Incentives for Energy Efficiency Look Different These Days

If you’re looking for rebates for installing energy efficient systems, look again. Incentive programs to help executives pay for these systems are still available, but they are taking different forms. The goal now is to help people make decisions that make sense for the long-term, says Pat Meier, director of the Wisconsin Energy Markets Bureau, a unit of the State of Wisconsin’s Division of Energy and Public Benefits. “If you do something only because the price is artificially low, it’s not sustainable,” she says. Instead, programs are increasingly designed to help people understand that it’s in their ongoing best interest to use energy efficient building techniques and systems.

The new programs also reflect the ways deregulated markets work, so they focus on projects that target periods of peak power usage. Projects that help level a building’s use of energy will become increasingly important in obtaining reasonably priced energy in the future. “Reducing consumption isn’t enough anymore,” says Mark Ewing, director of the Energy Center of Expertise with the U.S. General Services Administration. “You also want to manage it better.”

A number of utilities and non-profits assist with the dual goals of energy reduction and load leveling. One way is through education. For instance, the Wisconsin Energy Markets Bureau regularly holds training seminars for building technicians and carpenters on topics such as the proper use of air-to-air exchanges and building controls.

Sometimes, the assistance is one-on-one. Meier’s organization worked with a printing company whose emissions exceeded regulations. They helped the firm design a system that recycles the emissions back into ink. “Its costs are down, and it’s now selling the system around the world,” says Meier. The group also came up with partial funding for the project.

Similarly, the Energy Center of Wisconsin assists companies that are building new facilities to incorporate daylighting techniques by providing case studies and facility tours. They also offer monetary incentives in select cases. Says executive director, Mark Hanson, “They are expensive, but sometimes you need to use them. But they are more of a tactical device, versus an end in themselves.”

Another program that focuses on designing energy efficient buildings is Savings by Design. The three major California utilities – San Diego Gas & Electric, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison – manage the program. “It’s the first time we’ve focused so directly on the designers of the building,” says a spokesman from Southern California Edison.

Savings by Design pays building owners (up to $250,000) and designers (up to $50,000) when they design energy efficient facilities that exceed California’s state energy code by at least 15 percent. The amount paid depends on the design’s level of efficiency. The program also provides design assistance.

The Palo Alto-based Electric Power Research Institute has worked with a number of businesses to install its Real Time Pricing building controller system. The system can adjust a building’s energy use to account for changes in the price power on a real time basis. If the cost per kilowatt-hour exceeds a certain level (as determined by the facility executive), the system may reduce the lighting and cooling system activity by several percent. A controller installed in the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York helped the building slash about $350,000 from its utility bills over a two-year period.

FROM Building Operating Management, October 2000.