million MWh, followed by Texas (10.2 million), Florida (4.3 million), Maine (4.2 million) and Minnesota (3.9 million).  All of these states have goals of at least 20% renewable energy by 2025, with Maine already at 30% (since 2000) and aiming for an additional 10% by 2017.

Incentives in other countries may also be driving solar installations.  Germany and Spain – where solar has been booming in recent years – now have “feed-in tariffs” that allow property owners that are producing solar power to sell it back to the grid.  Spain goes even a step further by offering the option of incentives for sales into the wholesale electricity spot market as well as fixed incentives.

In addition to other incentives, financing mechanisms are a key component of getting more solar online.  As noted in a previous post, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden recently announced that the solar financing plan that was inaugurated in Berkeley in 2007 will become a national model. The program, called Recovery Through Retrofit, creates a framework for cities, counties and states to set up tax districts that allow residential and business property owners to install solar panels and make other energy efficiency improvements. The investment will be paid off over a 20-year property tax assessment.  Moreover, the economic stimulus in the U.S. is playing its part in stimulating the solar market.  According to Reuters, the U.S. federal government this month fast-tracked more than 2.4 gigawatts of renewable energy projects in California, which may help them clear regulatory hurdles in time to qualify for stimulus funds.

Incentives, renewable portfolio standards, and financing mechanisms are proving crucial to the growth of the renewable energy market.  If nations and states don’t create standards as well as financing mechanisms for the local level, they may see their lofty goals in powerpoint presentations at UN gatherings, but they will not see the corresponding solar panels, wind turbines, etc. in the cities on the ground.

Vancouver is already known for savvy city planning.

Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson recently announced an ambitious 10-year plan to make Vancouver the world’s greenest city by 2020.  Robertson presented the plan to the “Gaining Ground-Resilient Cities” conference at the Vancouver Convention Center. Robertson says that Vancouver is still far too reliant on cars and on food from far away, and that every day, the city produces too much waste and consumes too much energy and water.

Its goals are:

• Setting up a low-carbon economic development zone to attract investment for advancing renewable energy, energy-efficient and low-carbon technologies, with the object of creating 20,000 new green jobs.
• Making all new construction in the city carbon-neutral and improving efficiency of existing buildings by 20% by 2020.
• Encouraging greater green mobility by having more than 50% of residents walking, cycling or using public transit to move around the city. (According to Robertson, green travel now comprises 37% of trips).
• Reducing the amount of solid waste per capita that goes to landfills or is incinerated by 40%.
• Maintaining the highest international standards for drinking water but reducing the per-capita consumption of water by 33%.
• Achieving the cleanest air of any major city in the world.
• Becoming a global leader in urban food systems and reducing the carbon footprint of food production by 33%. Robertson wishes to take advantage of the Agricultural Land Reserve surrounding the city.
• Giving every citizen easy access to nature by providing “incomparable access to green spaces” by expanding “the world’s most spectacular urban forest in Stanley park” so that by 2020 every person would live within a five-minute walk of a park, beach or greenway. Another 150,000 trees will be planted in the city within the next 10 years.
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 33% from 2007 levels.  (According to Robertson, Vancouver currently produces less than five tons per capita – only a few European cities beat that).
• Reducing the ecological footprint of Vancouver by 33% on the way to realizing the “one-planet footprint.” Robertson said the city now has a “four-planet” level of consumption and waste, and the goal is to reduce this footprint from seven hectares to 1.8 hectares per person.

To date, many city planner look to Vancouver as an example of the best practices in urban development.  Apparently, they are just getting started.

The program is expected to greatly boost solar installations.

According to Vice President Joe Biden, the solar financing plan that sprouted in Berkeley in 2007 will become a national model. The program, called Recovery Through Retrofit, creates a framework for cities, counties and states to set up tax districts that allow residential and business property owners to install solar panels and make other energy efficiency improvements. The investment will be paid off over a 20-year property tax assessment.

Since Berkeley adopted its financing plan, cities around the nation have adopted similar models, and California, New York, Texas and 11 other states have passed legislation making it easier for municipalities to create their own financing plans. The federal plan and those adopted in most other cities allow property owners to make other energy-efficiency upgrades as well, including installing new windows, insulation and weather stripping.

