Support is growing for federal legislation that would incentivize energy efficiency throughout the country in much the same way that a Renewable Energy Standard (RES) would increase the production of renewably sourced electricity.
Last month Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced H.R. 889, the Save American Energy Act, to establish an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard (EERS) that, like an RES, would set a percentage requirement for utility companies.
Under the proposed EERS retail electricity distributors would be required to attain 15% electricity savings while natural gas distributors would need to meet an 10% savings target by 2020.
The percentage of energy savings would be relative to average sales in the prior 2 years, and distributors could obtain energy savings in a variety of ways, including by helping end-use customers save energy, by improving energy efficiency in their own distribution systems, or through the use of contracts to purchase energy savings from other utilities or third-party efficiency service providers.
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), which has given its support to H.R. 889, determined that the cost of efficiency improvements would be $0.03 per kilowatt-hour saved, which is significanctly less expensive than building new plants and power lines and burning more fuel.
Currently, new conventional base-load production sources generate electricity at a rate between $0.073 and $0.135 per kilowatt-hour.
Numerous corporations and organizations have announced their support for the proposed EERS, including Johnson Controls, Ceres, Whirlpool, Sierra Club and the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign, which includes AT&T, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Sony, Sun Microsystems and Verizon.
Texas became the first state to establish an EERS in 1999, requiring electric utilities to offset 10% of load growth through end-use energy efficiency. After several years of meeting this goal at low costs, in 2007 the legislature increased the standard to 15% of load growth by 2009, 20% of load growth by 2010 and directed that higher targets be investigated. A recent report commissioned by the PUCT found that raising the goal to 50% of load growth is feasible.
Other states with efficiency mandates or programs include Vermont, California, Hawaii, Connecticut and Nevada.
Learn more about EERS at the link below.
