Dorian Miller
Leader-In Field-Training, Union City
Training
Another year of the California Youth Energy Services (CYES) program has kicked off in Union City. This is the second year that the program has a Union City site and we are excited to continue making a positive impact in our community. We have a great mix of new and returning Energy Specialists (ESes) this summer, so there is a good amount experience on every team. After an awesome opening training day in Berkeley with the entire program, we spent the rest of week at our sites training the ESes. Training consisted of a detailed description about all components of a Green House Call (GHC), extensive information on all measures and tools used in the program and finally mock GHC’s for the ESes so they could actually apply the knowledge that they learned. We also ended the week on a good note – On Friday, the whole team learned about each others’ background to better understand where everyone is coming from, so we could form a close-knit group. The Union City site is pumped and prepared to hit the ground running come next week.
Week 1
Tuesday marked the first official day of the CYES program with a fully booked day of appointments to help the ESes get a sense of how busy we expect to be throughout the entire program. Due to the great work done by our Outreach Manager and a steady flow of incoming referrals, we are almost completely booked up for the first couple of weeks of the program. This allowed for our Energy Specialists to introduce a new aspect of the CYES program to many clients already this year. This new component is a partnership with the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL). Through this partnership with the LBNL, CYES is helping to facilitate a nation wide study on energy use in households. In this study household appliances are monitored for a 4-8 week period with a ‘Watts Up’ meter that tracks how much energy that electronic device uses. It’s an anonymous study that will help the government better understand energy use in homes. This study will also help to set energy use standards such as standards for ‘energy star’ appliances. Some electronic devices that we are metering are game consoles, set-top boxes and video players. The ESes are trying to install as many meters as they can and have already installed 22 meters in just three days this week! We’re off to a great start after one week of the program and are looking to keep our momentum going.
