Dive Brief:
- Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering a proposal to allow large consumers of electricity to opt out of the state's mandatory efficiency program, but regulators say the change could wind up gutting a successful conservation push, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
- Passed in 2008, the state's Act 129 directed all large utilities to develop conservation programs, funds rebates and administers efficiency programs. But for years, large consumers have said the fees they pay return little benefit.
- The bill would also allow small subsidiaries of larger companies to opt out of the program, an aspect critics say would discriminate against some businesses.
Dive Insight:
Pennsylvania's energy efficiency mandate allows utilities to fund rebates for customer projects, and it pays for those through a surcharge on bills. But large customers say the program is now hurting their business, forcing them to pay for something they have already done and subsidizing competition in the process.
Pamela Polacek, an energy lawyer at McNees Wallace & Nurick LLC, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "I’ll put it this way: My clients [employ staff who went] to schools for years and years, and only concentrated on industrial energy efficiency. ... You’re just not going to find that level of expertise in a utility-administered program.”
Companies looking to stay competitive have been upgrading their efficiency for years, critics say, and are now paying into a program from which they can't benefit. But state regulators are opposed to the change, saying it could leave the efficiency program ineffective and underfunded, and advocates worry about the potential reach of such a decision.
“We see this as a really big threat to Act 129 as whole,” Conservation Consultants manager Alison Steele told the newspaper. “It has implications that could reach beyond the industrial customers. Saying that an entire rate class can opt-out is saying energy efficiency and responsible use of resources is something that’s not important.”
Act 129 required the state's utilities to cut overall electric use by 3% and peak demand in the top 100 hours of the year by 4.5%. Utilities also offer a variety of programs and execute projects under the law. Last year, PECO, which has 1.6 million customers in the southeastern portion of the state, concluded a pilot program on time-of-use pricing it had been mandated to perform by the law.