States impacted by hurricanes are improving their energy efficiency policies

Florida and Texas, the states hit hardest by Hurricanes Irma and Harvey, have made strides recently in improving energy efficiency.

Florida jumped three spots on the annual American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s 2017 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard to number 22. Texas’s ranking improved to number 26. Both states have an opportunity to place greater emphasis on energy efficiency policy and implementation as they rebuild in the wake of the recent hurricanes, according to ACEEE.

Massachusetts was ranked first, breaking its 2016 tie with California, as the Golden State slipped to second place. Over the past year Massachusetts has focused on increasing access to efficiency programs for low- and moderate-income ratepayers, and invested in peak demand reduction projects.

Rounding out the top five states were Rhode Island, Vermont, and Oregon. Rhode Island opened the nation’s first offshore wind generation farm, and achieved a perfect 20-out-of-20 score in the utility programs category for the fourth year in a row due to its Three-Year Energy Efficiency Procurement Plan. Virginia enacted an energy performance contracting plan for public agencies.

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.