The Pee Dee is entering the time of year when the weather is so pleasant that residents will likely think less about their energy-consumption habits. They can shut off the heat and also refrain from using the air conditioner. Nonetheless, southern Florence County and the rest of South Carolina will soon face weather that’s as extremely hot as the freezing temperatures of this past winter. There’s no time better than the present to get serious about being efficient.
South Carolina was ranked 37th on the 2009 State Energy Efficiency Scorecard by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. The nonprofit council, also known as ACEEE, says the state can improve its score without harming its economy and, in fact, could save money and create jobs in the process.
ACEEE says it decided to work with South Carolina as part of its State Clean Energy Resource Project because the state’s leaders in the public and private sectors are showing interest and initiative regarding improvements in energy efficiency.
One example is that U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has been working with Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass, and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., on a bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as fund nuclear power and carbon-sequestration techniques for coal-fired plants.
ACEEE isn’t anti-coal or anti-nuclear; it just wants energy used as efficiently as possible, because unused energy is the cheapest energy of all.
The council has recommended eight electricity policies that it says could prevent the need for any new power plants and save energy rate payers $5.1 billion by 2025:
- Advanced building initiative
- Behavioral initiative
- Combined heat and power
- Leading by example — not dictating usage, but setting a baseline
- Low-income weatherization
- Manufactured homes initiative
- Manufacturer intiative
- Rural and agricultural initiative
The policies could meet 10 percent of the state’s electricity needs by 2025, according to ACEEE. Meanwhile, an additional 8 percent of the needs could be met if utilities are required to create their own efficiency programs through an energy efficiency resource standard, or EERS.
An EERS sets energy savings targets for utilities, which often have the option of meeting the targets through a market-based trading system, ACEEE’s Web site states.
Ten years ago, Texas was the first state to institute an EERS, which requires utilities to offset 10 percent of their demand growth through end-use energy efficiency, according to ACEEE.
The council also says that energy efficiency investments in South Carolina could create about 22,000 “green-collar” jobs designing, installing and operating the efficiency measures.
Improving energy efficiency is an issue that deserves the attention of our state’s legislators and the next governor. Making the plunge into more efficient power usage can improve quality of life in the long run. Now seems to be the time to act, given state leaders’ demonstrated interest in cutting the electricity we use.
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