Energy Efficiency Quicker, Cheaper, Cleaner Solution

"New power plants and transmission wires aren’t the best answer to the nation’s growing electricity demands and increased threat of blackouts and brownouts during summer heat waves. It’s easier, quicker, cheaper, and cleaner to encourage energy-efficient technologies and peak load management," states Alliance to Save Energy President David M. Nemtzow.

"We can’t build in our way out of this problem. It’s too slow and expensive. Saving energy costs much less in every way than producing and delivering it. With today’s energy-efficient technologies," says Nemtzow, "we could reduce electricity consumption 30 percent with no reduction in comfort and also guarantee our future standard of life."

Impending restructuring of the electricity industry and related competition caused utility companies to slash investment in energy-efficiency programs by nearly 50 percent since 1993. The energy savings and peak demand reduction these programs could have provided are exacerbating the nations current capacity crunch. Growing power demands, warmer weather patterns, simultaneous heat waves, and governmental inaction are among other causes.

To boost the reliability of the nation’s electric system at the lowest possible cost, the Alliance urges government at all levels, utility companies, businesses, and consumers to be part of the solution.

Both supply and demand sides of the equation must be examined by Congress and state legislatures, says the Alliance, which urges creation of public benefits funding for energy-efficiency in all state and federal utility deregulation legislation. The Alliance further urges the Clinton administration to issue strong new efficiency standards this summer for residential air conditioners — which drive the peak electric load in summer.