California Illuminates The World

We are members of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and I always look forward to receiving their quarterly magazine . This month's excellent cover article is on the " ... Golden State's pioneering efficiency plan". As is well-known in the energy industry, what happens in California is usually adopted by the rest of the country. I'm proud to say that my state is once again at the forefront of some of most exciting initiatives in the energy biz. A state with an economy roughly the size of France or England, but with half the number of people!

... Since 2001, California has bounced back, fashioning a new framework of utility regulations that places greater emphasis on efficiency than ever before. Through 2008, utility companies plan to spend $2 billion -- a record for any state -- to help Californians save energy. The investment will yield a net gain of $3 billion in economic benefits for the state by reducing utility bills. "This efficiency campaign will avoid the need to build three large power plants," says Brian Prusnek, a senior staff member at the California Public Utilities Commission. "In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, that's the equivalent of taking 650,000 cars off the road. How many other investments yield a 50 percent financial return and reduce pollution?"

Leading-edge policies and technologies that encourage efficiency have long been a California export, right along with merlot, movies, and semiconductors. Energy policy makers in other states as well as in the federal government look to California's energy-conservation measures the same way political analysts view the New Hampshire presidential primary -- as a bellwether for the nation. California was, for example, the first state to adopt efficiency standards for appliances. These went into effect in 1977 and were upgraded throughout the 1980s. Florida, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and other states followed California's lead, sometimes copying the California code verbatim. This shift at the state level convinced appliance manufacturers to join with efficiency advocates in lobbying for a uniform national standard, which Ronald Reagan signed into law in 1987. Thus began a process that continues to repeat itself. Since 2004 several other states have adopted at least some of California's latest standards, many of which also wound up in last year's federal energy bill. "The general pattern," says Devra Wang, a staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, "is that California adopts new standards, other states follow, and then they're adopted at the federal level."

... Nobody knows the power of energy efficiency better than Art Rosenfeld, who was present at the creation of the concept as we know it. Rosenfeld is a kind of human power plant -- one that generates not megawatts, but "negawatts" of avoided energy consumption (to use the famous coinage of Amory Lovins, cofounder of the Rocky Mountain Institute).

... With state and federal funding, Rosenfeld's group refined the program, and then in 1976 released it into the public domain. Originally called "Two-Zone," it is now known as DOE-2. The California Energy Commission, created in the early 1970s to conduct research and create efficiency standards (among other mandates), adopted DOE-2 as the basis for setting energy-performance standards under Title 24. The commission estimated that buildings constructed under Title 24 -- and, therefore, designed using the Rosenfeld/DOE program -- eventually ramped up to energy savings of $5 billion a year.

... One invention was the high-frequency ballast -- a solid-state power source that improves the efficiency of a standard fluorescent rod but uses 20 percent less electricity. In the hands of lamp manufacturers such as Philips, the high-frequency ballast led to the creation of the compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), a mainstay of energy-efficiency programs throughout the world. Another breakthrough was the low-emissivity, or "low-e," window -- a window with a thin coating that allows visible light to pass through but captures or reflects the sun's invisible near-infrared radiation, which produces heat. Low-e coatings roughly double the energy performance of standard double-glazed windows.

... Rosenfeld takes a few moments to sum up the savings from the major efficiency technologies and policies that originated at LBL during his tenure. "Let's see," he muses. "The DOE-2 computer program is used in building standards that save the country, conservatively, $10 billion a year in electricity and natural-gas costs. High-frequency ballasts for fluorescent lamps are saving the United States around $5 billion worth of electricity a year. Low-e windows are probably saving between $5 billion and $10 billion a year. Then if you look at refrigerator standards, which originated with us, improvements in refrigerator efficiency since 1974 are now saving the country around $17 billion a year."

... California's recommitment to energy efficiency is partly a return to the past, but with a significant new wrinkle. Now, when utilities plan for long-term growth in electricity demand, efficiency is the resource of first resort, with renewable energy sources next in line. Utilities and regulators call this the "loading order." What it means, in Kennedy's words, is that "before our electric utilities spend a dollar to buy power in the market or build a new generation plant, they will first invest in ways to help us use energy more efficiently." If efficiency measures don't free up enough generating capacity to meet the growth in demand, the next resource in the loading order is renewable sources. Only then can utility companies turn to fossil-generated power (whether bought or built), and even then any new plants that are constructed must be no dirtier than a state-of-the-art natural-gas generating plant.