The prospect of using increased energy efficiency to comply with federal emission rules could prove a heavy lift for states without new standards from the Obama administration to guide them.
The Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t told states how to structure their efficiency programs to comply with new power-plant regulations, known as the Clean Power Plan, despite prodding by state energy officials and a number of other groups.
The EPA plan is the centerpiece of President Obama’s plan to address the threat of climate change by setting state-specific emission targets that states are required to begin complying with in 2020. The goal of the rules is a countrywide 30 percent reduction by 2030 in emissions, which most scientists blame for driving manmade climate change. States can use a mixture of renewable energy, energy efficiency, increased natural gas electricity generation, and heat-rate improvements at coal plants to comply.
Critics argue that the rules could make the electricity system less reliable by shuttering coal plants prematurely in a bid to increase electricity from solar and wind. They also argue that the rules would raise the price of electricity.
Proponents are urging states and local governments, despite the lack of guidance from the EPA, not to lose sight of the fact that energy efficiency is the cheapest resource for reducing emissions when compared with renewables and other clean energy sources. Energy efficiency is also an area where Democrats and Republicans agree.
The former deputy administrator of the EPA, Bob Perciasepe, said Monday that if states can align to create a uniform energy-efficiency system, the results would be a “big deal” for the country in both reduced energy costs and progress toward environmental goals.
“The cheapest alternative to reducing emissions is reducing demand for electricity” through energy efficiency, said Perciasepe, speaking at a forum hosted by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, or C2ES, where he serves as president.
Many states have an energy-efficiency program in place, but there may be profound differences in how they are run and implemented. Some states may have robust measurement and verification systems to account for emission reductions and energy savings. Others may not have a measurement system at all.
States want the EPA to tell them what types of measurement and verification they should have and how they should structure their programs so that they understand what can and cannot receive credit under the rules.
Steve Nadal, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, said the EPA will likely issue the energy efficiency guidance when it issues the final emission rules in the summer. He says the plan is not official, but it is what the agency has been telling groups is likely.
In the end, “I don’t know what they’re going to do,” Nadal said.
Nadal’s group is part of a coalition that asked the EPA for a set of specific documents giving states clear rules on how to design their efficiency programs.
It’s not a perfect situation, Nadal says, but it is workable. He projects that even if the efficiency guidance doesn’t come out until the emission rules are issued, states that have robust programs will probably have little problem fitting their programs into state compliance plans. “I am not saying it’s a piece of cake,” but it is probably doable, Nadal said.
States with little or no efficiency programs are probably looking at two to four years to ramp up a program to meet the Clean Power Plan’s timeline, he said. States have until next year to draft their compliance plans.
Nadal says his estimate is based on EPA’s efficiency rules being workable. If there is some kind of problem with the rules then they would have to be refined, and that will take more time.
“No matter how this comes out in the final plan that EPA puts out, the truth that this is the cheapest approach will always be there, and that alternative is always there for the states to move ahead,” Perciasepe said. “The great opportunity is under the planning and processes that go on in the next year, that we can create improved alignment, and accelerate implementation.”
