Jun 2016
10 Key Ideas for Equitable Access to Sustainable Energy
23/06/16 11:45
I recently had an opportunity to speak at the annual meeting of the National Conference of Regulatory Attorneys, on the topic of energy programs for low- and moderate-income customers and communities.
You can download my presentation at this link.
And here are my 10 Key Ideas:
You can download my presentation at this link.
And here are my 10 Key Ideas:
- The solution set should be as big as the problem - the statistics tell us that 30%, or more, of customers are low- and moderate-income. This is structural, not anecdotal.
- Milestones set the minimum passing grade - so, we need to aim higher and we need more ambitious milestones. (6% household energy burden - the new goal for NY - is still a very high burden!).
- If you have to adjust your process to reach a third of all customers, you didn't set your design right - we have yet to design or implement a restructuring or other market transformation process that is truly focused on customers.
- You can't reach all people the same way, you might not be able to reach them at all, but someone can. We need to socialize, not privatize, customer engagement.
- Good tools come with good user manuals (videos). We need to invest in good user manuals if we want programs to succeed.
- Hard to serve also means hard to restore - resilience has premium locational value in disadvantaged neighborhoods. There is a lot to learn in developing a “value of savings” and “value of service” methodology for LMI customers and neighborhoods.
- Many great opportunities are hiding in plain sight - chattering window air conditioners, tin foil taped on the inside of Windows, cracking buzzing security lights. We have a real problem in delivery and execution.
- Efficiency and affordability advocates are a single people separated by a common language. We talk about the same things and it just sounds different. We need to sit down together more often - and you should seek larger, not smaller, conversations.
- Transformation of the wholesale system is good, but transformation of retail is what really matters. The so-called “organized market reform” proposals from coal and nuke plant owner/operators sounds like stranded cost bailouts.
- We know how to make sure that our efforts don’t succeed - and we have accepted failure because we won’t confront the real problems. The real problems include poor and increasingly regressive rate design, RIM test for so-called cost-effectiveness, crisis response to systemic problems, the subtle bigotry of low expectations in energy efficiency, community solar, and other clean energy programs.