There's been so much focus on the proposed buyout of TXU and the utility's plans to build new coal-fired generation in Texas that we've seen very little on alternative solutions to the state's electric capacity issues. Finally federal and state legislators are confirming what United Cooperative Services (a not-for-profit electric cooperative utility in North Texas) has been preaching for the better part of two years: educating consumers on HOW to manage their energy use is the quickest, least expensive and most environmentally acceptable way to address both the nation's and Texas' growing capacity issues. And with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) suggesting that Texas could see electric capacity shortfalls during peak energy-use periods in 2009, energy efficiency is truly the only means to resolving these near-term capacity concerns. Simply put, there just isn't enough time to site, plan and construct new power plants before the 2009 shortfall.

You see, our problem in Texas is that the electric utility industry is guilty of inefficiently utilizing the resources available. We don't need to invest billions of dollars (and pass those expenses on to the consumers) to build new power plants just to meet the energy demand on a 105-degree July afternoon. That's irresponsible. They're called "extreme" weather conditions, because they're infrequent. Whether it's holding off on the laundry for a few hours or postponing running the dishwasher until morning, we need to educate consumers that on those extreme days, there are things all of us can do to avoid outages due to an overloaded grid. Managing the way we use our energy during those "infrequent" events would go a long way toward resolving electric capacity shortfalls during peak energy periods.

United Cooperative Services takes its responsibility to educate and inform its member-consumers about energy efficiency practices seriously. We don't pay it lip service. We harbor significant concerns not just for our co-op's member-consumers, but for all of the millions of electric consumers here in Texas. We've watched the debate concerning the success -- or lack thereof -- of electric utility deregulation in Texas. We've witnessed how a volatile natural gas market can send the cost of generating electricity skyward. We've felt the impact of transmission constraints, leaving some consumers in the lurch when seeking to access the electricity they depend on. We've seen what it means to be held captive to a volatile electric market. Now we are seeing a dwindling reserve of electric generating capacity, which could create even greater uncertainty, market volatility and, ultimately, higher prices.

But nobody wants to talk about demand-side solutions. For years, we've been convinced that consumers need to start taking control of the situation by using less. As consumer-serving organizations, we owe it to the people in our communities to take a leadership position in promoting energy efficiency measures and to educate consumers on how demand-side solutions are a more cost-effective and publicly accepted means to meeting our growing energy demand.

In Texas, ERCOT oversees about 70,000 MW of electric generating capacity. If electric consumers reduced their energy usage by 10 percent during peak periods, it would create a significant savings. That 10 percent equates to 7,000 MW of generating capacity, or almost the same amount of generating capacity as the 11 plants TXU had proposed building earlier this year. Plus, that efficiency wouldn't have contributed one ounce of pollution or any new transmission lines -- not to mention how it would avoid creating new debt for a utility.

Seems simple doesn't it? Well it isn't, because consumers are conditioned to practice what was preached in messages of yesteryear: "Use as much as you want. We'll make more," regardless of the weather conditions. I consider myself a realist who works in an industry I am quite familiar with. And I am concerned -- not just for myself but for everyone who is already having a difficult time dealing with the present costs of energy. Our board of directors, elected by and for the member-consumers we serve, spends hours discussing these issues each month in an effort to determine what we can do to help our member-consumers meet the challenges of the future. After each discussion, we come back to the most sensible solution: energy efficiency and conservation.

Ray Beavers
CEO, United Cooperative Services
Cleburne, TX

As much as I dislike government intervention in the free market I think it time to mandate some steps to curb our nation's dependence upon oil. If this is creating an up-front goal of reducing fuel consumption in the home or our automobile so be it.

I also think that we (our government) could do a better job of promoting the development of an alternative fuel that is not 'oil based' for operating the nation's automobiles and trucks (such as Hydrogen). We know this can be done but we also know there is a cost of splitting the compounds that carry the Hydrogen molecule. Currently that cost is, again, in the use of energy. Surely we can develop another method that is not so harmful to our environment and does not rely on the oil that the earth seems to be depleting far faster than required.

The fact that there is a new technology (or improvements in terms of efficiency) for lighting and heating our homes is great. However, there are certain economical drawbacks to using these advances. The government is already offering incentives in taxes for tankless water heaters and high efficiency cooling systems that supposedly decrease the use of electricity or gas by 20 to 30 % however the up front cost associated with the purchase and installation of the system is great. I have not calculated the payback period to determine if it is really economically advantageous.

