CEE Sixth Annual Industry Partners Meeting: New Energy Tapped for Energy Efficiency

“We are facing the urgency of the climate crisis, and carbon is going to be the driving force,” Gene Rodrigues of Southern California Edison reminded the audience of 159 individuals representing 52 companies, and 40 CEE members in New Orleans.

“Energy efficiency is our nation’s most reliable, cheapest, highest tech, and greenest resource. It also creates good jobs. We do not have time to dawdle around. We must save energy, we must reduce carbon, and we must do it today.”

Gene Rodrigues, Southern California Edison

Rodrigues, past CEE Board president and current director exhorted the audience to “tap into energy efficiency like a frat boy on Friday night."

He went on to restate the role of CEE members in educating, cajoling, and even bribing consumers to buy the products and services provided by our industry partners. These products and services were addressed in two days of workshops and one day of work previous to the official work with manufacturers. Topics included water-wastewater blower efficiency, gas PAC design, outreach to water heater installers, data centers, comprehensive lighting approaches (both residential and commercial), residential HVAC, and whole house.

Roland Risser, current CEE Board president, described upcoming trends in energy efficiency, along with a sea change in Washington, D.C. “Energy efficiency has been the dog chasing the bus for decades. Now we’ve caught the bus and have to figure out what to do with it.” Kumar Dhuvar, one of the authors of the McKinsey & Co. report Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the U.S. followed with the analogy that energy efficiency is like finding a twenty dollar bill on the street. “Only it’s not like picking up a twenty dollar bill, it’s picking up 2000 pennies.” He reviewed the findings of the report, which details market barriers faced by energy efficiency programs in all of their markets.

Six leading end use industries were represented: gas HVAC, residential HVAC, lighting, consumer electronics, motors, and variable speed drives. Fred Gordon, Energy Trust of Oregon, a long time member, stated, “Building relationships with manufacturers and delivery people is very important. What new products are planned? Which ones can we support? Communication both ways has been really good. I’m going back home with a list of new products, including some we didn’t know about.”

Dick Kirsche, director of set-top box design at Comcast, commented, “This meeting is important because our industry doesn’t have a good understanding of what is happening in this space. Our job is to make our customers happy, but beyond a few conversations with EPA, we don’t have an appreciation for the carbon situation. The magnitude or seriousness of the situation is something I need to bring back to Comcast.”

Margaret Song, of Cape Light Compact commented on how the “opportunity to network and speak face to face on these issues, including the future of energy efficiency, is one of the keys to this meeting. I really like it!”


From left to right: Kandice Cohen, Lutron;
Kate Baldacci, CEE; Bob Thomas, Lite Control

In the lighting arena, Ric Erdheim of Philips Electronics made clear that he “enjoyed the sessions and found the utility partners eager to work with responsible companies in pursuit of energy efficiency.”

While Industry Partner meetings have certainly been successful in the past, advancing work on many fronts, the enthusiasm and sense of change was palpable at this one. As one participant, Patrick Mathot from BC Hydro Power Smart, put it, “CEE is the premier forum for energy efficiency marketing organizations.” CEE provides a forum for its members, who can then work together with government and industry to address both the details and the big picture before us.