To the Editor:
Congratulations to Rhode Island for climbing to No. 7 in the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s national scorecard. As your Oct. 18 story points out, Rhode Island has made great strides toward harnessing the power of efficiency to help meet multiple goals of the state – controlling energy costs, reducing emissions and creating good local jobs, among others. New savings targets being worked out by the Energy Efficiency and Resource Management Council and National Grid will help Rhode Island curb its electric use about 2 percent each year for the next several years and save hundreds of millions of dollars for residents and businesses.
Since it costs about one-third as much to meet demand through efficiency as through new power generation, the Ocean State is wise to try and capture all cost-effective efficiency. And according to a new report released by Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP), there remains a great deal of achievable efficiency on the table for Rhode Island and other New England states – about 20 percent savings could be realized by 2018. Until that potential is reached, ratepayers are wasting money on energy – money that could be spent on other goods and services.
According to the report, New England has the potential to increase gross state product by $54.6 billion and create thousands of jobs through energy efficiency. In total, the region could save 31,800 gigawatt hours of electricity and cut CO2 amounts equivalent to the annual emissions of 3 million cars.
There’s a lot more work to do, but the state and its partners are poised to help Rhode Islanders wring more out of every energy dollar. The result will include lower energy costs, more comfortable homes, cleaner air and a more sustainable economy.
NATALIE HILDT
NEEP manager of public-policy outreach
