I have a client who has purchased all of his electricity from the Texas Wind Energy farm. Being wind energy, the source energy is almost the same as the site energy. However, since it's not generated on site, Portfolio Manager uses the source to site energy ratio of approximately 3:1. I realize that purchasing RECs does not make a facility more energy efficient, but by purchasing wind energy it is using roughly 2/3 of the source energy it would otherwise be using. When we select the Texas Wind Energy Farm it doesn't help with the ratio. Has anyone else experienced this? Would Option C be an option? Thanks.
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Tristan Roberts
RepresentativeVermont House of Representatives
LEEDuser Expert
11478 thumbs up
August 29, 2010 - 10:11 pm
I'm not sure I agree with your premise. A lot of the loss in going from source to site energy is in transmission inefficiencies.Do you have any data on this?
Chris Nixon
Manager, Sustainable SolutionsBRSC
36 thumbs up
August 30, 2010 - 8:06 am
Yes. He has a letter from the power company estimating the transmission losses. However, there should be no generation losses. I think he has a valid point. When Energy Star calculates the performance ratings methodology for incorporating source energy use for electricity, they estimate the efficiency of the boiler, turbine, etc, and then calculate how much fuel is required to produce that electricity. Well, if the fuel is wind, and they're buying all of their electricity from a wind farm, the only source energy losses should be transmission losses. After I thought about it more last Friday, I recommended that he write a letter to Energy Star. I think it's a glitch in their system. I'll let you know how it turns out.