ALLIANCE 

~ TO SAVE ENERGY 

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Statement of Rodney Sobin 

Director of Research and Regulatory Affairs 

The Alliance to Save Energy 

Environmental Protection Agency 

Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule Public Hearing 

EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602 

William Jefferson Clinton East Building 

Washington, DC 

July 30, 2014 

The Alliance to Save Energy (the Alliance) appreciates the opportunity to speak at this public hearing on 

the Clean Power Plan. We also intend to provide more detailed written comment to the docket. 

The Alliance, founded in 1977 by Sens. Charles Percy and Hubert Humphrey, is a nonprofit coalition of 

business, government, environmental and consumer leaders that supports energy efficiency as a costeffective energy resource and advocates energy-efficiency policies that minimize costs to society and 

individual consumers. The Alliance has worked extensively with energy utilities, commercial and 

industrial firms, public agencies, consumer and environmental organizations, and others to promote 

energy efficiency as an approach to mitigate the environmental impacts of energy use as well as to 

achieve other benefits. 

When air quality regulations are considered, the Alliance favors approaches that recognize, credit and 

promote the.role of energy efficiency for reducing adverse environmental impacts. Therefore, we 

applaud the EPA for including and encouraging energy efficiency as a compliance strategy in the Clean 

Power Plan. The prominent position of energy efficiency in the proposed rule offers potentially 

transformative opportunities to increase the nation's energy efficiency and its energy productivity; that 

is, the amount of GDP generated per unit of energy consumed. 

In applauding EPA's recognition of energy efficiency, we also wish to offer several observations and 

suggestions that we hope will strengthen the role for energy efficiency to lower compliance costs while 

delivering economic, energy reliability and environmental benefits. 

First, states need clearer guidance on how to convert rate-based goals to mass-based goals. States 

need such guidance in order to consider the mass-based limit option. States that adopt a mass-based 

approach—where compliance is measured as CO 2 at the stacks—may be able to adopt efficiency policies 

and evaluation, measurement and verification (EM&V) processes in their compliance plans that don't 

need as much scrutiny from EPA as they woufd under a rate-based system, but would nonetheless 

deliver emissions reductions. 

Second, states need clearer guidance on including non-utility-ratepayer policies and programs in their 

compiiance plans. The rule proposal and its technical support documents appear to focus on utility 
~ ALLIANCE 

~ TO SAUE ENERGY 

using less. Doing more. 

ratepayer supported efficiency programs when discussing EM&V, enforceability and other 

considerations. However, more than half of U.S. energy efficiency investments are undertaken outside 

of the utility program context. About $6 billion of privately-contracted energy efficiency projects are 

performed annually by energy services companies (ESCOs)—this amount is comparable to utiiity 

demand-side management spending. In addition, state building codes, weatherization programs, local 

buildings policies and programs, non-ratepayer industrial efficiency and combined heat and power (CHP) 

projects, and public sector energy upgrades of street lighting, water and sewer, and other systems also 

contribute to electricity savings and concomitant emissions avoidance. 

Third, enforceability, EM&V and other state plan considerations should be balanced to assure that 

energy savings are accurately counted but that requirements are not cumbersome. Don't let the 

perfect be the enemy of the good. There is a tradeoff between accuracy and rigor on the one side and 

cost and effort on the other for EM&V and emissions quantification. Cumbersome requirements 

impeded the use of energy efficiency and renewable energy to meet criteria pollutant requirements 

under the NOx SIP Call and other programs. We are pleased that EPA developed an EE/RE in SIPs 

Roadmap and quantification tools to help address this for criteria pollutants and believe such tools will 

be useful under the Clean Power Plan. 

EPA also should allow the use of model-based evaivation of energy savings and emissions impacts as it 

does for transportation measures under State Implementation Plans (SIPs) and transportation 

conformity programs. Many energy efficiency measures are small, widely dispersed activities more 

resembling individual vehicles than regulated stationary sources. If various transportation measures can 

be credited for NOx reductions and reduced ambient ozone levels—with all the complexity and 

uncertainty of modeling weather and atmospheric chemistry—it would seem likely that crediting energy 

efficiency for avoided power plant CO z should be more straight forward. 

A fourth point concerns combined heat and power (CHP), where we support a fult 100% crediting of 

usefully recovered therrnal energy. 

Again, the Ailiance appiauds the EPA for recognizing and encouraging energy efficiency for reducing 

emissions and achieving compliance. We will continue to engage with you, including through formal 

comment, while working with our stakeholders on this topic. We thank you for the opportunity to speak 

today on this important proposal and hope that these comments are usefui.