In the next few years the cost of electricity will climb dramatically due to the installation of environmental equipment required to clean up emissions. This event will cause a great many of us to look for ways to cut electrical consumption, which takes us back to the free market system. It would be nice to think that we will all just do it for the environment and for each other but we will not and some of us can not. A promise of a tax cut or refund is not enough for many.

Greg Watson

Energy conservation is not only a hot topic in the USA, but is also of great concern here in Ontario, Canada. In fact, it is being discussed worldwide.

Reducing peak demand is absolutely essential in a world of supply constraints being forced upon us by both fuel and CO2 emission restrictions. Until we have a distributed (localized) energy system set up that uses (primarily) renewable energy sources to heat our buildings and power our domestic, commercial and industrial equipment on-site (wind, solar, water, geothermal etc), we will be restricted by our fuel sources and generation limitations.

Every available energy efficiency technology at our disposal should thus be used while we build the distributed, renewable infrastructure we will need to carry us forward into the future.

Almost nobody in this modern 21^st Century world wants to have more centralized mega-project scaled industrial power plants built where they live, and you can thank NIMBYism for that. Not entirely a bad thing, actually. I myself would feel more secure knowing there are a variety of locally interconnected (and therefore reliable/redundant), pollution-free energy-producing technologies that do not rely on limited resources and do not contaminate our air, water & soil (nor irrevocably change our global atmosphere and climate) for the sake of momentary comfort and convenience.

I question the statement that, "Greater efficiency leads to increased energy consumption, because increased efficiency lowers costs, which makes goods more affordable -- increasing demand." I don't necessarily believe that to be true at all. There are two ways of reducing demand. One is using more efficient goods. The other is by modifying our behaviour (as is pointed out in the article below). It is the behaviour part that we mostly have to work on to avoid the supposed catch-22 statement that "Greater efficiency leads to increased energy consumption".

Also, many people avoid paying the (oftentimes) premium prices demanded for more efficient technologies like Energy-Star™ appliances and Hybrid vehicles. (Even my own purchasing patterns, though mostly quite energy-conscious, are still affected by price. Although I would love to own a Hybrid vehicle, the lifetime cost is actually still prohibitive. At the time I purchased a new vehicle several years ago because the technology was new, the upfront prices were very high and I knew I would not make that additional investment back through the increased efficiency -- and the prices of these vehicles are still relatively high.)

As we move into an era where efficiency matters, the technologies have actually become more complex. This has seemed to result in more expensive equipment -- not less expensive -- and unless we change our collective behaviour, we will only be willing to pay a premium for these energy-efficiency technologies when the price signals are right and we can understand clearly that the lifetime costs of the energy used to run the device far outweigh the initial capital costs of the sophisticated additional apparatus needed to make the equipment more efficient.

I'm wondering how the Energy Efficiency Promotion Act discussed below will actually intend to reduce demand in order to reach the goals they are setting out to achieve. Will these changes only be changes to the `standards'?

Will they be incremental over time or just a one-time change in some arbitrary thresholds?

Is there any education component attached to this initiative at all to promote behaviour modification, as has been achieved in most of the industrialized world outside North America, where energy education starts from a very early age?

I would believe that actually taxing the most inefficient (least efficient) equipment the most and taxing the most efficient equipment the least (or even offering a rebate on the purchase of this equipment -- on a sliding scale that changes as the technologies change and become ever more efficient) might actually achieve the same goal(s) over time, especially if the tax rates were incremental over time. Initial price signals are and will remain very powerful purchasing incentives no matter how much you argue that the cost of energy over the lifetime of the equipment will cost you more overall [people know that those additional costs will be amortized over time, so this type of thinking is not generally a consideration].

Lloyd Helferty
Engineering Technologist
Thornhill, ON

Energy conservation is "doing without" or "doing less"; energy efficiency is doing what you do using less energy by using it more efficiently. This piece thoroughly confuses the issues.

Customer decisions to conserve always reduce their energy costs. Customer decisions to shift energy consumption off-peak only reduce their energy costs if they are charged lower rates off-peak, since the same quantity of energy is consumed.

Customer decisions to install more efficient appliances and equipment will reduce energy consumption and cost, if the customer does not offset the additional efficiency with greater use. Customers may benefit from overall reduced costs, if the incremental cost of the more efficient equipment is modest, or energy costs are high, or both. However, DOE has tended to rely on longer payback periods than customers would use to justify their appliance efficiency mandates.

Customer response to "time of day" rates has generally been low, because the potential savings are low relative to the perceived inconveniences associated with the load shifting.

Edward A. Reid, Jr.
President
Fire to Ice, Inc.

Copyright © 1996-2006 by CyberTech, Inc. All rights reserved.