Last week Austin Energy formally recommended to the city council that it begin planning for the 2012 rate case that we've known about for some time. A confluence of circumstances, including workforce issues, new transmission, rising fossil fuel costs and decreases in revenue this past year have made what will be Austin Energy's first base rate increase in 15 years (!) a real necessity. 

At this point only a few of the costs are known or even quantifiable, particularly the transmission and fossil fuel costs to the system. In looking at Austin Energy's report, the cost for new transmission to bring more wind to Texas will be less – about 0.7¢/month for the average customer in 2015. If fossil fuel prices don't increase more than they have over the past six years, the General Fund Transfer costs associated with fossil fuels might be only 0.4¢/kWh by 2015. Of course, that's assuming that Austin Energy stays smart and doesn't put too many more eggs in the fossil fuel basket. Read more »

As Halloween draws near, beware of vampires – not the mythical blood suckers, but the unrelenting energy suckers draining power from your house right now. These costly creatures can add as much as 20 percent to a family’s utility bill, and that’s a pretty scary thought during these tough economic times.

Energy vampires are the appliances and electronics that continue to use our valuable electricity in standby mode even when turned off. Chargers without anything attached to them represent just some of the culprits. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that five to 10 percent of electricity used Read more »

Jamie Fine is an economist with EDF who recently completed a study about the costs and benefits of energy efficiency investments in Texas. Read the summary.

Old wisdom says don't spend a dollar to save a dime. Even better? Spending dimes to save dollars. There’s a real opportunity in Texas for every home and business to spend dimes on energy efficiency to save dollars and to combat climate change at the same time.

I recently helped develop a computer model that tells us how much money Texas residents and businesses can save through energy efficiency, and the results were impressive.

With just a handful of simple efficiency investments, Texans could save more than $15 billion by 2030 – this is $760 per year for an average household and $11,000 per year for an average commercial building.

But implementing energy efficiency measures provides more than cash in the pockets of hard-pressed households and small businesses, it fights climate change too.   If these same measures are used broadly throughout Texas on existing and new buildings between 2010 and 2030, they will avoid over 760 million metric tons of global warming pollution from the electricity sector.

So what’s the next step? Read more »

This morning EDF partnered with other environmental groups in a press conference with members of the Texas House of Representatives who are sponsoring energy efficiency legislation this Session. 

Representative Rafael Anchia from Dallas and Representative Mark Strama from Austin spoke on the need for passing increased efficiency measures and building a network of green jobs. See the video below.

Representative Anchia is the author of several major efficiency bills this Session, which EDF supports and are critical for lowering our utility bills, increasing the reliability of our electric grid, improving our air quality, and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. 

These bills include:

• HB 280, which sets an energy efficiency goal for utilities of 2 percent of peak demand by 2020.
• HB 2210, which establishes efficiency standards for major appliances, including pool pumps, bottle-type water dispensers and portable hot tubs; and
• HB 2783, which updates statewide building codes to the 2009 International Energy Conservation Code

According to Rep. Strama’s statement at today’s press conference, the Energy Resources Committee, on which he sits, plans to pass these bills out of committee this week, or next week at the latest.  The next step after that is the House floor.

Stay tuned for further developments on these bills and others coming out of the Legislature.  For further information on the topics, please visit The Alliance for a Clean Texas, of which EDF is a member. 

Many have described energy efficiency as the low-hanging fruit for reducing greenhouse gases as well as helping us cut our rising electric bills. In Washington, DC a couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be in the room when new DOE Secretary Steven Chu described it as “fruit lying on the ground.”

Translation: Energy efficiency is the cheapest, fastest and cleanest source of energy and is available now. Consider that energy efficiency:

• is one of the few weapons we have in our aresenal that is cost-effective (it saves you money);
• reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improves our electric reliability;
• includes technologies that already exist with more being developed for buildings, homes, transportation, power systems, and industry;
• holds great potential for creating lots of jobs, from plumbers to energy auditors, architects to air conditioning technicians.

Those of us who work in energy efficiency are happy to have the full support of the new presidential administration, but not everything happens at the national level. There are initiatives states and cities can undertake and things that individuals can do to reduce their energy consumption and lower their bills. Learn ways to save energy and money at home.

Read more »