Wilcox+Structuring+a+Project

=Memo: Structuring a Project= James Wilcox, Spring 2013


 * Legal and Legislative**
 * NY State Energy/Climate Legislation such as the:
 * o Green Jobs / Green NY Act (2009)
 * o Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)
 * o Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)
 * o Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (EEPS)
 * o System Benefits Charge (SBC)
 * Utility deregulation


 * Technological**
 * “smart grid” and other “demand management” technologies
 * “microgrids” and “distributed generation”
 * energy awareness devices and applications
 * Unconventional gas drilling (fracking)


 * Economic**
 * Environmental and other externalities (dis)associated with the price of energy
 * Cost of “green” retrofits and renovations; weatherization;
 * Absence of: “decoupling” energy consumed from utility profit


 * Social**
 * Climate movement
 * Institutions promoting energy and environmental “interventions”
 * o i.e. NYSERDA, utilities
 * Relative absence of “community energy” schemes
 * Individualism vs. collectivism


 * Political**
 * NY State Policy Recommendations:
 * o NYS 2100
 * o Moreland Commissions (post-Sandy)
 * NY State “initiatives” and interventions
 * o NY-SUN Initiative
 * o Energy Auditing
 * o []
 * o Irreconcilable Temperatures Campaign ([])
 * o On-bill financing
 * o What strategies? Who decides/benefits?


 * Cultural**
 * Expert cultures of “energy analysis” and “building performance”
 * o Economic and engineering logics dominant
 * § Next rung down: behavioral economics and social/environmental psychology
 * Absent: qualitative social sciences
 * “sustainable lifestyles” and “sustainable consumption”
 * “the practices of everyday life” in a “high energy regime”
 * o Sociotechnical regimes of comfort and convenience
 * “time poverty”


 * Natural**
 * Cheap fossil fuels and due to massive environmental and other externalities
 * Climate change and toxicity related to energy production
 * Land use and “resource” flows
 * Weather patterns and temperature