The Best Way to Comply with EPA’s Clean Power Plan
Tim Woolf is the Vice-President is the Vice-President of Synapse Energy Economics and is a former commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. Chris Neme is Principal and Co-Founder of Energy Futures Group (EFG), a Vermont based consulting firm that provides specialized expertise on energy efficiency markets, programs and policies. Robin LeBaron is a Senior Associate at the Home Performance Coalition, anon-profit that promotes energy efficiency in residential buildings through home retrofits and new construction. Erin Malone is an Associate at Synapse Energy Economics, where she focuses on energy efficiency planning and regulation. Contact the authors at emalone@synapse-energy.com.
For over 25 years, utility-funded energy efficiency programs have proven to be a widely available resource for meeting customer demand at low cost. We now have a wealth of experience demonstrating that energy efficiency programs cost a fraction of the cost of generating, transmitting and distributing electricity, and provide a variety of benefits in terms of lower bills, reduced system risk, increased system reliability, reduced environmental impacts and more.
In June 2014, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued proposed regulations1 under the Clean Air Act (CAA) for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from existing sources in the electricity industry, it created another compelling reason for states to promote energy efficiency programs. Efficiency programs are among the lowest-cost options for reducing carbon emissions, and can play a significant role in reducing the costs of complying with the EPA's new plan (abbreviated here as "CAA 111(d)").