If you have had a free home or business energy audit through National Grid, you have probably met someone from RISE Engineering. RISE serves as the utility’s lead vendor for various energy efficiency programs. Their energy specialists evaluate buildings to identify affordable energy-saving opportunities such as LED lighting solutions, heating and cooling system upgrades, insulation, air leakage sealing and other improvements that reduce energy costs. Their staff also helps utility customers take advantage of available financial incentives and financing options.

RISE offers much more than home energy audits – it provides energy efficiency services to government agencies, cities, towns, colleges and companies. RISE recently worked with the Rhode Island National Guard to replace old lighting fixtures with state-of-the-art LED fixtures in eight buildings. RISE also helped the City of Cranston replace 9,600 streetlights with LEDs and make other energy efficiency improvements to municipal buildings, schools and libraries.

Vincent Graziano, president of RISE, is a graduate of Bryant College and is proud to employ 325 people across New England and New York, including 157 Rhode Islanders. RISE also supports the next generation of energy professionals: it currently employs an undergraduate intern and five graduates from the University of Rhode Island Cooperative Extension’s Energy Fellows Program. Over the company’s 40-year track record, it has conducted thousands of energy retrofit projects of all types and sizes totaling over $1 billion in energy savings throughout the Northeast.

Located on the south side of Providence, the Meeting Street School is where infants, preschoolers and children of all ages and abilities receive individualized attention from highly trained, dedicated educators.

The Meeting Street solar project consists of a 86.19 kW net metered solar PV installation, that produces approximately 101,757 kWh and over $8,853 in annual energy savings. This project was supported by two grants of $126,750 and $102,309 from the RGGI Solar on Schools program and the Commerce Rhode Island Renewable Energy Fund, respectively. 

Combining these two incentives has allowed Meeting Street to have direct ownership of this project, rather than entering into a PPA or alternative financing structure, resulting in the school receiving 100% of the electricity production benefits. 

To date, this project has produced approximately 161,816 kWh, saving the school close to $30,000 in electricity costs!

In March, Governor  Raimondo announced an ambitious goal to add 1,000 megawatts of clean energy and 20,000 clean energy jobs to Rhode Island by the end of 2020. Meeting Street School is just one example of the types of projects that are contributing to this goal.

Back-to-school season is here!
This month, we are highlighting the Rocky Hill School in Warwick, which not only has a rooftop solar array generating clean power for the building, but also uses the array in the classroom as an educational tool.
The project, installed by Newport Renewables on the Alan Flynn Jr. Upper School Building, includes 120 solar panels, which produces 41,000 kWh/year.

• The solar PV array provides 20 percent of the building’s annual electricity.
• Over the next 25 years, the system will offset 725 tons of CO2, the equivalent of 24 acres of trees being planted.
• In total, the system will generate 1,950,000 kWh of electricity, which will offset power generated from fossil fuels.
• Students have access to the system monitoring website and meteorological grade weather station to enhance their learning.

In March, Governor Raimondo announced an ambitious goal to add  1,000 megawatts of clean energy and 20,000 clean energy jobs to Rhode Island by the end of 2020. Rocky Hill School is just one example of the types of projects that are contributing to this goal.

On Veterans Day, hundreds of people from all over Rhode Island gathered to celebrate the grand opening of the new Veterans Home in Bristol.

The new state-of-the-art facility, which houses 208 veterans, replaces the previous Veterans Home built in 1955.

On top of the new Veterans Home is a 168-panel rooftop solar array. With a 43.7 kW capacity, the annual carbon emissions savings from this installation equal driving a car 96,394 miles!

The building also exceeds Rhode Island's energy efficiency code requirements with some of these green enhancements:

• Occupancy and daylight sensors to control lighting use
• Extra building insulation
• Low flow plumbing fixtures that reduce water use by up to 30%
• Automated hot water recirculating systems to optimize energy use
• Use of high solar-reflecting outdoor landscape to reduce the "heat island" effect
• Recycling of 70% of the construction waste

The State's  Lead by Example initiative promotes the adoption of clean energy measures across public sector facilities and state agencies. State and municipal employees are helping to reduce energy costs and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, consistent with Rhode Island's economic, energy and environmental goals.

The Rhode Island Army National Guard (RIARNG) has been busy since 2016, replacing inefficient, dated lighting with state-of-the-art LED fixtures in its facilities statewide.

The new LED fixtures feature occupancy and daylight sensors to ensure that they are turned off when they are not needed to help conserve energy.

The first two facilities, completed in 2016, decreased their energy use by 44 percent compared to the baseline year, and have resulted in a 34 percent reduction in energy costs. RIARNG is also planning on converting three other facilities within the coming months, and is going to be completing a full exterior lighting retrofit on its largest site, the Camp Fogarty Regional Training Site, located in East Greenwich.

RIARNG utilized funding from multiple programs including the Rhode Island Public Energy Partnership, as well as incentives from National Grid to reduce the cost of its projects.

