NEEP Policy Highlights

If you don’t spend your copious free time paging through the orders and filings in the New York Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) proceeding, it’s possible you may have missed a nugget or two. To help you catch up on what’s arguably the most important regulatory proceeding in the country right now, we’ve pulled forward a few of the key details relating to energy efficiency in particular.

Pressed for time? Here’s the shorthand:

Energy storage technology is ready to transform the way we use, manage, and view electric energy. However, the question remains: are we prepared for it? Last year, the U.S. market saw an unprecedented expansion of 221 MW of deployed storage, up 243 percent from 2014.

Electric air-source heat pumps (ASHPs/heat pumps) are an increasingly popular mode of delivering heating and cooling to buildings. Heat pumps are typically much more energy-efficient than older technologies such as hydronic boilers or resistance heating. They give users a great deal of control over their indoor comfort with zoned heating and cooling and have none of the health and safety concerns of combustion sources such as heating oil, propane and natural gas.

With summer in full swing and the mercury rising almost as high as system loads, now is the perfect time for a brief review of the latest in energy efficiency policies and proceedings throughout the region. We’re closely monitoring New York’s CEAC processes, while also keeping an eye on key regulatory proceedings in Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont with the potential for major impacts on energy efficiency in the region. Read on for more.

Spring has sprung, and it’s time for the latest edition of NEEP’s Policy Tracker. We’re closely watching Maryland’s EmPOWER proceedings after indications of a possible rollback of efficiency programs, while positive developments on the regulatory front are moving New Hampshire and Delaware closer to full program implementation. Read on for more…

Included in NEEP’s 2016 Regional Roundup is our take on what state energy offices, regulators and legislators can do to ensure that their states keep advancing on efforts to capture all cost-effective efficiency and keep riding the wave of this exciting “Next Generation".

Here's our Top Ten list of actions that policymakers can take to stay on course.

Please see the full report for more insights and analysis.

Home Energy Management Systems (HEMS) include any hardware and/or software system that can monitor and provide feedback about a home’s energy usage, and/or enable advanced control of energy-using systems and devices in the home. Often marketed through comfort and security lenses, HEMS ultimately have the opportunity to help provide deeper energy savings and harness the energy components of today to have the smart home of tomorrow.

The industrial sector represents more than 40 percent of total energy use in the buildings sector, spending more than $20 billion annually in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region alone. Industrial efficiency programs have some of the lowest cost of saved energy, meeting demand for as little as 3 ¢/kwh. Yet it is estimated that only 46 percent of industrial facilities engage in energy efficiency programs — leaving a substantial untapped potential on the table. 

In a major departure from traditional thinking that often compartmentalized energy efficiency efforts in a way which limits cross-fuel subsidization, Vermont is in the midst of promulgating final regulations for Act 56. This potentially-landmark bill would encourage the state’s utilities to sell more MWh’s by, amongst other things, electrifying the heating and transportation sectors.

Have you crossed paths with these terms recently? Becuase we certainly have.

“Utility 2.0”

“Utility of the Future”

“Intelligent Efficiency”

“Reforming the Energy Vision”

It’s hard to open a newsletter, attend a conference or read a blog these days without hearing or reading about the game-changing, landscape-altering, markets-animating, paradigm-shifting developments occurring in the world of energy efficiency.

But what, precisely, does it all mean?