Results Center provides feedback
Results Center provides feedback
Successful demand-side management programs are rarely reported on. However, the newly established, US-based Results Center will serve to remedy this problem.
IRT Environment, Inc. launched the Results Center in January 1992 to gather, analyze, and provide useful and standardized information on the most successful energy-efficiency programs in North America. Target groups include utilities, policymakers, the media, advocates, and international energy ministries, The Results Center does essentially four things:
-
Selects key energy efficiency success stories
-
Researchs and publishes succinct profiles
- Packages materials to be highly effective
- Provides high levels of client support
According to Ted Flanigan, Director of IRT Environment, "there is a missing link in the implementation of energy efficiency and what utilities refer to as demand-side management (DSM). First, there has really been very little success in capturing the huge potentials for efficient use of electricity. Second, even the most successful programs are rarely reported. Thus there is little sharing of the best programs and just plain too much reinventing the wheel".
At the core of the Results Center services are technical profiles that provide rigorous analysis in a highly accessible format. Each profile documents the costs of the programs in levelized US dollars as well as savings in energy terms, dollars, and avoided pollution. Many of these profiles focus on advanced, energy-efficient lighting opportunities in the residential and commercial sectors. The first fifteen exemplary DSM profiles are now available.
The profiles offer a broad range of highly successful programs that are effectively designed to accomplish specific objectives. For example, Southern California Edison has given away more than a million compact fluorescent lamps to low-income customers in its service territory at a cost of over US$23 million. The giant utility had difficulty using traditional approaches to provide DSM services for its low-income customers, many of whom are recent immigrants to the United States and who tend to be distrustful of governments and large companies. SCE has found success in implementing the program by using community-based organizations to interact with these customers and by assuming the full cost of new equipment.
Another innovative means of getting energy-efficient lighting into residences has been used in Burlington, Vermont. Burlington Electric leases compact fluorescents to its customers. Savings on customers' bills are greater than their lease payments, and the "Smartlight" program has far exceeded its projections both in terms of the total number of lamps placed and lamps placed per home.
Consolidated Edison of New York first began to offer rebates for efficient lighting in midtown Manhattan because it was cheaper to invest in efficient customer lighting systems than to tear up the streets and install upgraded distribution systems. Con Edison's Enlightened Energy Program is now the driving force behind a campuswide, 42-building lighting retrofit underway at Columbia University. Columbia has been able to participate thanks to a US$1 million rebate from Con Edison.
By January 1993, the Results Center will have profiled 16 exemplary lighting programs throughout North America. These profiles present an array of program objectives, financing mechanisms, and results.
For more information, contact:
Morgan Walsh
IRT Environment, Inc
PO Box 10990
Aspen, CP 81612, USA
Tel: +1 303 927 3155
Fax: +1 303 927 9428