Where do the presidential candidates stand on energy efficiency?

By Elisa Wood

August 15, 2012

We know that what a political candidate says during a campaign often differs from what the eventual office-holder does. We also know that candidates choose their words carefully to give themselves wiggle room for modifications in course.

So we listen for innuendo and subtleties when candidates talk about our special interests. What kind of qualifying language do they use? Are they truly against X, Y and Z, or only under special circumstances?

Below are some quotes on energy efficiency from President Barack Obama and Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. I’ll start with Romney since his stand is less clear, at least to me. Romney pushed a green agenda while Governor of Massachusetts, but recently attacked renewable energy as “imaginary.” He doesn’t, however, appear to direct the same criticism at energy efficiency.

Romney on energy efficiency

“I also want to see us become more energy efficient. I’m told that we use almost twice as much energy per person as does a European, and more like three times as much as does a Japanese citizen. We could do a lot better. I’d like to see our vehicles, and our homes, and our systems of insulation and so forth become far more efficient. I believe that we have a role in trying to encourage that to happen.” – Think Progress, June 6, 2011 (See video here)

When he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney proposed a four step energy plan, which began with increasing energy efficiency for homes, businesses, state buildings, and vehicles.

In contrast, Romney pushes an agenda of energy production, not savings, on his campaign website. He criticizes Obama’s green energy programs, and calls for alternative energy funding to be used on basic research. The energy issues page does not  mention energy efficiency or conservation.

Obama on energy efficiency

“The easiest way to save money is to waste less energy,” – Obama, January 24, 2012, State of the Union Address

Obama has been unabashedly pro-energy efficiency. As I reported in February, Obama’s 2013 budget won accolades from energy efficiency advocates because it called for about $1.2 billion in spending for energy efficiency.

In addition, Obama’s Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future pushes energy efficiency across all sectors: buildings, homes, factories, vehicles, and calls for export of US energy efficiency technologies.

Still, in the “Energy and Environment” section of his campaign website, energy production takes up most of the ink – wind, solar, oil and clean coal – as part of his “all of the above strategy.” The site does include a section on the fuel economy standards Obama negotiated with car manufacturers.

In Congress, Republicans and Democrats have both pushed energy efficiency legislation. It remains to be seen if the resource can remain free of the political fray in this election, where candidates seem determined to disagree on everything. If you have found other quotes by the candidates on energy efficiency, please post them in the comments here. Let’s keep watching what’s said.

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy writer. Subscribe to her free Energy Efficiency Markets newsletter at RealEnergyWriters.com 

Energy efficiency & the rebound effect: Neither big nor bad

By Elisa Wood

August 8, 2012

Now that you’ve installed efficient light bulbs in your house, do you think: “Guess I’ll leave my lights on all night. What the heck – it won’t cost me any extra.”

Probably not.  But some extreme critics of energy efficiency would have us believe this is the end result of appliance standards and energy savings technology – that we simply consume more energy when it becomes cheaper, negating the benefits.

This is called the ‘rebound effect’ and while it is a real phenomenon, it is quite small, according to a new white paper by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

Claims that we use as much as we save – known as backfire – do not hold up to scrutiny; but there does appear to be about a 20 percent rebound, according to the paper.

How bad is this? Should you still bother with those more expensive LED light bulbs?

“Overall, even if total rebound is about 20 percent then 80 percent of the savings from energy efficiency programs and policies register in terms of reduced energy use. And the 20 percent rebound contributes to increased consumer amenities and a larger economy. These savings are not ‘lost’ but are put to other generally beneficial uses,” says the paper “The Rebound Effect: Large or Small?” by Steve Nadel, ACEEE executive director.

Nadel describes two types of rebound effect: direct and indirect.

Direct rebound occurs when a consumer buys a car with better gas mileage and then drives more, or a homeowner installs tighter windows and reduces the home’s heating bill, but then cranks up the thermostat because of the lower cost.

Indirect rebound occurs when we take the money saved through energy efficiency and use it to purchase new energy consuming devices or pursuits. For example, the consumer might spend money saved on heating to buy a flat screen television. Or a widget manufacturer might drop the price of the widget to reflect the lower energy cost, and as result sell more widgets. That leads to a decision to produce even more widgets and thus use more energy.