Berkeley’s plan aims to eliminate the up-front cost of solar installation and to attach the debt to the home and not to the property owner (the assessment stays with the property, not the person). Property owners pay no money up front but pay about $180 a month on their property tax bill, an amount that is offset by the energy saved from generating solar power. The plan, along with federal, state and utility rebates, allows property owners to nearly break even on their investment. According to the city’s energy department, of the 40 original Berkeley participants, 38 have completed or nearly completed solar panel installation.

A solar thermal power plant that uses a tower.

Recent disputes over water use in deserts that are well suited for solar thermal power plants have illustrated the need for a holistic approach to urban needs. Solar thermal plants use cheaper technology than photovoltaics (solar panels), but require substantial water because mirrors heat a liquid to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine. Similar to a fossil fuel power plant, the steam must be condensed back to water and cooled for reuse. Typically this happens in a cooling tower and requires constant replenishment of water as the excess heat and water evaporates. Alternatively, dry cooling can be used, but requires fans and heat exchangers and is much more expensive.

The American Southwest is currently the site of plans for dozens of multibillion-dollar solar power plants on thousands of acres of desert. In California, solar developers have already been forced to switch to less water-intensive technologies when local officials have refused to give up water. Furthermore, some large solar projects are currently tangled in conflicts with state regulators over water consumption.

Considering the effects of power generation on the ability to provide water for a community will be crucial as water becomes even scarcer and renewable power projects burgeon to replace fossil fuel production.

Using low-carbon technologies that are not water-intensive combined with smart city planning and sound water use policies will help cities to avoid water disputes among stakeholders. Cities around the world have already implemented rainwater harvesting policies to help address water shortages by simply catching and using the rainwater that is currently diverted into storm drains – and ultimately, into the ocean. Moreover, California implemented a new policy at the beginning of 2009 to allow the installation or alteration of a clothes washer greywater system to be exempt from a construction permit that was previously required. Greywater systems allow a household to irrigate a landscape with recycled water.

Employing green rooftops and community gardens in dense cities and maintaining substantial surrounding open space is a strategy for water conservation as well because the less paved or impermeable surfaces exist, the less urban runoff occurs and the more ground water can be recharged. Furthermore, water use intensity is greatly affected by population density. According to the Sierra Club’s Challenge to Sprawl, three households per residential acre (typical suburban sprawl) on average equates to 1,032 gallons of water used per household per day. Conversely, 100 households per residential acre on average equates to 192 gallons of water used per household per day

Such policies will relieve pressure when citizens take advantage of them to conserve and they mean greater efficiency in the use of resources. Policies that force vital human services (such as power production and delivery of water) to compete for the same resources are unlikely to succeed. Moreover, the monetary and environmental cost of water projects like desalinization is substantially higher than simply allowing citizens to catch rainwater or irrigate with recycled water. Thus, tax payer dollars are better spent when policies support sound urban design and resource conservation.

Several city planning and policy experts will be addressing the issue of water use in cities at the upcoming EcoCity World Summit in Istanbul this December. Presenters will include Richard Register of EcoCity Builders, Walter Hood (urbanist, landscape architect), Ken Yeang (bioclimatic design), David Hall (New Vista Ecocity), the World Bank Eco2Cities program, Global Footprint Network, Janet Larsen of Earth Policy Institute (representing Lester Brown’s Plan B), and Brent Toderian, head of City Planning for City of Vancouver, Canada and author of the EcoDensity Initiative.

Solar developers expect a reverse auction market to spur a large volume of PV projects in the state.

As California looks for strategies to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals, finding ways to cost-effectively install renewable energy systems could be key. One creative approach recently proposed by the California Public Utilities Commission involves letting developers bid on contracts to install green energy projects in California. This “reverse auction market” feed-in tariff is designed to avoid scenarios like the one that developed in Spain when the booming solar market crashed due to the expiration of subsidies and the maxing out of a cap on renewable energy.

