California Air Resources Board Approves Climate Change Scoping Plan: Energy Efficiency
This post was written by Sara Mo.
The approved Scoping Plan includes measures that expand and strengthen existing energy efficiency programs as well as building and appliance standards.
The plan establishes new targets for statewide annual energy demand reductions of 32,000 gigawatt hours and 800 million therms from businesses. In addition, the plan sets forth the following energy efficiency strategies:
- Cross-cutting Strategy for Buildings– Construction of “Zero Net Energy” buildings that regulate building energy use over the course of a typical year by reserving surplus energy to a grid and drawing from the grid when additional energy is needed;
- Codes and Standards Strategies– More stringent building codes and appliance efficiency standards; broader standards for new types of appliances and for water efficiency; improved compliance and enforcement of existing standards; voluntary efficiency and green building targets beyond mandatory codes;
- Strategies for Existing Buildings – Voluntary and mandatory whole-building retrofits for existing buildings; innovative financing to overcome first-cost and split incentives for energy efficiency on site, renewables and high efficiency distributed generation;
- Existing and Improved Utility Programs – More aggressive utility programs to achieve long-term savings; and
- Other Needed Strategies – Water system and water use efficiency and conservation measures; local government programs that lead by example and tap into local authority over planning, development, and code compliance; additional industrial and agricultural efficiency incentives; providing real time energy information technologies to help consumers conserve and optimize energy performance.
The Scoping Plan also promotes the use of solar water heating systems and builds on existing legislation, such as the Solar Water and Efficiency Act of 2007, which authorized a ten-year, $250 million incentive program for solar water heaters with a goal of promoting installation of 200,000 systems in California by 2017. In addition, the plan recommends developing combined heat and power systems rather than building new power plants or replacing existing ones.
The Scoping Plan accounts for other innovative approaches that may be used to motivate private investment in efficiency improvements. For example the cap and trade program [link to Cap and Trade], will provide incentives to pursue projects to reduce GHG emissions, such as the bundling of energy efficiency improvements for small businesses. California will also pursue comparable investment in energy efficiency from all retail providers of electricity in California, including both investor-owned and publicly owned utilities.
Click here to return to Scoping Plan overview.
