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For more than 20 years, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has been tracking the energysavings from utility-sector energy efficiency programs. In 2015, nationally, these programs saved about 200 billion kWh, more than 5% of retail electric sales. In some leading states, these programs exceed 10% of retail electric sales… and could reach 20% by 2020.

The ACEEE report also finds that for the top energy efficiencyprogram administrators, demand response savings are about 66% of their energy savings. Thus a utility that achieves a 15% savings from energy efficiency programs will cut its peak demand by about 10%.

Meanwhile, The Natural Resources Defense Council recently published a report on pay-for-performance (P4P) energyefficiency programs in the U.S. in which the Metrus ESA – Energy Savings Agreement — was highlighted as a nationwide solution. If America is going to meet its GHG reduction goals, utilities will need to treat energy efficiency as the demand-side resource that it is and implement creative pay for performance models. Rather than promoting efficiency and sustainable behavior with an endless stream of rebates and other incentives, Metrus and others have developed the ESA which charges consumers for saved kWh just as PPA charge consumers for generated kWh. For more information on the ESA model, see EcoMotion’s White Paper on ESAs.