This
Earth Day, remember what you can do every day to improve energy
efficiency, lower power bills, improve air quality
April 21 2010 |
Forty years after the first Earth Day, and 30 years after Congress passed the groundbreaking Northwest Power Act, the value of energy efficiency is greater than ever.
Improving energy efficiency is something people can do to make a difference every day of the year, not just on Earth Day, as energy is key to our future and making it go farther also helps make the Earth’s resources go farther. By improving energy efficiency and using renewable sources of electricity, we can reduce emissions from power plants, save money, and create jobs. Links to lists of tips for improving energy efficiency are at the end of this release.
The Northwest Power Act made energy efficiency the primary means of meeting new demand for electricity in the Pacific Northwest, a remarkable policy decision in 1980 when an effort to build five nuclear plants to meet future energy needs was on the brink of financial collapse. That decision to put inexpensive, zero-emission energy efficiency ahead of expensive energy generation still resonates today for its remarkable long-term vision of a low-cost electricity supply for an entire region of the country, one that has grown to more than 9 million people.
“This Earth Day, it is appropriate to celebrate our region’s unique legacy of energy efficiency and look ahead to the work that will be done to build on that legacy of low-cost, clean energy,” Council Chair Bruce Measure said.
Since 1982, when the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, authorized as an interstate compact in the Power Act, completed its first Northwest Power Plan, which guides the region’s largest electricity supplier, the federal Bonneville Power Administration, the Northwest has reduced its electricity use through investments in energy efficiency by 3,900 average megawatts. Expressed as electricity, that is enough for four cities the size of Seattle or all of Idaho and western Montana. If that amount of electricity had been generated, Northwest consumers would have paid $1.8 billion more for electricity, and greenhouse gas emissions from Northwest power plants that burn fossil fuels would have been 15 million tons higher, just in 2008.
Even more encouraging, the Council finds in its Sixth Northwest Power Plan — the latest revision, completed in February — that there are nearly 6,000 average megawatts of achievable energy-efficiency potential in the Northwest at a cost that is substantially less than the cost of building new electricity-generating plants of any type. That efficiency could meet 85 percent of the new demand for electricity in the Northwest over the next 20 years — the timespan of the Council’s power plan, which is revised every five years. The efficiency also will create some 47,000 new jobs in the Northwest, according to the Council’s calculations.
The Northwest Power Act made energy efficiency a real resource, and since 1980 the Northwest has a proven track record of improving energy efficiency through practical efforts in homes, businesses, and industries. The Sixth Northwest Power Plan defines energy-efficiency measures as those that ensure that new and existing residential buildings, household appliances, new and existing commercial buildings, commercial-sector appliances, commercial infrastructure such as street lighting and sewage treatment, and industrial and irrigation processes are energy-efficient. These efficiencies reduce operating costs and ultimately decrease the need to build new power plants. Energy efficiency also includes measures to reduce electrical losses in the region’s generation, transmission, and distribution systems.
Explore these low-cost actions to improve energy efficiency:
Contacts:
- Bruce Measure, Chair, 406-444-3952
- John Harrison, Information Officer, 503-222-5161