Frontiers of Efficiency

Deck: 

What conservation potential assessments tell us about ‘achievable’ efficiency.

Fortnightly Magazine - April 2011
This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.

Studies of energy conservation potential—known as energy efficiency potential assessments, or simply CPAs (conservation potential assessments)—can help identify and quantify gains that might come from energy conservation, namely: how much energy efficiency may be available, in which particular market segments, and when and at what cost. Such studies are essential to integrated resource planning. They serve as a cornerstone to designing effective, energy-efficiency programs. Increasingly, they are used to justify efficiency in energy policy, and serve as a basis for setting energy efficiency performance standards (EEPS). Their importance is hard to exaggerate—though not impossible—depending on how they are conducted and how their results are used.

Beginnings

The roots of the CPA method can be traced to the 1978 National Energy Conservation Policy Act (NECPA). The Act, primarily a response to the energy crisis following OPEC’s 1973 oil embargo, addressed domestic concerns about energy reliability and prices, along with international concerns about economic and national security. The Act considered conservation—in the sense of using less non-renewable natural resources and increasing end-use efficiency—as one of several approaches for addressing both sets of concerns.

This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.