RELATED STORY
Kara Rodgers is CEE's new gas program manager
Facilitator Doug Brookman worked with participants to develop lists of drivers and opportunities for gas efficiency as well as a vision.
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As part of its expanding commitment to gas-efficiency programs, CEE held the first Natural Gas Demand-Side Management Summit in Dallas Nov. 6-7.
This eight-hour conference, split over the two days, concentrated on identifying key North American roles to advance natural gas savings. Twenty-two organizations from the U.S. and Canada participated in this workshop.
“The summit was truly a great opportunity to work with other gas utilities from across the country to identify and develop a forward-thinking strategy for natural gas energy efficiency,” said Charlie Olsson, Manager of Residential Energy-Efficiency Services for NSTAR.
“More importantly, the summit resulted in providing a great platform and opportunity forCEE to really strengthen its position in the natural gas energy-efficiency arena and hopefully attract even more [gas] members.”
SUMMIT PARTICIPANTS
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ACEEE
Aquila
Bay State Gas
Berkshire Gas
California Energy Commission
Energy Trust of Oregon
Gaz Métro
KeySpan
MidAmerican Energy Company
Natural Resources Canada
NSTAR Electric & Gas
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NW Natural
NYSERDA
Pacific Gas & Electric
Puget Sound Energy
San Diego Gas & Electric
South Jersey Gas Company
Southern California Gas
Union Gas
Vermont Gas
Wisconsin Focus On Energy
Xcel Energy
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Drivers and opportunities
The stated objective of the Summit was to develop a shared vision for the future of gas efficiency and identify concrete actions to pursue this vision.
Toward that end, Summit participants listed and discussed the drivers of gas efficiency, the pressures being faced by program administrators and the program opportunities across North America.
The drivers for gas efficiency were categorized as:
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Environmental concerns
- Regulatory trends
- Policy and political issues
- Utility economics
- Technology factors
- Customer needs
- Utility corporate concerns
- Cross-cutting considerations
Historically high prices, increasing political pressure on energy use, concerns about climate change and customer satisfaction resonated as common themes from the participants. Another major topic of discussion focused on the growing reliance on natural gas for electricity generation.
Since natural gas-powered electricity generation tends to be efficient and less polluting than alternatives such as coal plants, it is expected that demand for natural gas electricity generation will continue to grow. This has put pressure on gas supplies at a time when domestic gas production is outpaced by overall demand.
This discussion of drivers was followed by a session on opportunities, in which attendees generated an extensive list of gas-saving opportunities, for both near and long-term consideration.
This list of opportunities provided a starting point for thinking creatively about efficiency programs and prioritizing areas for working together through CEE.
Opportunities for gas efficiency were divided into the following categories:
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Program design
- Technology
- Regulation
- Program expansion
- Partnerships
- Research
“CEE’s Natural Gas Summit was helpful and exciting because it addressed natural gas energy efficiency from technological and regulatory perspectives, both of which are important to increasing the amount of natural gas energy efficiency,” said David McCammant, Energy Efficiency Product Manager at MidAmerican Energy.
“Addressing regulatory barriers is a necessity to help CEE members expand natural gas energy efficiency programs to additional states and provinces.”
Developing action plans
Discussing the opportunities and drivers for gas efficiency led to a dialogue about strategies for cooperative efforts.
Participants selected five priority areas for working together. The first four centered on major end-use areas: residential space heating, residential water heating, commercial laundry and commercial space heating.
The fifth area addressed potential regulatory solutions that could support gas efficiency. For each of these areas, attendees drafted action plans that will serve as the basis for planning future work for the CEE Gas Committee.
These action plans, as well as an overview of the Summit, are available in CEE’s Report from the Summit: Outcomes and Next Steps. Contact Kara Rodgers, CEE’s Senior Program Manager of Natural Gas Programs (krodgers@cee1.org) for an electronic or hard copy version of this report.
In addition to critically examining drivers and opportunities for gas efficiency, a number of other relevant topics were discussed.
Fred Gordon, Director of Panning and Evaluation at the Energy Trust of Oregon, briefly discussed his organization’s recent study of gas savings potential and several other similar studies.
Martha Brook, Senior Mechanical Engineer at the California Energy Commission spoke about funding for gas technology research through the Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program. Ed Wisniewski, Deputy Director of CEE, discussed innovative program models.
Bruce Johnson, Director of Energy Management for KeySpan Energy Delivery New England, gave a presentation about his company’s efforts to increase efficiency for its 2.6 million gas customers.
Further details about these presentations, plus information about obtaining the PowerPoint slides, can be found in the Report from the Summit.
Moving forward
Virtually everyone agreed that CEE’s Natural Gas DSM Summit was a big boost for gas efficiency programming in North America. The Summit signified CEE’s growing commitment to natural gas efficiency.
“The Natural Gas Summit helped to jump-start the dialogue and lead a new charge to emphasize the importance of gas-efficiency programs going forward,” said Scott Harrington, Manager of Energy Services for Vermont Gas Systems.
In 2007, CEE is committing additional staff for gas programs, more than doubling the FTE allocation (to 3.0) from a year ago (see related story
about CEE’s new Senior Program Manager, Kara Rodgers). CEE is also restructuring member dues requirements to provide added funding for gas projects.
Equally important is an influx of new gas members, including Terasen Gas (British Columbia), Cascade Natural Gas (Washington/Oregon) and NW Natural, a former CEE member.
“We’re looking to CEE to play a significant role,” said KeySpan’s Johnson. “CEE is expanding staff and increasing funding for gas efficiency. We’re adding gas members.
“Now that we have the resources, we have to work to make things happen.”
One of the objectives of the Summit was to develop a shared vision for the future of gas efficiency in North America.
After about an hour of focused discussion, participants came up with the following statement: “Lead a robust and expanding natural gas efficiency marketplace to achieve a sustainable energy future for North America.”
“The Summit was the first step that will enable members to move forward with new energy-efficiency programs that would be far more difficult to develop on an individual basis,” said Derek Buchler, Manager of Demand Side Management for Bay State Gas Co.
“CEE has shown that it is serious about gas energy efficiency across all customer sectors.”
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