EMBARGOED until: March 31, 2017
Boston, MA—Today the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE) releases its eleventh Annual Industry Report, which indicates sustained record levels of energy efficiency and demand response investment for customer and environmental benefit.
CEE Executive Director Ed Wisniewski offered his thoughts: “Despite ever-increasing cost cutting pressures on utilities and their tremendous record of accomplishment, the results indicate widespread recognition of remaining savings potential. The level of investment is a testament to the strength of utility and state government leadership.”
Total expenditures from all funding sources on gas and electric DSM programs in 2015 rose one percent over 2014, rising slightly over $8.7 billion. Highlights of the report include:
Consortium members verify facts about demand side management through projects such as the CEE Annual Industry Report. With a twenty-six year history of working together on binational initiatives, explorations, and positions, members are mindful of which projects require the efforts of all, including measuring the size and impact of the energy efficiency and demand response program industry.
Continuing investments in energy efficiency and demand response are a testament to the attractiveness of demand side management as a clean energy resource with many social and utility benefits.
Energy efficiency program administrators working in various states and provinces are mandated and funded to achieve long lasting reductions in energy use for the United States and Canada. Each of these programs operates with different goals, regulation, cost structures, and programs. Nevertheless, these administrators founded the Consortium for Energy Efficiency in 1991 to accelerate binational market uptake of measurably efficient products and services.
Eleven years ago, the Consortium initiated a survey of members and other efficiency program administrators to discover the size and momentum of the industry by measuring program budgets and impacts. Since 2006, the survey has grown in scope, adding Canadian programs and standardizing the format in 2007, and joining forces with major collaborator AGA in 2009. Since then, each year has seen consistent collection of information, deepening the efficiency picture. By coordinating the two organizations’ information needs, AGA and CEE have developed a more comprehensive reporting process with a lower burden on respondents.
The power of the CEE Annual Industry Report is in providing an annual trend analysis of demand side management budgets, expenditures, and savings. Mapping program administrator data into an aggregate and visible report of program funding and savings has been a project CEE members, thought leaders, and policy makers value. The 2016 Annual Industry Report represents data from the vast majority of large efficiency program administrators—320 utility and nonutility program administrators from every US state, the District of Columbia, and nine Canadian provinces. It is the most extensive known research on energy efficiency program funding and impacts. CEE and AGA work directly with program administrators on data collection and quality assurance efforts, under conditions of trust and confidentiality, resulting in more consistent and accurate data than when collected from a variety of sources. Because of this reputation, CEE members, federal agencies, industry organizations, evaluators, and others who need a reliable source of energy efficiency trends use CEE data.