Improving efficiency is almost always easier and cheaper than generating new power, so efficiency should be our first target in energy transition. But it’s usually the last. And while there are very effective incentives for renewable energy, the incentives and programs for efficiency have been far less effective. In this episode we talk with efficiency guru and innovator Matt Golden about how to get away from efficiency incentive programs, and switch to performance-based markets for energy efficiency, plus how to standardize efficiency projects so that they are easier to understand, trust, and finance. Thanks to ideas like these, energy efficiency may be about to hit the big time.
Geek rating: 9
Guest: Matt Golden, CEO of Open Energy Efficiency, and Director of the Investor Confidence Project
On Twitter: @GoldenMatt
On the Web:
http://www.openeemeter.org/
http://www.eeperformance.org/
Recording date: April 4, 2016
Air date: May 4, 2016
Links
Matt Golden, Greentech Media: “Let’s Get Real: The Energy Efficiency Industry Can Do Better” (Mar 2, 2015)
Matt Golden, Greentech Media: “From Programs to Markets: How to Make Efficiency a Valuable Real-Time Resource” (May 21, 2015)
Investor Confidence Project (ICP)
European Commission, ICP Europe: “Making energy retrofits a standardised product for the finance industry” (Apr 8, 2016)
PG&E: Advice letter to CPUC, “Submission of High Opportunity Projects and Programs (HOPPs) Proposal – Residential Pay-for-Performance Program” (Mar 25, 2016)
Reuters: “Israel to cut carbon emissions, sees $8 billion economic boost” (Apr 10, 2016)
Environmental Defense Fund: “New EPA Stats Confirm: Oil & Gas Methane Emissions Far Exceed Prior Estimates” (Apr 15, 2016)
EPA: “Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990 – 2014” (Apr 15, 2016)
Taylor Kuykendall, SNL: “Ahead of bankruptcy, Peabody cut production at nation’s largest coal mine by a third” (Apr 15, 2016)