The direct rebound effect amounts to about 10 percent of energy savings and indirect rebound around 11 percent (based on best estimates), according to the paper. To put these numbers in perspective, if a program reduces energy use by 10 percent and there is an 11 percent rebound, that means actual energy savings is only 8.9 percent, not 10 percent.

So the rebound effect is not all that big. It’s not all that bad either. The energy savings are not lost; the money saved on energy generally goes back into the economy or it serves to make the home more comfortable (warmer or cooler).

It’s important to note that rising energy use does not indicate rebound – although some wrongly cite it as such. The US Energy Information Administration expects worldwide energy consumption to grow 53 percent from 2008 to 2035. This is certainly not because energy is becoming cheaper thanks to efficiency measures, but because advanced economies are adding more and more electric gadgets and air conditioning  (not to mention electric cars), and India and China are wiring up their remaining off-the-grid regions and also adding more electric devices. In short, life is getting better for a lot of people. This isn’t a sign of an energy efficiency failure, but of economic success. Deprivation is not the goal of energy efficiency; the goal is consumption done more wisely.

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy writer. Subscribe to her free Energy Efficiency Markets newsletter here. 

Video reveals the truth about smart grid

By Elisa Wood

August 1, 2012

We don’t think about energy until something goes wrong, and this week things went wrong on an historic level. As a result, the public and pundits are again focusing on the fragility of big electric grids.

Ten percent of the world’s population – more than 600 million people – lost their power in India on July 31, marking the largest blackout in history. India’s grid collapse follows the storm-related outages that left Washington, D.C. sweltering for days when a freak super derecho hit in June.

So the timing couldn’t be better to accelerate consumer education about smart grid, and the non-profit Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative (SGCC) is on the job.

Smart grid uses high tech devices to make the electric system more sophisticated and less likely to fail. It also opens the way for a future of decentralized power, where the home, the car, and office building, each become power plants in their own right.

But smart grid requires a degree of customer energy self-management, something foreign to most of us. So the energy industry has been working hard to figure out how to interest consumers in the various energy displays, time-of-use rates, smart meters and other tools of smart grid.

To do this, utilities must get inside the head of the consumer, something Proctor & Gamble or Apple Computer do routinely, but monopoly-based utilities have never before found necessary.

In an effort to help, SGCC recently not only asked consumers what they think about smart grid, but also video-taped their responses. After all, sometimes what we say only half reveals what we mean. How we say something means a lot.

 “It’s one thing to read a one dimensional set of quotes. But it is another thing entirely to watch consumers and hear them saying in their own words what they think and what they know,” said Patty Durand, SGCC executive director, in a recent interview.

The group interviewed 24 consumers in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Chicago. What did the interviews reveal, and how can the information help utilities?

It turns out consumers do want data about their energy use, but also want help understanding what it means and how to use it. They worry about reliability and price and in some cases the environment. Most important, says Durand, they don’t all think alike, so shouldn’t all be approached by utilities in the same way.

Consumers generally fall into five categories, she said.

·      Traditionals – Often senior citizens who oppose change

·      Do-it-yourselfers – They want to save money and mange their spending

·      Easy Streets –  Highly educated consumers or those making a good income who want to save time and avoid waste

·      Young Americans – Those just starting out who don’t know much about smart grid but want to learn

·      Concerned Greens – Environmentally motivated individuals who are highly likely to embrace smart grid

Each of these groups responds differently to smart grid pitches. Utilities will be best able to capture consumer interest if they tailor messages to each,  she said.

For example, information about renewable energy will resonate with Concerned Greens and Easy Streets, while it will irritate the Traditionals. They might respond better to a message that emphasizes US competitiveness. “There are so many opinions and passions around energy and the environment that the targeted message is better,” Durand said.

The bottom line is that utilities for years have treated customers as “monoliths,” she said. Watching consumers in action, on video, makes clear the differences in consumer concerns and interests.  “Education is key, but it needs to be carefully deployed.”

See the ten things consumer want most from smart grid, and a short clip of the interviews, here.

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy writer whose articles are available at RealEnergyWriters.com