WELCOME TO THE INAUGURAL ISSUE OF Con.WEB, a monthly online magazine covering energy conservation, energy efficiency, demand-side management and renewable energy in the greater Pacific Northwest.
Con.WEB is the cyberspace successor to Conservation Monitor, a regional energy conservation newsletter published from 1991 through 1995 by Energy NewsData with sponsorship from Northwest utilities and industry groups.
Like Conservation Monitor, Con.WEB is sponsored by a number of entities and will focus on a wide range of demand-side matters in the Northwest, along with some renewable energy developments. Con.WEB will also provide hypertext links so readers can access related Internet resources. And our FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section, faq@newsdata.com, will let readers electronically share questions, comments and other thoughts related to Northwest energy conservation and renewables, as well as to Con.WEB.
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Much has changed since the Northwest Power Planning Council developed its 1991 Conservation and Electric Power Plan. With an imminent need for new resources looming, the Council at that time set a top regional priority of acquiring at least 1,500 average megawatts of efficiency improvements in the 1990s. From 1992 to 1994, the region did its job: Northwest utility acquisitions in those years totaled about 350 aMW, far surpassing the target of about 200 aMW, according to Council figures.
Now, however, the region has plenty of electricity. A Council analysis from last August showed a West Coast surplus of at least 3,000 aMW, at bargain prices of between 2 and 3 cents/kilowatt-hour wholesale. In addition, the Council found the inflation-adjusted price for wholesale electricity from Northwest power plants had dropped from 4.3 cents/KWh in 1991 to 2.5 cents/KWh in 1995.
| 1991 Northwest Conservation and Electric Power Plan | 1996 Northwest Conservation and Electric Power Plan (draft) | |
| Regional conservation target by 2000: 1,515 aMW (a) | Identified cost-effective conservation over 20 years: 1,450 aMW (d) | |
| Estimated total spending: $7 billion (b) | Net present value: $2 billion | |
| Avoided-cost threshold: 5.5 cents/kilowatt-hour | Avoided-cost threshold: 2 - 2.5 cents/kilowatt-hour | |
| Utility accomplishments 1992-94: 350 aMW (c) | ||
| Footnotes: (a) Under medium-high growth forecast; (b) Utility and end-use customer spending; (c) Target based on power plan: 200 aMW; (d) Under medium growth forecast. Source: Northwest Power Planning Council | ||
The plummeting price of power figures prominently in the conservation section of the Council's soon-to-be-released 1996 draft plan. This time, the Council uses a cost-effectiveness threshold of between 2 and 2.5 cents/KWh; in 1991, the cutoff was 5.5 cents/KWh. Thus, substantially fewer efficiency improvements are now considered cost-effective--a projected 1,450 aMW over 20 years, or about half that projected earlier for the 1990s alone.
"It's significantly lower than what it used to be, but it's still bigger than a breadbox and it's a large resource. That's the bottom line," said Council conservation analyst Margie Gardner.
The 1,450 aMW of cost-effective energy savings identified by the Council also would save the region an estimated $2 billion over the next 20 years, compared to no conservation acquisitions.
Broken down by end-use sectors, the draft plan lists 562 aMW in the residential sector, 510 aMW in industrial facilities, 375 aMW in commercial and 9 aMW in irrigation. Compared to the 1991 plan, those figures represent a big increase for industrial and a modest decrease for commercial. New commercial energy codes in Washington and Oregon largely account for the smaller commercial forecast, according to Gardner.
Some of the specific up-and-coming conservation measures in the plan include building commissioning, lighting design for commercial buildings, horizontal-axis clothes washers, refrigerator/freezers and super-efficient residential windows.
Somewhat fuzzier than the numbers in the draft plan are the means by which the identified conservation might be acquired. As of mid-January, the Council projects about 500 aMW of the 1,450 aMW will come through momentum from utility programs over the next two to three years, combined with the workings of the free market over the long term.
What about the rest? Here, the Council lays out potential options, including conservation mandates for monopoly distribution utilities and a universal system benefits charge. The draft plan also suggests various principles to follow should public entities intervene in the conservation marketplace.
These ideas could be further scrutinized by the Regional Review now under way, Gardner noted. In any case, the Council is tentatively scheduled to adopt its draft plan in February and then open a lengthy public comment period that will last through the Regional Review process. Any conclusions from the review could be incorporated into the Council's final plan.--Mark Ohrenschall
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A year after it began formally examining electric utility regulation for a changing era, the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission on Dec. 11 approved eight principles intended to help guide the transition to a more competitive future.
