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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The City of Cornwall’s comprehensive efficiency program is a leading model of the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy’s Green Communities Initiative. Thanks to effective partnerships between government, citizens, utilities, and trade allies, Cornwall has tuned-up its use of energy in homes, businesses, industry, and transportation, while creating an efficiency ethic in town to include water efficiency, use of alternative transportation fuels, recycling, and composting. The program has been delivered by Cornwall’s Energy Efficiency Team whose goals are to save energy and water, reduce waste, protect the environment, and stimulate the local economy.

Cornwall has had a long history with resource efficiency, providing home audits, shifting energy use "off-oil," relighting streetlights, and converting vehicles to natural gas. Because of Cornwall’s interest, commitment, and experience with resource efficiency, the City has the distinction of being named "Canada’s Environmentally Friendly and Energy-Efficient City." This led to the selection of Cornwall as one of three pilot communities for Ontario’s Green Communities Initiative. Thanks to provincial funding plus extensive community support, the City initiated its comprehensive community-based program in 1991.

Cornwall’s Energy Efficiency Team is based on a unique and effective partnership between Cornwall Electric, Centra Gas, the Chamber of Commerce, local school boards, the Kiwanis Club, and the Rotary Club. Since the inception of the program, nearly $2.14 million has been invested in Cornwall including $1.0 million in provincial funds and over $2.42 million from the community. This capital has leveraged $2.14 million annually in direct energy savings and perhaps as much as $5 million annually when the full economic impacts of the program are considered and accounted. Furthermore, the program has created an estimated 60 new jobs in town.

Home tune-ups are at the core of the residential initiatives. A total of 10,800 homes have been treated with CEET’s free walk-through assessments complete with direct installation of energy and water saving measures and recommendations for becoming more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. The typical customer experiences a annual savings of about $96 in energy costs with no money down! To finance the more costly recommendations, EnviroLoans are provided by Canada Trust and Green Loans are available from TD Bank. In addition to success in the residential element, Cornwall has supported retrofits in businesses, industries, schools, and hospitals, and has contributed both funding and expertise to improving transportation sector efficiency. The entire program has been so successful that it is being expanded to an entire tri-county area surrounding Cornwall.

 

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Seattle City Light, one of the nation’s largest municipal utilities, reinforces the notion that utilities can effectively offer demand-side management (DSM) services in regions characterized by low power rates. Despite rates that rank among the lowest in the nation, Seattle City Light (SCL) exemplifies dedication to public power and has proven that commitment to social concerns and energy efficiency can result in exemplary levels of savings through widespread participation in all sectors of the City’s economy. SCL’s success can also be measured by its DSM expenditures as a percentage of gross revenues: In 1993 SCL budgeted a precedent-setting 9.1% of gross revenues for DSM!

Ironically, Seattle City Light was not the instigator of its early emphasis on energy efficiency. Instead, a lawsuit overturned the utility’s planned investment in the Washington Public Power Supply System (a proposed series of nuclear plants) and effectively changed the utility’s course, paving the way for what has become one of the nation’s leading examples of energy efficiency. This success has been supported by the Bonneville Power Administration which over time has funded nearly one-quarter of SCL’s DSM expenditures. More fundamentally, however, Seattle’s energy efficiency success is a reflection of Seattle citizens’ wishes to save on their electricity bills. SCL wants to increase comfort and well-being for all citizens, while fulfilling the utility’s resource requirements through the most socially responsible and least cost means possible.

A key feature of Seattle’s DSM efforts has been its dedicated staff, some of which have been involved in its energy conservation programs since they began in the late 1970s. Another feature has been the utility’s willingness to hire its own critics, reaping talent from unlikely places, gaining strength from adversity, and fully exploiting the talents of a broad array of Seattle’s population to engage one of the nation’s premier efficiency programs.

Coupled with this staff orientation has been a rock-solid focus on evaluation. Since 1980 SCL has developed and benefitted from a highly capable DSM Evaluation Unit. This group provided a solid justification for early energy efficiency initiatives and is now responsible for carefully assessing the impacts of SCL’s DSM programs.

