Appendix D: Boston Innovation Challenge Breakout Group Ideas
The Boston Innovation Challenge conducted a group brainstorm during which participants offered ideas for prize innovations. The following is a list of the ideas generated in chronological order. The final report on this charrette, to be finalized in early December, will include a prioritization and further discussion of these ideas.
At the end of the breakout group, participants were each given three votes to assign to the three ideas on the list we thought were most applicable, achievable, and worth pursuing for the innovation prize. Votes were cast with the understanding that this was only an initial brainstorm, and intended as a starting point for thinking about the prize. The # of votes awarded to each idea (if any) are recorded in parentheses next to the prize idea.
- “Prius” Meter (6)
- A “dashboard” interface displaying real-time feedback of building systems and appliances. Allows a person to see what appliances and systems are currently “turned on” and the resulting impact on their individual energy/electricity use. Would also easily allow people to adjust the status of their appliances/systems for demand/response and other personal controls.
- Meter could incorporate wireless monitoring
- Should be technically deployable on existing building stock as well as new construction
- For residential & commercial applications
- Should be affordable (for existing stock as well as new construction)
- New Economic Model (1)
- A new economic model that accounts for the value of wellness, occupant satisfaction, and health benefits (or detriments) tied to energy efficiency.
- Places an economic value to the “soft benefits” (wellness, satisfaction) of energy efficiency
- Perhaps could present a convincing argument to pursue improved design measures for the sake of better health, satisfaction and productivity. Energy efficiency would then be a result of better design measures in the spaces we occupy, not the driver.
- Materials that change (6)
- Materials that change properties (i.e. seasonally, diurnally, or per zircadian cycle or light levels (chronobiologically) or based on temperature, humidity changes, or other climate-responsive changes).
- Example: phase-change materials
- Example: could be incorporated in sidings, rooftops, etc.
- Example: could have climate-moderating elements, like wind blockers or rain screens
- Accounting system of CO2 footprint for individuals (4)
- Individuals can accumulate and own carbon credits; individuals can do personal accounting and reap the rewards of CO2 reduction.
- “Investment vehicles” could, for example, take the form of an IRS of carbon credits that allows the individual to earn or pay “micro-payments”
- Could integrate social networks/gaming networks for competitive load reduction
- Innovations could include carbon-efficient personal mobility/transportation “broker”
- Demand control system that incorporates individuals (1)
- A system that allows individuals to get paid for reducing energy demand, just businesses are paid.
- Could incorporate wireless controls
- Example: demand control of window units
- More efficient window AC units (2)
- Perhaps w/ desiccants add-ons
- For retrofits as well as new construction
- Super-efficient rooftop AC units for small commercial application
- For new construction and retrofits
- EE (energy efficient) air conditioning technologies
- Economically affordable insulation materials that are easily retrofit-able (2)
- Innovative, easy installation for retrofits
- Address building stock in Cambridge that may not take conventional retrofits as easily, such as existing masonry construction
- Better building wiring systems (versus knob and tube wiring)
- For retrofits in existing building stocks (as well as new construction)
- Cost effective solid-state lighting (SSL) for residential application (1)
- Skip over CFL technologies and go right to solid-state lighting that works for residential buildings
- Wireless system for demand/response controls
- “Smart” refrigerators, chargers, power strips, etc.
- Could be programmable or respond to reduce (parasitic) loads when needed.
- Refrigerators could be “zoned” – not all products need to be kept at the same temperatures
- Could work with the “Prius” meter (prize idea #1)
- Could be designed for retrofit opportunities
- “Performance Prize” (1)
- Pose the question: What is the innovation that is going to save the most energy?
- Don’t limit the “category” for the prize, but instead use the contest to really push the Cambridge energy reduction initiative. Turn the energy reduction challenge onto the audience, and reward the most compelling idea.
- “Implementation/Change Agent” Prize
- An implementation plan to really incentivize Cambridge’s youth to practice energy efficiency.
- A plan for execution.
- Best messaging
- How do we market or package energy efficiency to Cambridge? What is the best messaging strategy?
- What kind of communications make people act? What kind of messaging do people respond to?
