SW Utilities Show Efficiency Benefits
Suzanne Pletcher is Director of Communications for the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP), where she works to share SWEEP’s marketplace analyses and support proactive public policy in the region. She is an award-winning public relations and investor relations professional and former journalist who founded the Boulder County Business Report in Colorado.
Electric utilities across the country are investing in energy efficiency more than ever before. But what’s the broad return on those investments?
If the benefits from investments during 2008-2015 in the Southwest are any indication, those utilities are entitled to a bit of chest pounding.
“Utilities in the Southwest offered education, technical assistance and rebates, and households and businesses responded by buying millions of energy-efficient lights, appliances, building and industrial upgrades,” said Howard Geller, executive director of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. “The energy savings and associated benefits add up.”
The Project’s utility program staff crunched the numbers from the most recent eight years of annual reports of the major utilities in the region. They produced a benefits overview and individual fact sheets for Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah.
One key finding: The southwest region saw more energy savings generated from utility energy efficiency programs as of 2015 than was generated from solar power facilities, including both distributed and utility-scale.