Boston, MA—Today the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) releases its twelfth Annual Industry Report, showing growth in 2016 energy efficiency and demand response investment.
CEE Executive Director Ed Wisniewski observed "Amid the uncertainty in federal investment, this report indicates that demand side management (DSM) investment at the state and program level continues strong with a modest uptick in 2016 expenditures and 2017 budgets.
"What the report does not capture is that a significant program presence over an extended duration apparently produces a powerful public benefits platform that can be leveraged to serve the growing complexities and obligations of today’s utilities. Accordingly, future reports will attempt to capture the extent to which DSM investments are deployed with the intent of supporting additional regulatory imperatives for climate, distributed generation, and system resiliency objectives."
Total expenditures from all funding sources on gas and electric DSM programs in 2016 rose two percent over 2015, reaching $8.8 billion. Highlights of the report include:
The Consortium has a twenty-seven-year history of working together on voluntary binational initiatives, explorations, and positions, of which the CEE Annual Industry Report is one, to advance the demand side management industry. Continuing investments in energy efficiency and demand response are a testament to the attractiveness of demand side management as a clean energy resource with many social and utility benefits.
Energy efficiency program administrators working in various states and provinces are mandated and funded to achieve long lasting reductions in energy use for the United States and Canada. Each of these programs operates with different goals, regulation, cost structures, and programs. However, common needs exist, and these administrators founded the Consortium for Energy Efficiency in 1991 to accelerate binational market uptake of measurably efficient products and services.
Twelve years ago, the Consortium initiated a survey of members and other efficiency program administrators to discover the size and momentum of the industry by measuring program budgets and impacts. Since 2006, the survey has grown in scope, adding Canadian programs and standardizing the format in 2007, and joining forces with major collaborator AGA in 2009. Since then, each year has seen consistent collection of information, deepening the efficiency picture. By coordinating the two organizations’ information needs, AGA and CEE have developed a more comprehensive reporting process with a lower burden on respondents.
In providing an annual trend analysis of demand side management budgets, expenditures, and savings, the CEE Annual Industry Report powerfully maps program administrator data into an aggregate and visible picture that CEE members, thought leaders, and policy makers value. The 2017 Annual Industry Report represents data from the vast majority of large efficiency program administrators—306 utility and nonutility program administrators from every US state, the District of Columbia, and eight Canadian provinces. It is the most extensive known research on energy efficiency program funding and impacts. CEE and AGA work directly with program administrators on data collection and quality assurance efforts, under conditions of trust and confidentiality, resulting in more consistent and accurate data than when collected from a variety of sources. Because of this reputation, CEE members, federal agencies, industry organizations, evaluators, and others who need a reliable source of energy efficiency trends use CEE data.
The American Gas Association, founded in 1918, represents more than 200 local energy companies that deliver clean natural gas throughout the United States. There are more than 73 million residential, commercial, and industrial natural gas customers in the US, of which 95 percent—over 69 million customers—receive their gas from AGA members. AGA is an advocate for natural gas utility companies and their customers and provides a broad range of programs and services for member natural gas utilities, pipelines, marketers, gatherers, international natural gas companies, and industry associates. Today natural gas meets more than one-fourth of the United States’ energy needs. To find out more, please visit www.aga.org.
About CEE
CEE is an award-winning consortium of
efficiency program administrators from the United States and Canada.
Members work to unify program approaches across jurisdictions to
increase the success of efficiency in markets. By joining forces at CEE,
individual electric and gas efficiency programs are able to partner not
only with each other, but also with other industries, trade
associations, and government agencies. Working together, administrators
leverage the effect of their ratepayer funding, exchange information on
successful practices and, by doing so, achieve greater energy efficiency
for the public good.