Seattle City Light has clearly demonstrated the power of collaboration. To support energy efficiency for the City’s low-income residents, the utility has worked closely with Seattle’s Department of Housing and Human Services. With many other regional utilities it created the Lighting Design Lab, one of the nation’s first and most successful energy centers. To address water shortages in the region, it collaborated with other City departments and utilities to implement the highly successful Home Water Savers program. These types of collaborations, coupled with its unique business culture and commitment to its customer/owners, yield a truly exemplary model of municipal utility DSM success well worthy of examination and replication.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The City of Portland, Oregon is a mecca of energy and environmental responsibility. In 1979, Portland became the first U.S. city to forge a comprehensive energy policy. The same year it established the Portland Energy Office. In 1993, Portland became the first U.S. city to adopt a local carbon dioxide reduction strategy, committing to reduce its CO2 emissions by 20% below 1988 baselines by the year 2010, far surpassing the levels specified as a result of the international Climate Convention that developed from the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Portland’s carbon dioxide emission reduction strategy reinforces the City’s civic nature. It embodies broad efficiency gains through improvements in transportation and building efficiency; coupled with the promotion of renewable energy, cogeneration, and recycling; as well as tree planting in and outside of the City; and even lobbying at the Federal level to increase and institutionalize the wise use of energy. Clearly, Portland epitomizes the slogan "thinking globally and acting locally." Though the City does not have a municipal utility, it has worked cooperatively with private electric and gas utilities, and with the Oregon Department of Energy, to facilitate energy efficiency.

One of the most challenging building segments to address in any area is the multifamily sector, largely due to the split incentive between landlords and tenants. Since tenants generally pay the utility bills, landlords have little incentive to improve the efficiency of their buildings. In Portland, this quagmire has been amplified by the great demand for housing, further reducing landlords’ incentives to invest in energy efficiency. Given this dilemma and the fact that nearly 50% of the housing in Portland is made up of rental units, the Portland Energy Office designed and implemented the Multifamily Energy Savings program in 1987.

The Multifamily Energy Savings program serves to encourage retrofits by marketing existing efficiency services -- such as utility audits, rebates, and loans, plus state tax credits -- to building owners. Through its facilitation of diverse incentives, building owners in Portland have been surprisingly receptive to investing in energy efficiency measures such as windows, insulation, common area lighting, water heaters, air sealing, and heating system improvements.

To date more than 11,050 apartment units have been weatherized as a result of the program, with savings of approximately 1,200 kWh annually per unit. Not only has the program been highly successful, but it has been coordinated at very little cost to the the City, at a cost of less than one cent per kilowatt-hour saved. Through its one-stop approach for apartment owners, the Portland Energy Office provides a model of collaboration for servicing a hard-to-reach market sector with a range of resource efficient strategies.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Pacific Energy Center (PEC) is one of the leading energy centers in the United States, an impressive showcase of technologies and advanced techniques for electric and gas efficiency housed in an attractive 30,000 square foot center that has become a mecca for energy efficiency professionals in the Bay Area as well as an icon of PG&E’s emphasis on customer services. Since the Center opened in late 1991, PEC has become world renowned for its technical capabilities and mission and thus is a potent model for subsequent initiatives.

Located in downtown San Francisco, PEC has been specifically targeted on the design community. In fact, the focus has been even narrower, improving the efficiency of new commercial construction and office spaces. Over time, however, this orientation has been refashioned as PG&E staff realize the tremendous opportunities that exist by working with building owners and facility managers who can expeditiously implement efficiency improvements in existing facilities, providing short-term results while the Center continues its emphasis on avoiding lost opportunities. The Center does include a residential center and rather impressive interactive display in the lobby, though this is not PEC’s main focus. Staff comment, however, that a surprising number of professionals that visit PEC end up taking home literature from the residential display, supporting the notion that energy efficiency begins at home.

PEC staff have forthrightly addressed the challenge of justifying the Center’s cost. So far, PEC has cost PG&E’s ratepayers $14 million. The impact of energy centers is inherently difficult to quantify, while large expenditures are subject to intense scrutiny. PEC has carefully documented the more than 30,000 visitors it has hosted, while evaluating the Center using the perspectives of utility representatives and visitors. This intense self-examination has been helpful for PEC to continue to refine its focus to provide maximum benefit for PG&E customers, especially in this time of greater utility competition.

In the future, PEC and other energy centers will be further adapted to competition. Rather than fostering energy efficiency in particular, they will likely encourage the wise use of their principle product and may encompass a wider variety of services including power quality management and environmental compliance. Energy centers may even charge for the use of their facilities and technical services, or allow financing the cost of their services on utility bills, another means of establishing a firm handshake with customers. Thus energy centers can play an important role in a utility’s overall marketing and corporate strategy, a theme that is embedded throughout this Profile.

 


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