Energy Efficiency Report Underscores Lack of Investment in Low-Cost Clean Energy Resource
The Southeast has among the highest energy bills in the country and the lowest energy efficiency performance – but there is a clear solution. Today the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) released the annual “Energy Efficiency in the Southeast” 2019 Annual Report, where we look at policies and practices impacting energy efficiency savings across the Southeast and offer solutions for implementing this underutilized resource that can help decarbonize the region’s power sector.
Read an excerpt from the accompanying report blog below or the entire post here.
“Energy Efficiency in the Southeast” 2019 Annual Report
January 22, 2020 + Forest Bradley-Wright, Heather Pohnan
Energy Efficiency is a proven clean energy resource that has a critical role to play in helping reduce our region’s persistently high energy bills and cutting carbon emissions that worsen the climate crisis, threaten public health, and damage our environment. Electric utility energy efficiency programs offset the need for traditional fossil fuel power plants and are key to reducing utility system costs paid by customers on their monthly electric bills. Sadly, however, electric utilities and regulators in the Southeast consistently underinvest in this abundant low-cost energy efficiency resource. Instead, utilities in our region continue to rely on expensive, outdated fossil fuel power plants – including 53 GW of coal-powered generators – and are even proposing construction of new ones. As a result, when compared to other regions in the US, the Southeast remains at the bottom of national efficiency rankings.
The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy’s (SACE) Energy Efficiency in the Southeast 2019 Annual Report utilizes data collected from 2018 to explore energy efficiency trends, identify policies and practices impacting energy efficiency savings for the region, and offer solutions for implementing this underutilized resource. By examining utility efficiency program savings, our second annual report unveils which of our region’s utilities are cost-effectively eliminating unnecessary energy waste, and which are simply selling more power.
###
About Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Founded in 1985, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is a nonprofit organization that promotes responsible energy choices to ensure clean, safe, and healthy communities throughout the Southeast. Learn more at www.cleanenergy.org.