- Rethink public lighting realm (6)
- Sidewalks that light when tread upon
- Dynamic, more effective outdoor lighting (the right feel, adjustable for the right amount and for outdoor end uses)
- Better define and eliminate light trespass (obnoxious glare)
- Cambridge as a lighting center
- This is a throwback to a suggestion Amory Lovins made to the Lighting and Electricity breakout group on Day One of the charrette. He suggested that one possibility was to really push Cambridge to be a pioneer in beautiful energy-efficient lighting, and to become a landmark “lighting center” that demonstrates break-through lighting for all end-user needs.
- Design/shape buildings to enhance wind power generation
- Mini turbines integrated into buildings
- Wind tunnel turbines
- Innovative BIPV materials
- Could be low-cost retrofits for existing building stock
- Energy collection from other diffuse sources of energy
- Example: PVs embedded into sidewalks, parking lot structures
- Example: Energy collected from people walking on sidewalks and subway stations
- CO2 sequestration strategies/technologies at local level (residential or building-based) (8)
- Example: taking concentrated source of CO2 and growing algae to sequester it
- Example: at residential scale, could run greenhouse off the boiler exhaust, etc.)
- Shuttle transportation coordination
- Maximize efficiency of transportation
- Logistic management of buses (some buses only have 5 people in them!)
- Extracting energy from sewage system
- “Acceptable” mandate strategy for energy efficiency retrofits
- How can we make mandates that accepted by the community?
- Carbon nanotube or lattice electrical system
- For electrical distribution
- Could be integrated with solid state lighting
- Could replace copper system in place
- Carbon efficient personal mobility broker
- Single family house designed to eliminate mechanical system (1)
- Could be a design that incorporates daylight and natural ventilation for use in dense urban areas and specific to Cambridge.
- No heating system in the design
- Re-engineer federal funding system
- Re-design how money is spent and distributed
- Efficient implementation
- Coordination of fire code with energy-efficiency strategies
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3 Responses to “Appendix D: Boston Innovation Challenge Breakout Group Ideas”
The results of a study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory of the Energy Department strongly support the “Prius” Meter idea. Link below:
New York Times article link.
Well I think we need to utilize stationary force to do work. I know it is against to the law of conversion of energy. I am mechanical engineer, Believe me it is not as much difficult as you think. Details available on http://energyefficientmechanism.blogspot.com/
In some ways, y’all are missing the point. I came to this site from Innocentive’s listing of the search for more-efficient window air conditioners. Since that main problem is probably that people leave their conditioners on all day so the apartment is cool when they come home, just turn the whole building off while people are at work. Too much control over renter/owner lives. But most of them aren’t going to want to keep track of their own energy uses, either. (I found this out when I bought a bread machine which added $20 to my monthly bill and people at work were gaga that I noticed. One of them even bought the machine from me.)
So who is complaining about the brown-outs? Have you walked through the office buildings where the work is done? How many secretaries/worker-bees are wearing long sleeves and their hair down while managers wander around comfortably in suit jackets? Or have personal fans in their cubicles to get some air movement? Cold travels down and pools in the lowest area: Cut the bottoms out of the cubicles, put in ceiling fans to help the conditioners move air, and turn the thermostat up to 78 or 80. Or take the cubicles out all together so ceiling fans can circulate the air more efficiently. Or move the top two or three floors of people into the basement during the summer.
Take a page from construction companies: In the heat of summer, come in earlier, when it’s cooler, to get the work done. Or consider the Latin countries who (used to) include an afternoon nap through the heat of the day.
Roof gardens have come a long way. The top Google listing promises a light-weight system that requires neither retrofitting buildings nor maintenance. Offer incentives for that. We’ve taken all the growing green out of our cities; this is a way to put that back and cut energy costs.
Y’all are looking at things to make for the future. My suggestions are things that can be done now, without a lot of trouble. I live with fans and ice water through Kansas summers. Yes, there are nights when it’s too hot to sleep until late, but being outside is no worse than being inside, which air conditioning denies. Just don’t forget that “going green” means “pain in the butt” to a lot of people, whether in Cambridge or in California, so try to KISS.