Among those principles: "Development of competitive electricity markets should not undermine public policies favoring environmental protection, energy efficiency, resource diversity, and technological innovation. If these policies are to be realized, a host of parties will have important roles to play, including utilities, new market entrants, electricity customers, and environmental regulatory and other agencies of government. . . . " And finally, the commission said, "Approaches that encourage the development of markets for energy efficiency and renewable generation equipment should be emphasized."
These and the other policy principles are not prescriptions, WUTC staffers emphasized. Nor can the commission prejudge any specific proposals from investor-owned electric utilities it regulates (Puget Sound Power & Light, Washington Water Power and Pacific Power). "In concept and in principle this is what we think is probably an approach that's more consistent with a more competitive marketplace," explained WUTC's Dick Byers.
The formal comments received by the WUTC during its year-long inquiry showed widespread support for maintaining public-policy goals in a more competitive electric world, Byers noted. "That's not to say there was consensus on how they should be achieved," he cautioned.
Consensus has yet to develop in Montana, either, but a number of parties have endorsed the notion of a "universal system benefits charge" to fund conservation, renewables and low-income programs (see Conservation Monitor, July/August 1995 and September/October 1995); a similar charge has been endorsed by the California Public Utilities Commission as part of its recently approved industry restructuring plan.
In response to the Montana Public Service Commission's inquiry into electric industry restructuring, the state's dominant utility, Montana Power, proposed a transmission and distribution "wires charge" that could be assessed on all grid-connected electric customers, as a percentage of their bills. Montana Power envisions such a fund earmarked for low-income services, cost-effective conservation programs and renewable energy programs. The money collected would best be distributed through competitive bidding.
However, the utility listed two huge caveats: the systems benefit charge must be levied in other Northwest states, and at a level comparable to other such charges in Montana Power's market area (for cooperatives, municipals and other electric-service providers).
Also supporting a system benefits charge, to varying degrees, are PacifiCorp, Natural Resources Defense Council, Northwest Conservation Act Coalition, Renewable Northwest Project, American Wind Energy Association and Enron Power Marketing. Among those opposing such a charge or expressing serious reservations are Montana-Dakota Utilities, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and three rural cooperative groups, including Western Montana Electric Generating and Transmission Cooperative.
The Montana PSC has scheduled a public roundtable discussion of electric industry restructuring issues on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in Helena.--Mark Ohrenschall
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As conservation has undergone reinvention, there has been much discussion about customer service and, more specifically, giving customers more control over their use of the basic utility product-electricity. Portland General Electric has taken the issue beyond talk, with two Oregon programs that give residential customers the opportunity to control their electrical demand. One is time-of-day rates; the other is a pilot program to install automated space- and water-heat controls in residences.
PGE plans to install 750 home-control units in selected customer households, both to test the units' effectiveness as load-management tools and to gain experience in the use of customer/utility communication equipment. The utility hopes to have 200 units installed by the end of February; as of mid-January, 30 had been installed and 50 more customers had signed up for the program.
PGE is targeting three categories of customers for the service, according to spokesman Dave Heintzman. One involves residential customers who would most likely be interested in the home-control units as a way to gain more control over their usage and lower their total bills. Another is customers served by a specific local distribution feeder, where the HCUs could be used to manage load and, therefore, delay the need for system upgrades otherwise needed to meet growth. The third category includes customers who primarily heat with wood but might use HCUs to manage electricity as a backup for preheating their homes in early-morning off-peak hours, before someone is up to start stoking the wood stove.
PGE will charge customers for installing the residential home automation equipment, from $25 for water-heat control to $70 for inside-home controls of both the water- and space-heat systems, as well as a $2 monthly service fee. The monthly fee will be waived for customers in the load-control category; they'll also receive $10 to $15 rebates on the installation charges.
Although not directly tied to the residential home-automation services, PGE's time-of-day rates also provide customers with more choices on when they'll use the utility's main product. PGE has offered time-of-day rates since summer 1994, but filed revisions with the Oregon Public Utility Commission in late 1995, after customer focus groups indicated concerns with the existing schedule. The focus groups felt the time-of-day structure imposed higher prices "at times when the customer needs to use energy for cooking and other uses," Heintzman said, making them hesitant to try the off-peak rates even if they could shift a significant amount of their demand to off-peak periods. "[We] wanted one [a time-of-day rate] that provides more incentive. . .so a customer is not penalized for normal use but has an incentive for going off-peak."
