California’s push for greater energy efficiency to dampen utility bills and cut greenhouse gases is going to require new institutions and sources of funding, according to a wide array of energy organizations. The state’s investor-owned utilities themselves say they simply cannot fully meet the state’s energy efficiency goals for the coming decade. To meet them, they say, it will take the cooperation of a wide array of institutions, from state agencies to banks, builders, and local governments. Utilities were not alone in arguing that new institutional arrangements and programs will be needed to meet the plan’s ambitious goals, which include net zero energy buildings. Utilities play an “important, but not a central role” in the future of energy efficiency, said Jody London, a consultant representing Santa Monica and Los Angeles County. At the same time, she said, local governments are likely to play a bigger role which will require new staff and funds. Division of Ratepayer Advocates staff counsel Diana Lee told the commission that “creation of a statewide market transformation entity will be required” to help commercialize energy efficient appliances and buildings. “Given shrinking utility savings goals and the potential available for utilities to pursue, it is essential for the state to keep finding ways to increase its pursuit of energy savings,” according to Lee. Compared to the past three years, the division noted that in the upcoming three years the investor-owned utilities plan to spend twice as much, about $4 billion, to achieve just half the energy savings. Utilities pleaded their case in a joint filing with the California Public Utilities Commission July 31 in response to its draft “California Long Term Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan” issued last month. In their joint filing, the investor-owned utilities criticized as “unrealistic” a goal in the CPUC’s draft plan to convert 50 percent of the state’s existing commercial buildings into zero net energy structures by 2030. To meet the goal, retrofitting would have to proceed at the rate of 250 million square feet of commercial building space a year. If ultimately adopted, the utilities said it “would immediately become the most difficult and expensive element of the entire strategic plan,” making it little more than “at best a counter-productive distraction.”