In the past, utilities have negotiated contracts for solar power plants that generate hundreds of millions of megawatts, typically located in the desert and taking years for big solar farms and transmission lines to be licensed and built. An auction in California would essentially let the market set electricity rates for photovoltaic projects that produce between one and 20 megawatts in California and can be built within 18 months.

Solar developers expect this proposal to spur a large volume of PV projects in the state. According to Adam Browning, the executive director of Vote Solar, a San Francisco advocacy group, the reverse auction proposal fills a big hole in California’s renewable energy program — photovoltaic projects that generate between one and 20 megawatts and can be built quickly and plugged into the existing transmission grid. Browning said that he think these photovoltaic systems will likely be built on otherwise unusable land, such as railroad rights-of-way or wastewater plants that have lots of roof space.

The proposal calls California’s three investor-owned utilities to hold a minimum of two auctions a year until projects generating 1,000 megawatts are installed. Solar, biomass, wind or geothermal energy projects up to 20 megawatts can be proposed. However, the utilities would not be required to accept bids for those greater than 10 megawatts.

Steven Chadima, vice president for external affairs for the Chinese solar giant Suntech America, said his firm favors the proposal. However, he hopes that the CPUC might consider a separate structure for smaller projects because he has concerns about the potential for a few large solar developers to dominate the auctions and skew the results toward big projects.

Read more: A ‘Reverse Auction Market’ Proposed
(New York Times, 8/28/09)

According to an initial list of partnered Indo-US cities that will participate in a joint training program on energy efficient and green cities, Mumbai (pictured) has been partnered with Los Angeles, Ahmedabad with Atlanta and Columbus; Bangalore with San Francisco; and Delhi with Chicago.

The US Department of Energy and the All India Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG) have launched a joint training program on energy efficient and green cities in Goa, which will train Indian experts, universities, local governments and civic bodies on helping cities to move to solar powered energy.  According to Mark Ginberg, senior official with the US Department of Energy, twenty cities in India have already been lined up for this program and they will be partnered with cities in the US.  Ginberg notes that if India is able to generate 20,000 MW of solar energy by 2020, sixty Indian cities will be solar powered by that year.

According to an initial list of partnered Indo-US cities, Ahmedabad has been partnered with Atlanta and Columbus; Bangalore with San Francisco; Chennai with Denver, Delhi with Chicago, Mumbai with Los Angeles, Surat with Philadelphia and Vadodara (Baroda) with Edison, New Jersey.

Ginberg pointed out that Barack Obama has marked 60 billion dollars for energy efficiency and renewable energy, with five billion dollars set aside each for cities and states, federal buildings and low income families to migrate to renewable energy sources.

• Read more: 60 solar powered Indian cities by 2020: US energy official
  (The Times of India, 9/8/09)

The Union of Concerned Scientists 2030 Blueprint asserts that consumers and businesses in every region of the U.S. save billions of dollars under the Blueprint.

The Union of Concerned Scientists recently released The Climate 2030 Blueprint which analyzes the economic and technological feasibility of meeting targets for reducing global warming emissions in the U.S., with a cap set at 26% below 2005 levels by 2020, and 56% below 2005 levels by 2030. The Blueprint suggests that deep emissions cuts can be achieved while saving U.S. consumers and businesses $465 billion in 2030.

Meeting this cap means the United States would limit total emissions to 180,000 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2eq) from 2000 to 2030.   To reach the 2020 and 2030 carbon reduction targets, the Blueprint proposes a comprehensive policy approach (the “Blueprint policies”) that combines an economy-wide cap-and-trade program with complementary policies. This approach finds cost-effective ways to reduce fossil fuel emissions throughout the U.S. economy — including industry, buildings, electricity, and transportation — and to store carbon through agricultural activities and forestry.

The analysis relies primarily on a modified version of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Modeling System, supplemented with an analysis of the impact of greater energy efficiency in industry and buildings by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.   In addition, they worked with researchers at the University of Tennessee to analyze the potential for crops and residues to provide biomass energy.

The analysis argues that the technologies and policies pursued under the Blueprint produce dramatic changes in energy use and cuts in carbon emissions as well as strong economic growth.