energy efficiency

The inaugural Energy Efficiency Day has arrived! During this collaborative celebration, we’re highlighting the energy efficiency work happening at Synapse. Below are a few samples of our recent and ongoing efficiency projects. Follow #EEDay2016 on Twitter to learn more about the energy efficiency efforts of a wide range of organizations, companies, and individuals across the country.  

Advising Development of the National Energy Efficiency Registry

The final numbers are in, and the results are impressive. Final 2015 assessments indicate that both Massachusetts and Rhode Island surpassed their electric energy efficiency savings targets. Once again, these efficiency leaders push the perceived limits of efficiency programs—demonstrating that energy efficiency programs can achieve electricity savings above or near 3 percent of sales.

Meeting the emission reduction goals of states within the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) will yield billions of dollars in savings and tens of thousands of new jobs each year for over a decade, according to a Synapse study released today. A more stringent RGGI cap, complemented by individual state renewable resource and efficiency standards, will help states achieve their climate goals, which cluster around a 40 percent reduction from 1990 emissions levels by 2030.

Energy efficiency is widely recognized as an abundant and low-cost option for complying with the requirements of EPA’s Clean Power Plan. However, not all electric customers have equal access to customer-funded efficiency programs. Concerns about fairness between customers—those who participate in programs and see greater benefits than those who do not—create a barrier to widespread implementation of energy efficiency programs.

Yes, it does. Unfortunately, some confusion persists about how energy efficiency measures can be applied to mass-based compliance within the Clean Power Plan. Fortunately, the answer can be summarized in two sentences: (1) In any situation, energy efficiency is a cost-effective way to reduce demand for electricity, both reducing emissions and helping to avoid or defer other mass-based compliance actions. (2) States can take action to develop customized plans to further encourage energy efficiency as a means for meeting mass-based compliance.

In a series of recent briefs on the consumer costs of low-emissions futures, Synapse demonstrates that a Clean Energy Future scenario that exceeds the emissions targets of EPA’s Clean Power Plan can also lower electricity bills nationwide. The idea that investing heavily in clean energy and energy efficiency programs will save households money may be surprising to some, but in the third and final brief in the series, released today, Synapse discusses the logic behind why this is the case and why—if it’s so appealing—states haven’t already embarked on similar trajectories.

On August 3, EPA released the final version of its Clean Power Plan. This rule establishes emission reduction guidelines for existing power plants aimed at reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions 32 percent below 2005 levels. The final rule includes some important difference from the version proposed last year. As public agencies, interest groups, and electric-sector experts scramble in the next days and weeks to first absorb and then analyze the rule, we offer our early assessment of the top eight things planners and advocates should know about the final Clean Power Plan, and compare each point to the proposed rule.

The National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA) yesterday released a technical document identifying a wide range of technologies, programs, and policies that agencies might employ to comply with EPA’s Clean Power Plan. The document, Implementing EPA’s Clean Power Plan: A Menu of Options, contains 26 chapters, each exploring a different approach to reducing emissions.

Synapse recently prepared a regulatory guidance document on several key principles of energy efficiency cost-effectiveness screening for the NEEP Regional Evaluation, Measurement and Verification Forum. The EM&V Forum subsequently adopted the Cost-Effectiveness Screening Principles and Guidelines as a Forum product.

Synapse CEO and founder Bruce Biewald presented on energy efficiency as a resource for compliance with EPA’s Clean Power Plan at the 2015 NASEO Energy Policy Outlook Conference in Washington, DC on February 5. His presentation, part of a panel on privately delivered energy efficiency, included a discussion of how analysis using Synapse’s Clean Power Plan Planning Tool can help to understand and estimate the benefits of energy efficiency as an element of state CPP compliance plans.