Strategic Electrification

Welcome to the latest REED Rendering issue, a series of blogs where we bring your attention to interesting trends that we see in the data and the stories behind those trends.

The season of coming together with friends and family is fast approaching, and Thanksgiving will kick it off this week. With this, I think about the past year and what I am grateful for, as well as what I look forward to most in the New Year.

The content of this blog first appeared as an article co-authored by NEEP's Lisa Cascio (PR Manager) and Dave Lis (Director of Technology and Market Solutions) in the fall 2017 issue of BuildingEnergy Magazine, a publication of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association. The original article can be found starting on page 10.

I have been lucky enough to attend the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) Annual Meeting, this year held in New Orleans. This has been a great opportunity for a couple of reasons. Professionally, I’ve been able to network with different stakeholders across the country. Personally, I took advantage of the opportunity to dive right into the NOLA experience with my first beignet and Sazerac cocktail. 

Is using electricity almost exclusively for all energy needs – such as transportation, home heating and industry uses – really a key part of the global warming solution? Well, it absolutely is. Of course it’s critical to decarbonize the grid with wind and solar and other renewables as part of the process, but dramatically shifting energy uses to electricity, while also making them more efficient, is indeed a key part of deep carbon reduction.

It is with mixed emotions that I write this blog to bid adieu to one of the hallmarks of energy efficiency, residential lighting. While homes across the region and nation still have inefficient lighting technologies installed, the market transformation path for this measure is all but inevitable, and the need for NEEP’s continued thought leadership has ended.