I’ll admit, my perspective is skewed: My wife is CFO of a Richmond-based company, Tridium, that develops software that is widely used in major office and industrial facilities to manage HVAC, lighting and other energy costs, while my sister is an investment banker who finances renewable energy projects. It’s a truism in the Bacon household that there is vast, untapped potential in the American economy to conserve energy. That’s why I find it distressing that the words “conservation” and “energy efficiency” weren’t the words on legislators’ lips when they passed a bill to re-regulate Dominion and other electric power companies.
If signed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, the re-regulation bill would provide Dominion the assurances it needs to proceed with a massive expansion of its coal- and nuclear-powered generating capacity to meet projected growth in demand for electricity. There are no meaningful provisions in the bill, as currently written, to encourage Dominion to invest in energy efficiency (enabling more output from existing facilities) or to encourage residential, industrial or commercial customers to conserve electricity.
I’m all in favor of ensuring an adequate supply of electricity for Virginians. If that means building new power plants, then… let’s go build them. But it is folly to assume that building new power plants is the most cost-effective means of ensuring a reliable power supply. Dominion makes money by selling electricity. That doesn’t make Dominion evil — it just makes it a business. It does, however, make the General Assembly incredibly short sighted for passing legislation that would encourage building more power plants while overlooking conservation, energy efficiency and renewable fuels as paths to the same goal.
A January study underwritten by CERES, a national network of investors, environmentalists and public interest groups, argues that an $11 billion investment in conservation and energy efficiency in Texas could yield $50 billion in savings and other economic benefits over 15 years. Investments in conservation and energy efficiency would save energy at a cost of less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour — compared to more than 7 cents per kilowatt-hour by securing electricity from existing power plants.
“The cheapest energy is energy you don’t have to produce and buy in the first place,” said Philip H. Mosenthal, founding partner of Optimal Energy and the report’s lead author. “Numerous technologies exist to dramatically reduce homeowner and business energy use economically, while providing greater comfort and productivity.”
This point needs to be hammered home: Conservation and energy efficiency is not just for tree huggers! It’s also good for electricity consumers!!
Virginia is one of the most backward states in the country when it comes to encouraging conservation and energy efficiency, says Diana Dascalu, staff attorney for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. The bill passed by the General Assembly last month contains only token language promoting conservation and renewable fuels, emasculating a year’s worth of negotations on Renewable Portfolio Standards legislation. Now it’s up to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to bring sanity back to Virginia energy policy.
I’ll have more to say about conservation and renewable energy in the next edition of the e-zine.