PGE isn't the only Northwest utility to experiment with time-of-day rates. In its recent filing with OPUC, Pacific Power has proposed establishing three time-of-day pricing options for residential customers, in addition to a standard flat rate (see Conservation Monitor, September/October 1995).--Jude Noland
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Coupling efficient use of energy with efficient use of wood-based products can result in affordable urban housing, the Center for Resourceful Building Technology of Missoula, MT, has demonstrated with its Timber-Tech house. The dwelling features reused wood, wood-based composite materials and engineered lumber, as well as an on-demand water heater, zonal heating and energy-efficient windows with frames of fiberglass and wood.
Since its inception in 1990, the Center for Resourceful Building Technology has been at the forefront of the "green" homebuilding movement. CRBT's Recraft 90 demonstration home, completed in 1992 (see Conservation Monitor, August 1992), was one of the first in the nation to combine energy- and resource-efficient building products and techniques in new residential construction. When CRBT embarked on its second demonstration project, the group wanted to build something "affordable and replicable," according to CRBT research director Tracy Mumma.
The resulting Timber-Tech House--completed last summer--uses wood-based materials that come "right off the shelf" and are available locally, Mumma said. Timber-Tech was built for CRBT as a spec house, by Southwall Builders, and listed at $115,000. Although that's the high end of affordable in Missoula, Mumma said the Timber-Tech house is in an older neighborhood within walking distance from downtown and other amenities.
The house was open to the public in August; Mumma said between 300 and 400 people toured the 966-square-foot home. "People were impressed with the openness of the design," she said. The craftsman style of the house fits with the older homes in the neighborhood, while its open floor plan, long views and use of daylighting make it seem larger.
Southwall took great advantage of used wood in Timber-Tech. The maple floor was once a high school gym's basketball court; the fir window sills and window seat came from bleachers in the same gym. Baseboard and door trim were milled from wood salvaged from a commercial remodeling project.
The framing includes window and door headers of engineered I-beams and finger-jointed studs made from short lengths of dimensional lumber and mill ends. Wall and roof insulation is cellulose made from recycled newspaper.
The house has R-21 walls, R-45 ceilings and R-19 floors. There is no central heating system; the living room is heated by a direct-vented natural gas heater--"a box about the size of a steam radiator," according to Mumma--with zonal electric heating in the bedrooms. The home also includes a tankless on-demand water heater and an air-to-air heat exchanger.--Jude Noland
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The Lighting Design Lab's December presentation on auspicious lighting news stemmed from observations gleaned at LightFair, the nation's largest lighting trade show held earlier in the year in Chicago.
Randy Smith and Mary Claire Frazier of the Lighting Lab reported some highlights:
A hybrid of the best features of sodium and halide light sources, the ceramic arc tube offers significant energy savings (a 35-watt lamp can replace a 150-watt light source), 10 to 20 percent more light output than conventional metal-halide lamps of the same wattage, and excellent color rendering.
Photograph courtesy of Philips Lighting
Although fairly expensive now, Smith said the ceramic arc tube is likely to get cheaper as General Electric starts to compete in this market with Philips Lighting. And ceramic arcs are already being installed in a number of Seattle locations; they could find a niche in small retail businesses with high ceilings.
Smith cited the University of Washington as a local example. The UW now pays about $10 per ballast--roughly half the price from two years ago.
The emergence of higher-wattage compact fluorescent lamps is "quite significant," in Smith's view. A 32-watt CF lamp (roughly equal in light output to a 150-watt incandescent) is already "slowly" penetrating the market, and a 42-watt CF (nearly equivalent to a 200-watt incandescent) is coming. There are even rumors of 55-watt CFs, which Smith said could equal smaller metal-halide lamps.
This development opens up a whole range of CF downlighting opportunities in commercial spaces with high ceilings, according to Smith.
Among other new lighting technologies of interest: the Alto lamp from Philips, which has a sharply reduced mercury content; innovative CF shapes, including GE's Heliax, which resembles a Dairy Queen ice-cream cone; amalgam lamp technology for CFs, which enables greater light production at colder and warmer air temperatures; "smart bulbs" with built-in dimming, nightlights and timers; thinner profile ballasts and T-5 lamps; hand-held remote dimming of fluorescent lights; and fiber-optic light sources, which Smith described as "promising in some niche areas" such as accent lighting, display-case lighting, entertainment and landscape lighting.
