IIEC Recent News

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation’s (NMPC) Subscriptive Service represents an intriguing, albeit highly controversial, model for customer energy efficiency programs. Responding to large customers’ needs for choice and rate relief while maintaining an emphasis on achieving prescribed energy savings goals, NMPC designed a new energy services concept by unbundling its services. The Subscriptive Service provides an option for large customers that are committed to efficiency but elect to cover the costs of such upgrades on their own. Concurrently, NMPC continued to provide rebates to customers that determined that the Subscriptive Service was not economically feasible or who were pleased with prior DSM offerings.

The Subscriptive Service pilot program tested a new means of giving customers the incentive to invest in energy efficiency. Those that agreed to complete comprehensive energy audits which recommended energy conservation measures (ECMs) for their facilities were given a rate discount. The discount represented the costs they would have paid to be eligible for the utility’s traditional DSM incentives. Through this program mechanism the Subscriptive Service provided increased flexibility for customers to mine and pay for efficiency upgrades.

As with any test, measuring the effect of the program has been a major program emphasis and challenge. What was the direct program affect? Which recommended measures were installed? And most importantly, how effective was this program design compared to more traditional models? Unfortunately, there was no clear control group with which to measure savings, determining the quality of the audits was complex, as was ascertaining the effect of the program within a changing regulatory context. Nevertheless, by tieing NMPC’s shareholder incentives to the program’s energy savings goals, the Subscriptive Service earned requisite utility attention and resulted in nearly 50 GWh of energy savings.

While many efficiency advocates have been alarmed by the Subscriptive Service, claiming that it is simply a means for industrials to "opt-out" of paying their fair share of system efficiency costs, the model may have greater transferability and applicability than first meets the eye. The Subscriptive Service not only provides for customer choice but is an exciting model of how a utility can form a bond or contract with customers to be efficient. Rather than offering rebates and other direct incentives to garner utilities’ least-cost resource, the Subscriptive Service represents a new construct in which customers pledge to consider certain efficiency steps in the absence of incentives. The model, rather than the "death of DSM," may actually provide for a new, perhaps very resilient and logical means for the capture of energy efficiency.

[CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE 24 PAGE PROFILE IN PDF FILE FORMAT]

This profile was produced by

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Duquesne Light Company’s Smart Comfort program is an exciting low-income program model for significantly reducing participants’ bills and minimizing bill arrearages. The program’s evolution and results are indicative of the increasing sophistication of Duquesne staff’s delivery of energy services. Smart Comfort provides rich lessons for utilities facing increasing competition and thus keen on devising valuable wrap-around services using customized approaches for maximum customer benefit at low cost.

When Duquesne began Smart Comfort in 1988 the program was driven by prescriptive measures intended to cut electricity use in homes with electric space and/or water heating. Thanks to the vision of its early architect, Joe Flynn, and the program’s primary driver, Barry Kukovich, the program was significantly redesigned to encompass a comprehensive custom approach that has cost effectively delivered impressive levels of savings. In the most recent program year Duquesne projected savings of up to 40% for each participating home’s total electricity consumption at a cost of saved energy less than 3¢/kWh. Smart Comfort was launched to fulfill the low-income program mandate established for investor-owned utilities by the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission. The program initially provided weatherization services for electric heating customers through the "Heating approach." After a few years, Duquesne Light staff recognized that because customers did not use electric resistance heating, the program was targeting a relatively small subset of its low-income customers who live primarily in multifamily apartment buildings. Thus the Heating approach was replaced by the "End-Use approach," a broader orientation that allowed Duquesne to provide services to many more low-income customers.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Smart Comfort is the role played by its Energy Managers. These program staff have been given license to "eek out" energy savings in a host of creative ways from program participants. By empowering Energy Managers to provide one-stop comprehensive services for low-income customers, Duquesne hit upon a winning formula. Highly motivated Energy Managers provide participants with a number of no-cost services, increasing their awareness of their energy use, providing tips on reducing their bills, installing technologies such as compact fluorescent lamps on the spot, and even arranging for waterbed and refrigerator replacements. Through this customized, hands-on approach coordinated with the three local gas utilities, Duquesne has at once served its customers most in need of bill relief while providing the utility with a return on its program investment, stemming bill arrearages through energy efficiency improvements.

[CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE 26 PAGE PROFILE IN PDF FILE FORMAT]

This profile was produced by

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

University campuses, like large military installations and other types of large institutional facilities, are essentially micro-cities ripe with energy efficiency opportunities. Unfortunately, their budgets tend to be filled with competing interests. Thus efficiency upgrades often fall by the wayside despite the fact that they are investments that pay for themselves over time and which can thus support rather than detract from the educational process. At the State University of New York at Buffalo, thanks in part to the dedication and determination of Energy Officer, Walter Simpson, energy efficiency became a priority which has provided the campus with attractive returns on investment while fulfilling a moral obligation to use energy judiciously. Furthermore, in the process of retrofitting the campus, the University at Buffalo (UB) has educated its student body, faculty, and staff of the importance and potentials for efficiency.

For two decades UB has been engaged in plugging the leaks of energy and dollars from its campus. It has financed efficiency upgrades in a number of ways, leveraging change through a variety of capital sources including the University’s own operating and capital budgets, loans from the state, and most recently by engaging the services of an energy service company that drew incentives from the local utility and helped secure financing for the remaining investment through a tax-exempt lease.

Following the energy crises of the 1970s, UB undertook an important and relatively low capital cost energy tune-up. When Walter Simpson became the University’s first Energy Officer in 1982 the formal "Conserve UB" program was born and evolved into a program that resulted in over 300 retrofit activities. Then in the 1990s, UB entered a partnership with CES/Way International. Supported by over $4 million in incentives from Niagara Mohawk, the University engaged in a comprehensive $17+ million retrofit that has addressed heat recovery, upgrading lighting systems, the installation of high efficiency motors and drives, as well as controls and energy management systems to cut energy use while maintaining if not enhancing the quality of its buildings and facilities.

While many universities have performed energy efficiency retrofits, UB stands out as a model of an integrated approach. It has at once focused on saving energy and dollars in the short term through technical measures that have created annual savings of over $9 million and $65 million in cumulative cost savings, while fostering an ethic and awareness on campus related to long-term judicious resource use. The Conserve UB approach has been a dual-pronged effort, drawing upon top-level support while shoring up the foundation with grassroots awareness of efficiency’s promise and potentials. Driven by a self-espoused "conservation zealot," UB’s comprehensive program is one that contains many rich and inspiring lessons.

 [CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE 27 PAGE PROFILE IN PDF FILE FORMAT]

This profile was produced by

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In Montgomery County, Maryland a strong engineering focus and awareness within the facilities management arena has led to impressive levels of savings in both new construction and existing County-owned buildings. Key to the County’s success has been the insight and wisdom of its energy and engineering staff who understand that buildings must be treated as dynamic systems. First, they must be properly designed and commissioned to take advantage of the synergies between energy-efficient design and technologies. Second, the County has leveraged major dollar savings by plugging the leaks in its 187 existing buildings that constitute fully 3.25 million square feet of space. The facilities include a judicial center, libraries, police and fire stations, community health centers, day care centers, halfway houses, and recreation centers.

Montgomery County’s foremost success has been the delivery of deep savings. For new construction, it has met the aggressive goal of saving 40% of the energy used in a typical new facility. Similarly, it is achieving 30-40% savings in retrofits. Remarkably, these major savings have been achieved with limited dollars. The County has also recognized that its facilities’ operations must be continually refined. It has been a national leader in the field of commissioning buildings, stemming the erosion of measure savings while assuring dollar savings that can be used for social purposes such as adding staff to the police force and books to local libraries.

The County has also placed considerable emphasis on retrofitting existing facilities, drawing incentives from local utilities where possible. It is a Green Lights Partner and as such has the goal of retrofitting 100% of its facilities by the year 2000. (It has already addressed 56% of its square footage.) And having established an impressive track record, the engineering staff has earned credibility within the County government so that it can get projects approved expeditiously.

The bottom line is that the County’s total electricity use has fallen by 5% since 1992. Even as it added 343,000 square feet of new space, its energy bill has remained stable. Cumulative cost savings of $2.3 million from 1992 to 1995 have resulted from the installation of energy management control systems, roof insulation, lighting upgrades, and design guidelines. Thanks to its investments in efficiency, Montgomery County expects over $5 million in cumulative energy cost savings by the turn of the century. Furthermore, it has leveraged non-energy related benefits such as improved work environments, promoting environmental responsibility, while setting a powerful example for private sector firms. And in the process, the County has been able to allocate saved energy dollars to more important public programs. These are the result of a facilities staff doing an exceptional job, developing a template for similar County and local government initiatives.

[CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE 22 PAGE PROFILE IN PDF FILE FORMAT]

This profile was produced by