January 7
ComEd Customers Saved $6 Billion Through Energy Efficiency Program
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
Member News
A new report from Illinois-based ComEd credited its energy efficiency program with saving customers more than $6 billion on energy bills since 2008 and enough energy to power more than 6.5 million homes for a year. Importantly, as a green effort, it also cut more than 61 billion pounds of carbon emissions from entering the air, meaning it had the equivalent effect of removing more than six million cars from the road for a whole year.
North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives plan to install battery energy storage technology in 10 communities across rural parts of the state. The batteries will be sited at electric cooperative substations, adding what are expected to be local energy resources for enhanced grid infrastructure resilience and reliability. The batteries are being engineered and constructed by North Carolina-based FlexGen.
The California Public Utilities Commission recently approved a $1.2 billion, 537.5 MW/2,150 MWh energy storage contract between Southern California Edison (SCE) and Ameresco, the latest in a string of efforts to ensure grid reliability during the summer months. The contract includes energy storage projects at three existing SCE substations in the Big Creek-Ventura and the Los Angeles Basin areas, which are scheduled to come online by August.
A new report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) detailed the importance of energy-efficient retrofits for homes and why federal support is necessary to spur affordable retrofits that save on energy use and reduce emissions. Energy retrofits involve upgrading the homes with thick insulation, thorough air sealing, efficient heat pumps and other measures. They also include actions like switching to LED lights, buying insulated shades, replacing furnaces, windows and the roof.
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Industry News
A Shenandoah Valley clean energy entrepreneur is on the verge of replicating his solar “barn raising” prototype in communities throughout Virginia. It was a sense of accomplishment in his own backyard that imbued Jeff Heie with the confidence to invite Habitat for Humanity affiliates statewide to join an endeavor pioneered last spring by his Give Solar initiative with Central Valley Habitat.
More wind power capacity was installed in 2019 and 2020 than any other generating technology, according to a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). EIA data showed that annual wind turbine capacity additions in the United States set a record in 2020, totaling 14.2 gigawatts (GW). That eclipsed the previous record of 13.2 GW set in 2012. Currently, the total wind turbine capacity in the United States is 118 GW.
Coming on the heels of its announcement that it has added EVs to its fleet, Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) said that its Transportation Electrification Program (TEP) has been approved by state utility regulators. The program is designed to help PNM customers adopt EVs by providing incentives for charging infrastructure, and by offering EV-specific electricity rates, customer outreach on the benefits of EVs and creating jobs to help administer the program.
Residents of lower-income neighborhoods in the U.S. are less likely to find energy-efficient LED lightbulbs in their local stores — and if they do find them, they tend to pay more for them than do people in wealthier neighborhoods. That’s one finding from groundbreaking research by Tony Reames, a University of Michigan professor who joined the U.S. Department of Energy in June as senior adviser to the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity.