The State's Lead by Example initiative promotes the adoption of clean energy measures across public sector facilities and state agencies. State and municipal employees are helping to reduce energy costs and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, consistent with Rhode Island's economic, energy and environmental goals.

ADI Energy is one of the proud, Rhode Island firms to work on the RIC efficiency improvement project. Founded in 2002 by URI graduate John Rizzo, ADI designs, engineers and installs energy efficient infrastructure solutions throughout the US. Since its founding, ADI has become a local success story and was ranked in Inc 5000’s list of “Fastest Growing Private Companies in America” for five years. ADI holds specialized federal contracts with the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Department of Energy. Local clients include the cities of Providence, Woonsocket and Warren. Most recently, ADI joined a larger platform, Oaktree Capital Management, and now has over 400 employees, with 12 positions here in Rhode Island. ADI is headquartered in Smithfield.

The  Church Community Housing Corporation (CCHC) is dedicated to helping low and moderate income people in Newport County to live in safe, decent, affordable housing and neighborhoods. The  organization provides housing through rental, home ownership, rehabilitation, preservation and other means.

CCHC built a single-family house in  Tiverton, Rhode Island, that looks and functions like a conventional home, but produces enough electricity to offset its entire electrical consumption over the course of a year. This is known as a "net-zero" building.

Christian Belden, senior project manager of CCHC, took advantage of a Renewable Energy Fund grant, provided by Rhode Island Commerce Corporation, to help pay for the project. 
The home features:

• Extra insulation in the roof, walls and basement.
• Electric air source heat pumps for heating and cooling.
• Electric air source heat pump hot water heater.
• 9 kW solar system on south-facing roof.

As a result, the house is estimated to produce 2 percent more electricity than it uses, saving the occupants about $3,200 per year and reducing CO2 emissions by 26 tons.

In March, Governor Raimondo announced an ambitious goal to add 1,000 megawatts of clean energy and 20,000 clean energy jobs to Rhode Island by the end of 2020. CCHC's net-zero home is just one example of the types of projects that are contributing to this goal.

Rhode Island College, serving over 9,000 students in Providence, has recently completed the first phase of a two-year $14 million project to upgrade 41 buildings and campus infrastructure. The total project is expected to save more than $1,600,000 in energy costs annually for the next 15 years.

Infrastructure upgrades and energy conservation measures include:

• LED lighting
• Energy management systems
• Central plant improvements
• Variable frequency drives
• Water conservation measures
• Building weatherization
• Energy efficiency motors
• Demand control ventilation
• Transformer replacements

These upgrades not only provide energy savings, but also contribute to creating more comfortable and effective teaching and learning environments.

Last spring, Rhode Island College was selected as a 2017 U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon School as result of its environmental, health and wellness efforts.

The State's Lead by Example initiative promotes the adoption of clean energy measures across public sector facilities and state agencies. State and municipal employees are helping to reduce energy costs and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, consistent with Rhode Island's economic, energy and environmental goals.

Embrace Home Loans in Middletown, RI, one of Rhode Island’s fastest-growing companies, now has another claim to fame – it is the first company to complete a solar project using the new Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy program (C-PACE).

In 2016, Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank launched C-PACE as an innovative and affordable way for commercial building owners to finance clean energy projects while simultaneously increasing cash flow and improving their building’s value.

This summer, Direct Energy installed 966 roof-mounted solar panels on the Embrace corporate headquarters. The net-metered system produces 412,900 kWh annually, offsetting 56 percent of the company’s power usage and saving 69 percent in energy costs. That is the emissions reduction equivalent of eliminating 107 tons of waste from our landfills each year!

In March, Governor Raimondo announced an ambitious goal to add 1,000 megawatts of clean energy and 20,000 clean energy jobs to Rhode Island by the end of 2020. Embrace Home Loans is just one example of the types of projects that are contributing to this goal.

Toxic sites that are closed to human activity are sometimes ideal locations for solar panels. In this month’s energy profile, we take a look at the former Rose Hill Regional Landfill and Plains Road Landfill in South Kingstown and tell the story of its transformation into a source of clean energy.

Both sites were used to dispose of waste, some of it toxic. The Environmental Protection Agency identified this site as a federal priority “Superfund Site" for cleanup and sealed it to prevent further contaminants from leaking into the surrounding soil and water.

The towns of Narragansett and South Kingstown and the University of Rhode Island, wanting to repurpose the closed landfill, joined forces and issued a request for solar proposals to the market. Kearsarge Energy, a Boston-based renewable energy developer, submitted the most attractive proposal for the Rosehill Landfill and other closed waste disposal sites on Plains Road in South Kingstown.

Today, Kearsarge Energy is constructing 9.2 MWs of solar arrays on Rose Hill and Plains Road, and will supply the energy to the towns and university. When the projects are completed this summer, the solar arrays will produce enough electricity for over 1,250 houses!

This is a great example of how we can use toxic sites for generating affordable, clean power and reducing our carbon footprint.