Finally, Smith noted an important trend evident at LightFair: the declining role of utility rebates in the marketing of lighting products. "You heard people talk about how their products would pay for themselves without rebates. The lighting business is looking at a post-utility-incentive universe." However, he cautioned, this also means a dimming of lighting product specifications required by utility rebate programs.--Mark Ohrenschall
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New minimum energy-efficiency standards have been established for a variety of household and business products manufactured or sold in British Columbia . The standards affect compact fluorescent lights, incandescent reflector lamps, metal halide roadway lights, dusk-to-dawn area lights, three-phase single package air conditioners and heat pumps, packaged water chillers, electric motors of 1 to 200 horsepower, and electric water heaters. The standards--which take effect at various times through August 1996--will be included in future Canadian federal regulations. Similar standards are in place or planned in Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Quebec.
David Tooze of the city of Portland Energy Office has been named national Energy Manager of the Year by the Association of Professional Energy Managers. Tooze, who runs a city program aimed at trimming utility bills in municipal facilities, has coordinated more than 30 energy-efficiency projects that have saved Portland $1.9 million since 1991. Notable works include motor efficiencies stemming from improved processes at the city's Columbia Boulevard wastewater treatment plant; lighting retrofits at downtown parking garages, offices and other public facilities; and assorted HVAC and control upgrades. Tooze considers himself primarily a facilitator, helping the city's facilities managers recognize the many advantages of saving energy, including maintenance savings, increased worker comfort and productivity, and environmental benefits. Top Portland elected officials also have made a difference by explicitly supporting energy conservation, Tooze said.
A series of "Energy Exchange" roundtable meetings, which will include discussion of public power utility conservation programs, has been scheduled at eight regional locations beginning Jan. 23 in Vancouver, WA, and concluding Feb. 7 in Idaho Falls, Idaho. "It's a great opportunity for [utility] marketing, DSM, conservation people to get together and talk about things going on at their utility," said Jim Brands of the Northwest Public Power Association, the sponsoring group. Each meeting also will include discussion of NWPPA training. For more information on specific dates, times and locations, call NWPPA at 360/254-0109.
A workshop entitled "Passive Solar Design Strategies: Guidelines for Home Building" is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 24, at the Lighting Design Lab in Seattle. Intended for homebuilders, architects, utility and government representatives, homebuyers, homeowners and others, the workshop will examine how a strategic combination of natural elements (including sunlight, breezes and landscaping) and green-building techniques can help create a comfortable, energy-efficient home. The workshop is specifically tailored to the western Washington climate. Registration fee is $100. For more information, call Tanya Skaper of the Washington, D.C.-based Passive Solar Industries Council, 202/628-7400, ext. 200.
Tacoma City Light may purchase the output from a proposed power plant that would burn methane from a city landfill to produce electricity. The utility is working on a draft five-year power purchase contract for the proposed plant, which will produce an estimated 3 average megawatts of electricity annually, City Light spokesman Korte Brueckmann said.
City Light is dealing with Minnesota Methane Limited Liability, a subsidiary of Northern States Power. Brueckmann said an important condition of the contract for Tacoma City Light is that the project go beyond meeting federal noise regulations to meet "community standards" for noise levels. The plant would be located on a Tacoma landfill near Fircrest. Minnesota Methane has signed contracts with Tacoma Public Works for operations and maintenance, gas leases and easements for the facility. The on-line goal is before the end of this year.--Jude Noland
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Con.WEB is a World Wide Web publication focusing on energy conservation in the greater Pacific Northwest. Con.WEB is sponsored by Eugene Water & Electric Board, Clark Public Utilities, Seattle City Light, Tacoma City Light, Idaho Power, Montana Power, PacifiCorp, Portland General Electric, Puget Power and the Bonneville Power Administration. OFFICES: Mail--P.O. Box 900928, Seattle, WA 98109-9228. EXPRESS: 117 West Mercer Street, Seattle, WA 98119. TELEPHONE: 206/285-4848. FAX: 206/281-8035. E-MAIL: iod@newsdata.com. Con.WEB was created by the Energy NewsData Web team, including: Publisher--Cyrus Noë; Editor--Mark Ohrenschall; Associate Editor--Jude Noland; Contributing Editors--Pamela Russell and Ben Tansey; Editorial Operations and Webmaster--Karen Hatch; Development Associate--Whitney Dickinson; General Manager--Brooke Dickinson; Office Manager--Denise Lee; Graphic Design--Katherine Whitehall
Last modified: January 18, 1996
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